Not sure this is related to any of the previous issues in the thread, but I had several Ubuntu 14.04 Fog servers using 1.2.0 that would unicast perfectly but get “starting to restore image” when multicasting.

I finally found that the FOG_UDPCAST_INTERFACE value under Multicast Settings was wrong. It was set to eth0 while my adapter was eth1. Not sure how I managed that, but hope it helps someone.

If it actually deployed 95% of the image, you’ve probably got a good shot at recovering a file that’s on the image.

Take the drive that you deployed the image to and attach it to another (bootable) computer directly or via a usb adapter and try accessing it with a software recovery tool. There’s lots out there that are free or free to try in some fashion.

GetDataBack for NTFS is one I’ve used often with good results. It’s at runtime.org and lets you do the whole recovery and preview the recovered files for free. You just need to pay them if you want to save files from the recovery. It’s pretty good at picking out NTFS even if its hashed up a bit. It can do a raw recovery as well, but that’s pretty time consuming. Even if you don’t want to pay runtime.org for the software, you’d be able to get an idea of whether you’ll be able to recover it with another program.

On win7 make sure you use GDB-NTFS using run as administrator or it won’t have rights to work with the physical disk.

Did Dell put the OEM recovery/diagnostic partition on the drive? I’ve seen that make things a bit goofy.

My guess is that it’s having an issue with the hidden dos partition in the beginning. I’ve had trouble with OEM partitions and Fog, and checking the forums, it looks like other have too.

Have you had any luck with another image that’s less complex? If a plain vanilla image works captures and deploys ok, then you at least know Fog is set right and working. From there you could try adding an additional partition, capture/deploy, repeat, until you reach a problem and try to troubleshoot from there.

Other thing I could think of to try if you really need that image with the hidden partitions is to do a RAW image type. I’ve not tried it myself as I don’t have the storage space for such a thing, but I’m wondering if that’d at least get you going for the time being. It’d be a large image file and take a bit longer to capture and deploy, though.

Anybody else had better luck with multiple partition setups?

Well, only a few months huh? You could type the 1’s and 0’s out faster than that.

Yeah, it’s under the “Other Information” icon (question mark with circle) along the top. And it’ll be “Kernel Updates” along the left hand side. I believe your Fog server will need an internet connection for it to work right.

My Fog machines need to stay off the network since they’re running their own DHCP servers. That and they’ve got a Microsoft Forefront thing obliterates any/all Linux related stuff from orbit as “Shareware/Freeware”. So, I’ve never tried that tool. But it’s supposed to be pretty easy to swap kernels with it.

The wiki details creating a custom kernel with manual instructions if your server can’t talk to the interweb either. You could probably use those instructions to place a kernel you downloaded.
[URL=‘http://www.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/Building_a_Custom_Kernel’][/URL]
[url]http://www.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/Building_a_Custom_Kernel[/url]

The weird thing is that it looks like it is working, albeit very slow. I might also be considering that something physical is wrong, maybe on the image storage side?

Hi Matt,

Well, I’m sure somebody else will have a better idea than me, but…

Maybe the mode of the drive ATA vs AHCI in the BIOS on the target?

Have you tried uploading an image to the Fog server? Does that bit work?

Another thread mentioned switching to a different fog kernel, maybe a newer or older one would work better?

Beyond that, my thoughts might be that there could be permissions or authentication issues on the storage, image is corrupted, or maybe a bad cable?

If it won’t complete the upload either, I might check the permissions/authentication bit.

If you have additional information on your current Fog setup like OS + version and Fog version + kernel, there are some much smarter people than me who can probably get you in the right direction faster.

Sounds like it might be a password issue for tftp. I think. Maybe.

Reference this: [url]http://www.fogproject.org/wiki/index.php/Unable_to_connect_to_TFTP[/url]

Particularly the bit about setting the password for the user “Fog” and it matching [B]TFTP_FTP_PASSWORD[/B] and [B]STORAGE_FTP_PASSWORD [/B]in /var/www/fog/commons/config.php (at least that’s my path in 11.10)

Seems like I had something else to do as well, but I guess start with that and see how it goes.

No problem. For me, the problem seems to be when Ubuntu boots without an ethernet connection to some active device (switch, another computer,etc) and cannot start the service. Also, the timing on the service starting is an issue, almost like it tries to start the service before the card is fully up. I think others have used a delay in /etc/init.d/isc-dhcp-server (or whatever is appropriate for your machine) to work around this.

Link on the subject here: [url]http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=11305447&postcount=2[/url]

Kinda what I was thinking, Chad. On my fog server, I typically have to manually start the DHCP server following a reboot . You might check to see that the service is running. On my flavor of ubuntu (11.10), that is:

service --status-all

and the service is isc-dhcp-server

Other things I’ve seen are bad ports on a switch, bad cables, bent pins on the NIC. I typically overlook those types of things for hours if not days, so you might try going from fog to the target computer.

Found the manual here: [url]http://www.lenovo.com/shop/americas/content/user_guides/t530_w530_ug_en.pdf[/url]

On page 114, it describes enabling the Ethernet LAN option ROM, not sure if that’s needed or not.

On pages 124, 125, and 127 it describes settings for network booting. Might want to check that UEFI/Legacy is set to both, the startup sequence has PXE included, and network booting is enabled. It’s tough to know for sure just by the manual, but sometimes the BIOS settings are a little strange, like PXE is enabled, but is excluded from the startup sequence.

After verifying these settings, I’d mash F12 while the ThinkPad splash screen is up to manually pick the boot device. If the PXE option isn’t there, I’d guess something else in the BIOS isn’t enabled. If it attempts a PXE boot, you ought to get a screen with something along the lines of:

“Initializing Interl Boot Agent GE v 1.3.52.1
PXE 2.1 Build 089 (WfM 2.0)
yada yada yada”

That should show up if you’ve got a network cable in or not.

Hope that helps!