fog pxe/iPxe boot win 7 wimboot CD/DVD missing issue

[george1421]

To my knowledge Windows doesn’t support installing via pxe booting or over a network. Windows is looking at the local hardware for the install media.

[george1421]

After a little google-fu I think I have a concept for you. In this link it shows how to install windows over the network. http://blog.ryantadams.com/2008/02/01/how-to-boot-from-the-network-pxe-boot-with-tftp-and-windows-pe/

You have the majority of what you need with the fog server right now. BUT WHAT YOU NEED to do is create your own winpe boot wim image and not use the one from the dvd. That all it does is connect you to the network share where your CD image has been copied to.

So the concept is create your own winpe wim file that boots the computer by pxe. The only thing the winpe boot loader does is connects you to a network share where the DVD has been copied, then runs the setup program from there. This should work for both win7 and win10.

[george1421]

I actually found something even closer and on point to my idea. http://www.tecmint.com/installing-windows-7-over-pxe-network-boot-in-centos/

I can take it even one step more and add the net use command and the setup.exe commands into the startnet.cmd inside winpe and then it will be automatic.

[KnightRaven]

@george1421 Thats kind of what I’m asking though. Does it have to be done in a script to work before the default setup pops up. Everything else is being done. I connect to a network share on my fog server and rerun setup.exe but it still gives me the cd/dvd driver error. I can’t find anywhere that still addresses why that may still pop up.

[george1421]

@KnightRaven Where did you get the wim file you are booting by pxe?

[edit ]And my apologizes, I did not read the details of your post clear enough to see you are doing that already with the custom wim, but again where did you get the wim file from. Did you build it from scratch?

[KnightRaven]

@george1421 From bootable(and usable) USB boot. That came from our win7 ISO. So I am wondering now if that boot.wim is looking for a specific location?

[george1421]

@KnightRaven said in fog pxe/iPxe boot win 7 wimboot CD/DVD missing issue:

@george1421 From bootable(and usable) USB boot. That came from our win7 ISO. So I am wondering now if that boot.wim is looking for a specific location?

OK that is what I wanted to confirm. You did not create it using your AIK install (also outlined in the centos link I provided)

I was just trying to think of a way to do this remotely. I’m traveling today, but I will have some down time tonight in the hotel . I think I can build what I need remotely to test this out. My idea is to build my own wim file from AIK. I can inject the network drivers into the wim file to give me network access. I’m interested if I can install windows this way. It more of a curiosity than anything I need since we use MDT to build our master images and never touch the DVD.

What hardware (manuf and model) are you trying to deploy to?

[KnightRaven]

@george1421 Well I used the AIK/dism/imagex tools to modify or inject some drivers to the boot.wim. Just not the laptop I am testing. But the desktop does the same thing. I appreciate your assistance but don’t work to hard at it. This is just a test and see if I can get it done myself. nothing critical for the most part.

As I am looking in the sources directory I am seeing wds files. Not sure if that is normal or not. I may be remembering something wrong or maybe copied extra files from another spot. It was awhile ago when I first tried this then got on to assigned duties.
I may just recreate the files\setup when I get time this week.

thanks again.

[KnightRaven]

@KnightRaven So my bootable USB has wds files as well. So at least I know its the same setup info.

[Wayne Workman]

If this is not solved yet (didn’t read the whole thread), to me, looks like you simply need to load HDD drivers.

Way 1:
So, go to the manufacturer’s website, download HDD drivers, extract them if need be, plug them into the computer at this point and browse to those files and load the HDD driver.

Way 2:
Rebuild the WIM to include the HDD drivers.

Also, you may wanna check this out: http://ipxe.org/howto/winpe This is what I followed, and it’s dated. I did every step and it did work, but it is way more involved than that document says. A lot of stuff is left to assuming you know. Google is your friend.

@george1421 I have installed Win10 over PXE before, and used the fog server to do it. It was complicated to setup and I’d rather never do it again to be totally honest.

[KnightRaven]

@Wayne-Workman
I can try that. I have tried browsing the usual setup drivers and not getting very far.

But the HDD is seen by winpe. At least when I browse files it shows up. But maybe there is something missing. The mini laptop does not have a cd/DVD but the desktop I tried on did with same results. Just ruling out that it was looking for a physical DVD drive.
I’ll try loading HDD drivers but I’m not optimistic about that.

Thanks

[Wayne Workman]

@KnightRaven Also, it may be that your WIM file isn’t pointing to the Windows 7 disk files. You need those hosted on a share.

You actually have to start the setup.exe file by connecting to the share and executing it from there. In the setup I built, I did those bits from the command prompt that the WinPE environment gave me.

[KnightRaven]

@Wayne-Workman
I do map a drive and run setup from the share with same results. Could it be that it is still looking at a different location? Could it be looking for the original usb location or some such? Or does it use the current path? Does the new mapped drive need to be a part of the PATH statement in winpe?

[george1421]

@KnightRaven I was able to access our document managment system and pull the bits out I needed to create a process out of my instructions. I should be able to test this later tonight.

copype amd64 C:\winPE_amd64
copy "C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\PETools\amd64\winpe.wim" C:\winpe_amd64\ISO\Sources\Boot.wim
copy "C:\Program Files\Windows AIK\Tools\amd64\Imagex.exe" C:\winpe_amd64\ISO\

# Download http://downloads.dell.com/FOLDER03652574M/1/WINPE3.0-DRIVERS-A20-CT5DP.CAB
# Extract to c:\winpe

mkdir c:\img
imagex /mountrw C:\winPE_amd64\ISO\sources\boot.wim  1 c:\img

# Inject the x64 drivers from the extracted Dell cab file
DISM /Image:c:\img /Add-Driver /Driver:c:\winpe\x64 /Recurse /ForceUnsigned

notepad  C:\img\windows\system32\startnet.cmd

  @echo off
  echo Setting up WinPE
  wpeinit

  echo Warming up the network interface
  net use z: \\<server_name>\<share_name> /user:<uid> <pass>
  z:
  setup.exe

# This command unmounts the wim. If you want the wim alone its this directory C:\winPE_amd64\ISO\sources\boot.wim  

DISM /Unmount-WIM /MountDir:c:\img /commit


# This will covert the wim into a bootable iso image. 
oscdimg -n -bC:\winpe_amd64\etfsboot.com C:\winpe_amd64\ISO C:\winpe_amd64\winpe_amd64.iso```

[KnightRaven]

@george1421
Awesome. I’ve ran through some of this before but I will do it over again and see if it helps. Maybe I missed something before. Thanks for the refresher. I hope to try it tomorrow.

[george1421]

@KnightRaven Success!!

OK I executed the plan I outlined and created the ISO. I build the iso on my Win7 MDT server so it used WAIK 6 (I think). It is what ever version of waik for Win7. I tried initially to create it on our Win10 MDT server and the file paths were too different. Everything was there but I decided to do on Win7 WAIK just to stick to the plan. Once I had the ISO image I moved it to the FOG server into the /var/www/html/fog/iso folder. I checked to make sure the file was world readable in linux. In the FOG management gui (1.2.0 trunk build) I went to the fog configuration and added a new ipxe boot menu with these properties.

Menu Item: winpe7a
Description: WinPE tester
Parameters:
initrd http://<ip_addr_fog_server>/fog/iso/winpe_amd64.iso
chain memdisk iso raw
Menu Show with: All Hosts

On my windows file server (pointed to in the startnet.cmd file (net use z: \<server_name><share_name> /user:<uid> <pass>) I created a share and copied the entire content of the Win7 Pro DVD into that directory. I then made the directory permissions everyone:read and the share everyone:read.

Finally I pxe booted my test VM and selected the “WinPE tester” menu. The vm booted into winpe, connected to the z: drive and ran the setup program. I clicked through the setup program until it install the windows files and then began extracting the files. That is where I stopped the VM and aborted the test because it was working.

[KnightRaven]

@george1421
good to know it was tested all the way through and worked. So I will remake may boot.wim file and sources, and make a bootable .iso from it and see what happens.

The current ISOs I have are too big. The PCs need more ram to support the full bootable ISOs as opposed to the win_pe versions.

Thanks for testing. I will report back when I get a chance to try it out.

[george1421]

@KnightRaven Just for info, the winpe iso I created was about 270MB in size. So 1GB of RAM memory should be enough for both the winpe ram disk and the setup installer to run.

[KnightRaven]

@george1421
So I took the time and tested. IT Worked! I don’t know if the difference is running the driver pack you listed(injecting it). Or running it as an ISO as opposed to the individual files. But at least I have a working concept. I have to go back and edit my startup cmd file. I didn’t put the full user context(<pcname\userid>) when mapping my share.

I don’t know if its an added driver or the fact that this time the default setup never ran. Just the one from the share.

The next trick will be seeing if I can get it to work on an HP laptop. If it’s a driver issue that is.
I am excited that there is a working model to go from though.
Thank you very much for all of y’alls time!

Jason

[george1421]

@KnightRaven Hey glad you got it worked out. I think HP had a similar WinPE driver pack. The one from dell does contain the drivers for all dell models. I would suspect that it will work 80% of the time for the hp systems too, since an intel or realtek nic is a nic no matter whos box it is in.

I doubt its the wim/iso difference. I just use the iso because it is self contained (don’t need to mess with all of the ancillary files), plus I can burn it to cdrom, usb, pxe boot, or load it via esxi. So one image will work in all forms. Please report back on your successes and what you had to do to make the HP kit work. I think I’ll take the results from this tread and convert it to a tutorial. I know other have tried to do this too, I just didn’t have the time to work out the process before.