stuck at "ipxe initialising devices.." (Lenovo)
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Hey everyone.
So I am once again having this iPXE being stuck at initialising… and it only happens on my Lenovo Desktop. Yeah I “think” it has the notorious REALTEC NIC in it. Fog works perfectly on all of my other desktops and laptops, just not with the Lenovo.
Yes I have looked at all the various links, tips and tricks in here, but I do not see any “one” accepted and working answer. Can someone help me out with this?
Running Version 24
SVN Revision: 6079
Sep 19, 2017 17:27 pm -
Well it appears you are running on 1.5.0 RC<something> because your SV release is after my production server (which is a good thing you are on a current release).
I guess we need to start with,
- what hardware are you using (model)?
- Is the device in uefi or bios (legacy) mode?
- Have you installed the latest firmware on that target computer?
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what hardware are you using (model)? >Lenovo M78 (C2111)
Is the device in uefi or bios (legacy) mode? >UEFI
Have you installed the latest firmware on that target computer? >Yes. It’s got the latest and greatest of everything. That’s why I am trying to image this box.I have had this issue in the past, and Tom worked with me to get this done. However to be honest, that was like 2 years ago. Major improvements here in Fog since then.
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@Jim-Holcomb Which iPXE binary do you use? Tried different ones?
ipxe.efi,realtek.efi,snp.efiorsnponly.efi? -
@sebastian-roth I am using undionly.kpxe I haven’t tried any others as I have never had to do this before (that I recall) and the other 99% of thge fleet is working just fine on this one. If I were to change it, I suppose I change it in the DHCP reservations area? Where is it picking up this file from?
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@jim-holcomb said in stuck at "ipxe initialising devices.." (Lenovo):
I am using undionly.kpxe
Is the device in uefi or bios (legacy) mode? >UEFI
Whelp these to are incompatible. For uefi mode you need to send ipxe.efi to the target computer. But one would think that you should get an error before that if you are sending a bios mode file to a uefi based computer. Unless the computer auto switches based on the boot medium. I know some servers will do that.
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@george1421 So what needs to be change? MY PC to IDE mode in BiOS?
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@jim-holcomb Well if the PC is in uefi mode, you need to update your dhcp server to send ipxe.efi instead of undionly.kpxe as a test to see if you can boot this lenovo. If it works then you need to make a decision about the path forward.
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@sebastian-roth Which would you suggest I use here?
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@george1421 Tried ipxe.efi and realtek.efi - no changes
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@sebastian-roth Tried all of these - no joy! Anyone - anywhere - have any other ideas???
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@jim-holcomb Out of ALL of these options, I finally got it to work with undionly.kkpxe
Thanks everyone for at least getting me on the right path here. -Jim
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@jim-holcomb snarky answer: Dude, you should have bought a Dell…
We have seen more issues with EFI and flaky Lenovo firmware than most other manufacturers hardware.I am a bit surprised that ipxe.efi or snponly.efi did not work with your network adapter. Did they all stop at initializing devices?
If you don’t need uefi mode, switch the device back to legacy (bios) mode. That should fix your startup issues. You do have to be aware if you want to deploy an captured OS to a UEFI system, the image must have been captured from a UEFI system. You can not deploy a bios based source image to a uefi based target computer.
We do have a solution for the those systems that can/won’t pxe boot into iPXE. You can try to boot directly into FOS using a usb boot drive. The instructions and caveats are outlined here: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7727/building-usb-booting-fos-image
I can get you quickly up to step seven in the instructions. I just rebuilt the boot image the other day. I’ll DM you a link to it. Use rufus to “burn” the image to a 512MB or larger usb flash drive. If FOS can’t init your network adapter then you might consider using a usb network adapter with a usb boot. But lets try the FOS boot.
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I’ve had one major problem that simply could not be resolved with one Lenovo model once…
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To me this sounds as if the OP never had IT in UEFI mode. I am pretty sure of that because when you try to PXE boot a legacy binary in UEFI it should not even get as far as “initializing devices” …
