bingyeo

The servers come with 2 hard disks, 74 gigs each. I inherited them from another user who was running Linux on them, and he did not provide me with any documentation or info about the servers. I checked the bootup process and the BIOS for any RAID controllers but didn't find anything. I did do a deletion, creation and format of the partitions on the disks. Right now for this particular server, only C: has been created, with the rest of the disk spaced unpartitioned, but the boot issue persists.

I am installing W2k8 on a Hp Proliant DL140. I have about 30 of these servers which were previously used to run Linux. My previous booting problem with these servers was when I tried deploying W2k3 images using WDS on them for the first time, and after deployment, it would still try to load GRUB. I only managed to resolve this by running the repair console, and using FIXMBR and FIXBOOT before I was able to boot to the W2k3 image successfully. However this does not seem to be a permanent solution as I have to FIXMBR and FIXBOOT each time after I redeploy an image onto any server which I had already performed this step before. It would just show a blinking cursor instead of GRUB. Installing W2k3 from scratch however, does not give me this problem. I have an impression that it might be the previously installed Linux which is causing this boot problems, but I have no clue on what I should do to solve this.

Hi I am trying to install WS2008 Enterprise on a server which had a history of boot problems which I have posted previously in these forums when I was trying to deploy WS2003 using WDS: http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=471 Each time I redeploy W2k3 using WDS onto a server, I have to run the Repair console from the CD after deployment, run FIXMBR and FIXBOOT beforeI am able to boot to the newly deployed W2k3 image. However, an installation from scratch using the CD would boot normally. This time, I ran W2k8 installation from the CD on to the same server (deleted, recreated, formatted the hard disks) and after the first phase of installation is completed and it did a reboot, the server would not be able to boot to the hard disks. Just a blinking cursor after the initial bootup processes. I have tried googling for W2k8 boot issues and how to resolve them, but I have gotten mostly Vista articles, and I am not too sure if they apply completely. I tried the following articles to try to fix/recreate the MBR and BCD, but nothing is working. http://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/fix-mbr-xp-vista/ http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Reco...er+from+the+DVD If I run bootrec /scanos or /rebuildbcd, it tells me the Total identified Windows installations is 0. However, I tried the following from this link: http://thevistaforums.com/index.php?act=Pr...=54&t=48325 bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup c: cd boot attrib bcd -s -h -r ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old bootrec /RebuildBcd it showed that there was 1 identified Windows installation. However, after I ended the repair console session and the machine rebooted, it went back to the blinking cursor and not booting to the hard disk. Anyone has any idea how to fix this?

No I didn't. Thing is, how do I run diskpart if I don't boot to the Windows disc and run Recovery Console? Remember that I cannot boot to Windows at all. Once I allow it to boot to hard disk, it tries to boot Grub and hangs. And if I have to run Recovery Console anyway to run diskpart, running fixmbr and fixboot solves the problem. How would diskpart solve the problem? I did try to delete all the partitions, recreating and formatting them during the Deployment process when it prompts me to select the partition to install Windows. But once it boots to disk, Grub appears.

Hi Any I finally managed to get WDS to work. Indeed, the boot loader was the problem. After some googling and testing, here are the steps which I had to go through before successfully getting Windows to boot properly after the first reboot during the deployment process: 1. boot to PXE on the server which I want to deploy my image to 2. run the deployment process to the point where it reboots after copying/expanding setup files 3. boot to CD drive, with W2k3 cd inside, and run Recovery Console 4. run FIXMBR and then FIXBOOT. Running either one without the other doesn't work. 5. reboot, this time to hard disk. At this point, Windows should boot properly and the setup will run. Thanks for the tip!

Hi Anyweb indeed, during the boot process, while attempting to boot from the hard disk, 'GRUB' actually appears before it hangs. By 'mount', do you mean to remove this hard disk and attaching it to another server physically and checking the contents in the disk? So far, the only clue that I have that windows was already implemented on the hard disk is if i re-ran WDS and deployed on the same hard disk, the setup process prompts me that another copy of Windows have been installed and that the files would be saved under windows.old if I proceeded Also, during the deployment process, I actually removed the previous partitions, re-partitioned and formatted the hard disk before copying the setup files into c:\. Why does this not remove any remnants of the previous OS/GRUB from the hard disk? How then, do I remove GRUB? If i do a manual reinstall of W2k3 entirely (not deploying through WDS), I have no such problems. I have already done manual installs for about 10 of the servers, and have another 20 to go. It would be so much quicker to use WDS if I could.

Hi I have been working on using WDS to deploy images of W2k3 to my company's servers. I am able to capture the image and boot the client via PXE to connect to the WDS server. All goes well till the point where after the client server reboots after copying setup files from the WDS server. I allow it to boot from the hard drive and it attempts to load the previous OS (Linux) and hangs at that point. After installing and configuring WDS, I copied setupmgr.exe and sysprep.exe, from deploy.cab found in the W2k3R2 SP2 cd, onto c:\sysprep folder, and created a answer file (.inf) on the reference client server. I then sysprepped the same server (mini setup, reseal, reboot). After rebooting to PXE on the reference server, I captured the image and saved it onto the WDS server. I then add the install image to WDS server and attempt to deploy this image to a different server having the same hardware. During the first reboot after copying files, it hangs, as I have mentioned above. Is there anything that I should be doing differently or is this problem a hardware issue? When I try running the Deployment process on the server again, it prompts me that another copy of Windows have been installed and that the files would be saved under windows.old if I proceeded. The partition which I had created previously is present as well. So why is the server not able to boot to this partition and complete the setup? I have tried this several times on different servers (same model) and I get the same problem. Help!

Hi Any success. I realised I made a major mistake in using /mount rather than /mountrw. *redfaced* I did an imagex /mountrw of image 2, found pid.txt and removed it. Now I am able to choose which drive I want to deploy the image to after selecting the image to be deployed. Thanks for your help!

Hi Any I see the list of images available, but after I choose the one I want and confirm, the next window that pops up says 'Windows could not display the images available for installation'. The only option I have at this point is to click OK and the machine reboots. I do not have the MSDN version of Vista, so I tried to remove pid.txt from the OEM boot.wim. I installed WAIK and ran imagex, mounted boot.wim to a folder and found pid.txt in Sources folder. When I try to delete the file, it gives me an Access is denied error. I looked at the securities properties of the file, it shows an unknown account which is not present in the AD of my virtual machine. Both this account and Administrators account shows Full control, but are greyed out, and even if i try to transfer ownership or remove inherited permissions, I am unable to give Administrators Full control over pid.txt, given the reason of Access is denied. Help! Bing

Hi Any Thanks for replying so quickly! The Vista DVD which I obtained the boot.wim file from is an OEM Vista Home Basic x86 disc bundled with some laptop. Is there any restriction on what version of Vista that the boot.wim needs to originate from? Cheers Bing

Hi I am a newbie at using WDS (and no experience in using RIS as well) and I have a rack of old servers to deploy W2k3R2SP2DC edition to. The rack consists of a HP DL380 with an optical drive, and the rest of the servers are HP DL140 with no optical drive. Right now, I have installed OS on DL380, but the other servers still have Linux on them and I would like to wipe them out. To cut the long story short, I used the DL380 as my reference computer, and set up a virtual machine on my laptop running W2k3Enterprise. On the virtual machine is WDS, AD, DNS and DHCP, and I am using it as the WDS server. Capturing of the image on DL380 seemed successful, and I moved on to the Deployment walkthrough (http://www.windows-noob.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=264&hl=). After creating the deploy.wim and booting to PXE on the same DL380, I was able to see the Install Windows (on Windows PE? still a little confused on what WinPE actually is) screens. I was able to login to the domain and select my image, but alas, 'Windows could not display the images available for installation'. Note that this is the same machine which I had previously captured the OS from, so hardware issues shouldn't be causing this? My questions are: Does WDS even support W2k3DC edition images? Also, will there I able to deploy images to servers of different hardware? If not, any suggestions on how I might go about doing the installation of OS on the DL140s as I don't have any ready images for deployment? Sorry if my questions sound really fundamental but I have really limited experience in image deployments, having never used WDS/RIS before. Cheers