PXE booting a DELL latitude 10 tablet problem
-
If you are not even seeing the fog menu, then you’re still having pxe problems and not fog kernel issues. Since this is a dell, try chain loading into another pxe system or replacing pxe with gpxe.
-
When you say another PXE system, do you mean changing my pxe kernel? If so I’ve tried every kernel as far back as 2010. I thought worth trying those kitchen sink Kernels, that’s why I went so far back.
I have tried this using a usb drive. It works great on my new optiplex machines (Which PXE boot’d fine as well) but these darn latitude 10 tablets won’t ever try and gpxe boot. It won’t see the USB drive at all. I’ve tried the dell tech support, I’m lucky enough to have a premium support package, but for some reason they just don’t get it. I keep getting sent documents on how to sysprep, with single lines saying “Now image the machine”. It’s looking more and more like a BIOS issue to me. I can boot using USB to things like Gparted, so I know the device can boot off a USB device, but even that hangs as soon as the splash screen appears before the menu options are meant to appear. Unfortunately I never get a error message so fault finding this is going to be slow.
Thanks for your help so far. -
Hi all, im experiencing the exact same issue, I even went as far as to change my DHCP server to 2012 with the Scope option 60 for Win 8 support but to no avail. Usb booting is a complete oddity I can see a splash screen on things like Clonezilla but no further.
-
As I’m trying to understand a bit further,
Your tablets are connected to Docking stations with LAN ports built in. Do these docking stations have PXE/GPXE Support for them? When you boot the system up and get into the bios, does it give options for PXE booting with and/or without the Docking station connected?
Is there a possibility of multiple areas in your BIOS for PXE booting?
The last thing I can think of,
Are the tables UEFI enabled? If their UEFI enabled, is it Security Enabled as well? If they are, have you tried disabling UEFI on the system and then PXE booting? I have about 200 systems that came in for this year with UEFI enabled, but security was disabled and legacy mode was enabled. I didn’t have to disable UEFI and all worked fine. I’ll see if I can test the system with Security enabled and pxe boot. My systems are not tablets, they’re regular desktops, but it’s about as close to troubleshooting as I can get.
I’m sorry if you’ve already tried all of these things.
-
Hi Tom,
You are correct the tablets use the dock to gain access to the lan. The BIOS claims to have PXE boot support for ipv4 and ipv6 as part of the boot sequence options.
The boot sequence is set to first PXE boot then windows Boot manger, floowed by UEFI hard disc. I can turn off the UEFI hard disc and boot manager option all together and see what happens, but I don’t have the dock with me. It will be a few days before I can get back on the result of that test.Just more info, under secure boot the secure boot is set to disabled.
Darren, I feel your pain! -
Cheers guys for replying etc, It is going to be a head scrather to get to the bottom of, Ive been in again early today looking at more bits to try still nothing. Kiba have you been able to find the Legacy mode Roms option that is mentioned if you want UEFI turned off? the bios mentions it but i cant find the option anyware. Another thing i was pondering would a custom Kernal with the USB Nic driver in possibly help in getting the fog boot menu? im just getting frustrated with these tablets now there is no reason why they shouldnt be able to boot from Fog/Clonezilla.
-
If you know what kernel driver you need for your USB nic I can build the kernel but I don’t know that pxe will actually run from it as that’s typically an onboard option. Though, again I don’t have one of those tablets either.
-
Good day Tom, thanks for your reply before, the nic driver for the Dock station is a [SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman][COLOR=#000000]SMSC LAN7500 driver[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE][SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman][COLOR=#000000] i think it counts as a Usb nic driver. Again i think your right but i dont know what else to try with these units, We have loads of new UEFI bio’s enabled desktops but they all boot no problems at all, just theses pig of units.[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman][COLOR=#000000]cheers[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=3][FONT=Times New Roman][COLOR=#000000]Darren[/COLOR][/FONT][/SIZE]
[SIZE=5][B] [/B][/SIZE] -
I have the same issue and have no clue on how I am going to image these. I have 875 of them, this is really bad. I would advice anyone no to buy these units, DELL is lying by saying that they are Enterprise grade. I tried to create a USB stick for Clonezilla - it works for other systems, it just freeze on that tablet. I tried creating a PE4 USB drive, it boots but no NIC, beside importing the driver.
-
Good day Wusd, yes its very disappointing to say the least but im sure we can find a solution on this, we need to put all our ideas together, so on your usb pen did you get the clonezilla iso into the menu selection for disc to disc option? Mine freezes at the option to select normal clonezilla or KMS selection just stays on the clonezilla.png. Ive got a phonecall with Dell support UK on Monday where im going to grill them big time and I will relay any info that makes anything clearer.
-
[quote=“Darren George, post: 15420, member: 375”]Good day Wusd, yes its very disappointing to say the least but im sure we can find a solution on this, we need to put all our ideas together, so on your usb pen did you get the clonezilla iso into the menu selection for disc to disc option? Mine freezes at the option to select normal clonezilla or KMS selection just stays on the clonezilla.png. Ive got a phonecall with Dell support UK on Monday where im going to grill them big time and I will relay any info that makes anything clearer.[/quote]
How did you Monday call go? I have a Dell support call on the 19th about this is. Any info I can bring to the call beforehand would be great. I’ve made zero progress since my last posting, but I only have 2, not the 875 units so I’m at the point were I’ve decided to set each one up manually and not buy any more. Still I’d love to get this figured out.
-
This is interesting. Worth a read on UEFI booting
[url]http://4sysops.com/archives/windows-8-secure-boot/[/url] -
Good day all, Wusd I havent had chnace to have the call yet, we are in our busy period for students coming back so ive had to re-arrange the call, Also my boss is keen for these to go out so he wants them configured individually which is not ideal, Im trying to see if there is any software that takes an image through the OS or a back up of the drive to restore to another. I do think Dell have shot themselves in the foot here in regards to the image side of things.
-
[quote=“Darren George, post: 15924, member: 375”]Good day all, Wusd I havent had chnace to have the call yet, we are in our busy period for students coming back so ive had to re-arrange the call, Also my boss is keen for these to go out so he wants them configured individually which is not ideal, Im trying to see if there is any software that takes an image through the OS or a back up of the drive to restore to another. I do think Dell have shot themselves in the foot here in regards to the image side of things.[/quote]
I was going to create thread on this…anyway Dell actually gave us one of those tablets a few months ago, i ordered the dock to test the very same thing & i’m suck at the Starting ipv4 PXE screen. A lot of users are now starting to request tablets and in comparison to (Ipads & hp slates) the latitude 10 tablet is the best but if we can’t image them it’s a problem.
-
Can anyone post some screen caps or pics of the bios network boot settings, the screen where you would expect PXE boot to being, and any errors that are showing up?
At this point I’m confused about where the error occurs. Do you even get an IP when PXE booting? Do you get the FOG menu? Need more info.
I had to learn how to compile a kernel and update driver files when we purchased 300 Acer Iconia w500p tablets. They would not pxeboot using options 66 and 67 if the dhcp server was a different server than the pxeboot server. If FOG was doing DHCP and pxe/tftp then I could PXE boot. If Windows was DHCP and FOG was pxe/tftp, it would hang. 800 other laptops worked fine, but these tablets and 1 other model of laptops would not PXE boot.
I had to implement ProxyDHCP to get my tablets to even PXE boot to the menu, then compile a new kernel with some graphics options disabled to keep the screen from going snowy, and updated drivers for the usb-rj45 lan card built into the docking keyboard to get the NIC working with FOG.
-
I never reach the fog menu when trying pxe boot this is the only thing i see. I will post some bios screen shot shortly
[url=“/_imported_xf_attachments/0/404_2013-09-26T14-58-31_1.jpg?:”]2013-09-26T14-58-31_1.jpg[/url]
-
[quote=“chad-bisd, post: 16706, member: 18”]Can anyone post some screen caps or pics of the bios network boot settings, the screen where you would expect PXE boot to being, and any errors that are showing up?
At this point I’m confused about where the error occurs. Do you even get an IP when PXE booting? Do you get the FOG menu? Need more info.
I had to learn how to compile a kernel and update driver files when we purchased 300 Acer Iconia w500p tablets. They would not pxeboot using options 66 and 67 if the dhcp server was a different server than the pxeboot server. If FOG was doing DHCP and pxe/tftp then I could PXE boot. If Windows was DHCP and FOG was pxe/tftp, it would hang. 800 other laptops worked fine, but these tablets and 1 other model of laptops would not PXE boot.
I had to implement ProxyDHCP to get my tablets to even PXE boot to the menu, then compile a new kernel with some graphics options disabled to keep the screen from going snowy, and updated drivers for the usb-rj45 lan card built into the docking keyboard to get the NIC working with FOG.[/quote]
I tried upload the photos of the bios settings but they are too large same thing in the with the zip files. I’ll see if i can post somewhere online then just past the link here
-
[quote=“chad-bisd, post: 16706, member: 18”]Can anyone post some screen caps or pics of the bios network boot settings, the screen where you would expect PXE boot to being, and any errors that are showing up?
At this point I’m confused about where the error occurs. Do you even get an IP when PXE booting? Do you get the FOG menu? Need more info.
I had to learn how to compile a kernel and update driver files when we purchased 300 Acer Iconia w500p tablets. They would not pxeboot using options 66 and 67 if the dhcp server was a different server than the pxeboot server. If FOG was doing DHCP and pxe/tftp then I could PXE boot. If Windows was DHCP and FOG was pxe/tftp, it would hang. 800 other laptops worked fine, but these tablets and 1 other model of laptops would not PXE boot.
I had to implement ProxyDHCP to get my tablets to even PXE boot to the menu, then compile a new kernel with some graphics options disabled to keep the screen from going snowy, and updated drivers for the usb-rj45 lan card built into the docking keyboard to get the NIC working with FOG.[/quote]
ok here are the pics of the bios settings
-
OK. The starting PXE over IPv4 is good. Does it … and then give up, or does it ever get an IP address?
-
[quote=“chad-bisd, post: 16728, member: 18”]OK. The starting PXE over IPv4 is good. Does it … and then give up, or does it ever get an IP address?[/quote]
No it never gets an ip address it just sits there for a bit then continues to boot into windows 8
