Imposible to boot from hard drive

[aksl]

Thanks for your help.

In fact, it’s simple.

For all PCs with Legacy mode, it’s working.

For all PCs with UEFI mode, isn’t working (tried all exit mode).

Windows 7, 8 & 10 !

[george1421]

@aksl For uefi, rEFInd is really your best option. Make sure you have the exit mode for the specific computer and uefi set to rEFInd and then lets tell refind to look in more places for a boot drive.

1. On the fog server from a linux console prompt edit the following file: /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe/refind.conf
2. Search for the line scanfor internal and comment it out to look like this

#scanfor internal

3. Search for the line #scanfor internal,hdbios,external,biosexternal and uncomment it to look like this

scanfor internal,hdbios,external,biosexternal

4. Save and exit the editor.
5. Now pxe boot the uefi system and see if that mode finds the hard drive.

rEFInd “should” find the boot disk if it’s installed.

[Sebastian Roth]

And as well, while you edit /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe/refind.conf set the option timeout to zero. Then it would show you another boot selection menu. So hopefully we will see anything on screen at least.

@aksl said:

For all PCs with Legacy mode, it’s working.
For all PCs with UEFI mode, isn’t working (tried all exit mode).
Windows 7, 8 & 10 !

Have you actually installed those systems in UEFI mode? It’s very different to install windows in legacy BIOS mode and then just switch over to UEFI later on.

[aksl]

Hi,

I edited the refind.conf and timeout is now zero.

I don’t see any difference in the boot menu.

Do I have to press a key ?

Currently functioning as before.

Thanks

[Sebastian Roth]

@aksl Did you also change the things in refind.conf George suggested? See his post a little further down.

[aksl]

Oh, I had not seen sorry.

But I tested and finally it’s the same problem.

Always this line which flashes in the top left.

With your different shifts, I have not seen any behavior changes in the boot menu.

I don’t know what to do …;

Thanks

[Sebastian Roth]

@aksl Secure boot is disabled I suppose?!

[aksl]

Yea … disabled

[aksl]

To your mind, the problem is FOG or my bios setup ?

[Sebastian Roth]

@aksl said in Imposible to boot from hard drive:

To your mind, the problem is FOG or my bios setup ?

Well, I am still not quite sure. We have hundreds of users and almost no one reporting an issue with chainloading windows.
Please do me a favour, take one of these PCs where you see the issue, pop in a windows install CD and boot from it. For that change boot order to CD, HD, PXE and make sure to not change anything except boot order!!! Let it install completely, finish the initial setup, remove CD and then change boot order to PXE, HD, CD. Big question now: Does chainloading windows from the FOG menu fail again (should be a machine/BIOS issue) or does it chainload properly (tells us we have a FOG/iPXE issue I suppose.
Note down the result and do the reverse test now. Leave BIOS settings as is and let it deploy your image you had the issue with before. Then try chainloading from the FOG menu to windows again.

I know this sounds a lot of pain but I ask you to give it a go to proove what is wrong here. Do it exactly as described, don’t try to be smart and use another PC to make this go faster or anything.

By the way, is this a resizable image type or non-resizable one?

[aksl]

Hello,

Does chainloading windows from the FOG menu fail again (should be a machine/BIOS issue) : yes.

But I have this concern from the beginning. It is not on a restored image but on a direct installation.

[Sebastian Roth]

@aksl So Chainloading from the FOG menu to disk (windows) has never ever worked for you in UEFI mode on Dell Optiplex 3020M and Motherboard ASUS A58M-E?! Not even when installing the OS by hand. Do I get this right?

[aksl]

Hello,

I just tested on a laptop ASUS (uefi) and it works!

Which means that it comes from the computer or the bios.

J’ai essayé toutes les configurations possibles du bios mais impossible.

Thanks

[aksl]

Informations :

My DHCP : Default bios file name : undionly.kpxe

UEFI 32 bit file name : ipxe32.efi

UEFI 64 bit file name : ipxe64.efi

posible Kernel problem ?

[george1421]

@aksl said in Imposible to boot from hard drive:

UEFI 32 bit file name : ipxe32.efi
UEFI 64 bit file name : ipxe64.efi

What is this? These are not standard FOG boot file names. For x64 the boot file should be ipxe.efi. And for x86 the boot file should: i386-efi/ipxe.efi

[aksl]

Modified, but this is not the problem.

Is it possible that it can not work with this motherboard?

[Sebastian Roth]

@aksl said in Imposible to boot from hard drive:

Is it possible that it can not work with this motherboard?

Definitely possible. We have seen buggy UEFI firmware that wasn’t able to chainload the linux kernel so it is also possible to see issues with chainloading to rEFInd on some crappy firmware. This just sparked an idea… Are you able to deploy/capture from those PCs that have an issue with chainloading? I suspect rEFInd and linux kernel just being EFI stub binaries and should actually show the same behavior (hang). Can you confirm?

[aksl]

I am able to capture image from this PC.

[Sebastian Roth]

@aksl said in Imposible to boot from hard drive:

I am able to capture image from this PC.

Ok then we need to go dive into the ugly underworld of UEFI… Download 03_ipxe.efi here and put it into /tftpboot folder on your FOG server. Rename the original ipxe.efi and name that new one like this so clients will use this for booting. This should give is some debugging output on where it hangs. Just take a picture of the hanging screen and post here.

[aksl]

I feel like it’s like before.

I do not see a debug.

This is my pfSense - DHCP server config : is it correct for the boot?