Surface Go Imaging

[Vanlue IT Guy]

@Tom-Elliott

Our DHCP is done by Windows Server. Interestingly, other machines can get to FOG, and I can image them, but not the surfaces.

[Aysientor]

Not sure if I should make a new post for this, but i’m having this exact same issue trying to image Surface Gos (currently running FOG 1.5.5.1, and am able to image any other PC).

I was wondering if the ever got resolved?

[Sebastian Roth]

@Aysientor In most cases the “exact same issue” is still a bit different. Please provide your own information here. Screenshot of the exact error you see and you might want to check the apache and PHP logs as I suggested to the other poster months ago.

[Aysientor]

@Sebastian-Roth I managed to cause a different issue troubleshooting, and had to rollback then update my server. I’ll probably make a separate thread later. Thank you though!

[Minxster]

Hi, we’re in the exact same situation here. We’ve got a number of Surface Go’s that just refuse to get beyond the bzimage/init.xz.

The dock we’re using is for the Surface Go. The initial PXE boot seems to work, we’re using ipxe.efi just now. But it just seems like the NIC is dead in the dock even thought it initially started to boot.

We’re using the latest version of FOG, along with the latest kernel and I just updated the init.xz (and init_32.xz) that george1421 mentioned below.

Is there anything I can do to help speed up diagnostics? How do I drop to a console window on the client computer to help run commands?

[george1421]

@Minxster This is typically an indication of a buggy uefi firmware. I suggest that you update your firmware to the latest release for your hardware. If we can’t seem to get by the iPXE hand off to bzImage there is another route that contains several caveats. But its better than nothing. The idea is to build FOS (bzImage+inits) onto a usb flash drive and to boot from that. I have a tutorial on how to do this here: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/7727/building-usb-booting-fos-image

Read through the entire article before you start. Make sure you understand the caveats of going this route since iPXE is not involved there are a few. The Mac users have to go this route to get their systems to boot into fog.

(PS: Look at the forum chat bubble [upper right corner of the browser window] for a few more hits)

[Sebastian Roth]

@Minxster said in Surface Go Imaging:

Is there anything I can do to help speed up diagnostics? How do I drop to a console window on the client computer to help run commands?

To speed up diagnostics you’d best get into compiling the Linux kernel with added debug information. It’s really not that hard when you follow the instrcutions in the wiki. We’ll help you pinning down where exactly it hangs.

You might wander why you need to do that and it’s as simple as “we don’t have the hardware to test”. So we need you to do it.

Hi, we’re in the exact same situation here.

From what I read in your post you seem to have a different issue than what the initial post was about. Feel free to open a complete new topic and post your own information. FOG version, picture of the problem, …

[Minxster]

@george1421 Thanks for that… We’ll get straight on an double check the UEFI version and make sure it’s the latest!.. I did see mention of using boot devices with bzimage+inits, I think I’ll try this last as it would be great to help and an diagnose this.

[Minxster]

@Sebastian-Roth Thanks for this… I think I’ll start a new thread, I can then spell out whats happening with images :-).

I’m happy to go down the compiling route as long as I can follow it But I’ll be back in-touch if I’m stuck, but hopefully I can come back with some conclusions and/or some feedback on what to try next?

[Sebastian Roth]

@Minxster @Vanlue-IT-Guy Have you search the forums yet? There have been many discussions on various Surface devices (2, 3 and 4) where some seem to have very similar issues. Here is an interesting one you might want to read from start to end: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/11635/microsoft-surface-pro-4-using-dock-has-issues-with-dhcp-for-imaging-task