Problems with exit boot on M.2 SSD drive

siheobs · Dec 13, 2017, 5:12 PM

Hi everybody,
I have a new computer generation at my work, it’s a ThinkCentre M710 compact
I use FOG 1.4.4 for image deployment and i can’t boot on M2 SSD drive.
After the boot PXE, when it’s supposed to start on the Hard drive it stay stuck on a blink
underscore character (look the picture).
I had try to change multiple exit boot settings like (Host Bios Exit Type, Host EFI Exit Type) and nothink works.
Somebody ever try to use fog 1.4.4 with a M2 connectors ?
Thanks guys if you have some solution for me.

Wayne Workman · Dec 13, 2017, 5:37 PM

@siheobs said in Problems with exit boot on M.2 SSD drive:

I had try to change multiple exit boot settings like (Host Bios Exit Type, Host EFI Exit Type) and nothink works.

Make sure you try the EFI grub exit type, then EFI grub first hdd.

Sebastian Roth · Dec 13, 2017, 3:41 PM

@siheobs Also try simple EXIT as exit style. I guess we’ll see more of that on the near future. But I don’t have such a drive at hand to test so I can’t really do much about it.

george1421 · Dec 13, 2017, 11:36 PM

First you need to identify what mode this Lenovo is in. Is it bios (legacy) or more probably uefi. You need to know this to change the proper exit mode.

Lets assume its uefi. So in that case you should set the EFI exit mode for this system. The bios exit mode will not have any impact on it working.

For uefi we typically see the best results with rEFInd. If refind doesn’t work out of the box for you, we may need to modify the refind.conf file via the fog server linux console to search in more places for the hard drive. The config file is found in /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe directory.

Sebastian Roth · Dec 14, 2017, 5:54 AM

@siheobs You can also try newer versions of rEFInd to see if those work with the newer M.2 SSD disk. I just updated our version in the working branch - Thanks to George for pointing me to that! So you can either upgrade to the latest RC version or simply download the files by hand:

sudo -i
cd /var/www/fog/service/ipxe
mv refind.efi refind.efi.bak
mv refind.conf refind.conf.bak
wget https://github.com/FOGProject/fogproject/raw/working/packages/web/service/ipxe/refind.efi
wget https://github.com/FOGProject/fogproject/raw/working/packages/web/service/ipxe/refind.conf

siheobs · Dec 14, 2017, 4:35 AM

@wayne-workman @sebastian-roth @george1421 Onto my BIOS, all computers are configured with CSM enabled, Boot Mode Auto (boot sequence: UEFI, Legacy) and Boot Priority Legacy First.
Computers use Windows 7 Professional OS.

I already tried to set all possible EXIT type, but nothing change.

george1421 · Dec 14, 2017, 4:46 AM

@siheobs These chameleon systems are a bit of a pita (from a debugging perspective). Since you are booting win7, tell me this. What iPXE boot file are you sending to this computer? OR to ask it another way, what value do you have set for dhcp option 67 [boot-file]? Is it undionly.kpxe or ipxe.efi?

siheobs · Dec 14, 2017, 10:55 AM

@sebastian-roth said in Problems with exit boot on M.2 SSD drive:

@siheobs You can also try newer versions of rEFInd to see if those work with the newer M.2 SSD disk. I just updated our version in the working branch - Thanks to George for pointing me to that! So you can either upgrade to the latest RC version or simply download the files by hand:
sudo -i
cd /var/www/fog/service/ipxe
mv refind.efi refind.efi.bak
mv refind.conf refind.conf.bak
wget https://github.com/FOGProject/fogproject/raw/working/packages/web/service/ipxe/refind.efi
wget https://github.com/FOGProject/fogproject/raw/working/packages/web/service/ipxe/refind.conf

I just tried to download new refind files, and change my BIOS for UEFI Mode. The PC not boot on PXE, but boot on M.2 SSD drive.
This is not a hardware problem ?

siheobs · Dec 14, 2017, 10:58 AM

@george1421 said in Problems with exit boot on M.2 SSD drive:

These chameleon systems are a bit of a pita (from a debugging perspective). Since you are booting win7, tell me this. What iPXE boot file are you sending to this computer? OR to ask it another way, what value do you have set for dhcp option 67 [boot-file]? Is it undionly.kpxe or ipxe.efi?

I send the boot file “undionly.kpxe” on DHCP option 67.

george1421 · Dec 14, 2017, 2:29 PM

@siheobs OK so now we know what boot mode this system is using, bios. So you should be adjusting the BIOS exit type.

So SANBOOT, EXIT, GRUB, and GRUB first HD all failed to boot the system.

This is thinking out of the box here…
edit /var/www/html/fog/service/ipxe/refind.conf

Search for

scanfor internal

and change it to

scanfor internal,hdbios,external,biosexternal

The for BIOS exit mode, change it to rEFInd. This most likely will fail but it would be interesting to see if this chameleon can boot.

Disclaimer: The issue here is how iPXE’s boot kernel can find the first hard drive in these systems. Its a bit out of the FOG Project’s control how this component works.

Also since we are dealing with Lenovo systems here, ensure your firmware is up to date. We have seen some flaky firmware come on newly released models.

Sebastian Roth · Dec 14, 2017, 1:31 PM

@siheobs said in Problems with exit boot on M.2 SSD drive:

I just tried to download new refind files, and change my BIOS for UEFI Mode. The PC not boot on PXE, but boot on M.2 SSD drive.

Changing between BIOS and UEFI is not a great idea. You will run into issues sooner or later when doing so anyway. From what I understand you have those newish systems and want to put your image onto those. But is your image made for/from UEFI or BIOS PCs I am wondering?

siheobs · Dec 14, 2017, 2:29 PM

@george1421 I edited the refind.conf file to replaced the line in question and I changed BIOS exit mode to REFIND_EFI, and still the blinking underscore character, with sometimes a loop beep sound as a locked keyboard key.

siheobs · Dec 14, 2017, 2:42 PM

@sebastian-roth said in Problems with exit boot on M.2 SSD drive:

But is your image made for/from UEFI or BIOS PCs I am wondering?

The image was made by the manufacturer with these BIOS settings and a Windows downgraded to Windows 7 Pro for us, but I think that computer is made for Windows 8/10 at start.

Wayne Workman · Dec 14, 2017, 2:49 PM

@siheobs said in Problems with exit boot on M.2 SSD drive:

The image was made by the manufacturer

Is it a FOG image?

siheobs · Dec 14, 2017, 2:53 PM

@wayne-workman

Is it a FOG image?

I do not know about that. I’m thinking about Norton Ghost or Microsoft WDS.

Wayne Workman · Dec 14, 2017, 2:57 PM

@siheobs FOG can only deploy FOG images. You need to capture the manufacturer’s image with FOG before you can deploy it with FOG.

Sebastian Roth · Dec 14, 2017, 4:26 PM

@Wayne-Workman I think image was meant as in picture here. Hope this helps clearing the confusion.

What happens if you set to boot the client from HDD only - disable PXE boot for testing. Does Windows come up or do you see the same cursor on screen?

siheobs · Dec 15, 2017, 11:32 AM

@sebastian-roth

What happens if you set to boot the client from HDD only - disable PXE boot for testing. Does Windows come up or do you see the same cursor on screen?

If I boot to HDD directly, or skip PXE boot with ESC key during TFTP, computer boots without issue to M.2 SSD device with Windows 7 Professional installed and I have not the cursor.

Sebastian Roth · Jan 21, 2018, 10:33 AM

@siheobs This might be a good one for you to follow: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/11285/can-t-chainload-past-fog-menu-boot-hard-drive-hp-zbook-laptop

Could be a similar issue with rEFInd not having a driver for this particular disk/controller model.

Problems with exit boot on M.2 SSD drive

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