blog.flimflan.com

finally I've mapped the network...
but...
File: \boot\BCD
Status: 0xc0000022
Info: An error occured while attempting to read the boot configuration data

p.s. sorry for my bad English

Nope, still the same error.

When I look in the log of the tftpd32 server, there seems to be a problem with a sort of
EACCESS on file \Boot\Fonts\wgl4_boot.ttf The folder name is invalid.
Same problem for the file \boot\boot.ini and \Boot\BCD

Placing the fonts there does not solve the problem.
A file like boot.ini I don't find on the PE CD.

Anyone that can solve the problem?

Hi:

Well i solve my problem, ir you change some settings in your tftpd32 you will boot in the windows installer, you only need to click in the settings button and then check the option PXE Compatibility, and save your settings and its done!!!!


Jejeje, sorry for my english!!!!

Thanks Jonathan, I changed the same option, and now my virtual machine also boots from windows pe. VM Workstation runs stuck after a while, but I think that is because VM ware is not yet compatible with vista. I try tomorrow in the computer shop and let you know if it works in the real world.

Thank you very much.

Ok, I've tested the option for pxe compatibility and now it works really great!
tested on 5 different kind of mainboards and 3 portabeles. Thanks a lot!

Joshua,

I just want to say you can look in the mirror and be proud of yourself.
Thank you so much on helping me out installing Vista this way.
It is a one of a kind procedure compared to other on the net, trust me.

Thnx,
Jori

The page was really helpful to created PXE image. Many Thanks....

But when boot my workstation with F12...it gives me an following error. I appreciate your assistance.

FYI: i can boot that workstation with CD winpe 2 boot image (I've created image using the command: oscdimg -n -bc:\winpe_x86\etfsboot.com c:\winpe_x86\ISO c:\winpe_x86\winpe_x86.iso)

No Doubt: I've exactly the same steps you've give( Tried 3 times creting the BCD files, all have the same error)

ERROR
Status: 0xc000000f
Info: Boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible

After a week for struggling to get this to work (and succeeded) he's my suggests:

1. TFTPD
Don't use Netware's (obvious I know - but it's use here is out of my control)
Microsofts works (but lacks logging). TFTPD32 works if you check the allow '\' for virtual root option (which is why Netware's doesn't work).

2. bootmgr.exe
Despite the docs, this file has to be in the TFTP root.

3. BCD file
Double check this. One typo in here (easily done with all these steps) can waste hours of your time.
Use [b]bcdedit -store x:\BCD -enum all[/b]
it should produce something like (GUIDs different):
[code]
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
description Windows VISTA BootManager
displayorder {bef323ac-c6c0-11db-beab-0007e95c8f63}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {bef323ac-c6c0-11db-beab-0007e95c8f63}
device ramdisk=[boot]\Boot\WinPE.wim,{ramdiskoptions}
description WinPE Boot Image
osdevice ramdisk=[boot]\Boot\WinPE.wim,{ramdiskoptions}
systemroot \Windows
detecthal Yes
winpe Yes

Setup Ramdisk Options
---------------------
identifier {ramdiskoptions}
description Ramdisk options
ramdisksdidevice boot
ramdisksdipath \boot\boot.sdi
[/code]

4. Boot Image File
Use pxeboot.com or pxeboot.n12 (to remove F12 message)
If redirecting from PXELINUX then rename pxeboot.n12 to pxeboot.0

Hope this helps
Robin

Yep, I was getting "TFTP Download failed" from pxeboot.0 if I didn't put bootmgr.exe in the TFTP root directory (c:\apps\tftpboot in your example).

This may be because I'm going from PXELINUX to "boot/pxeboot.0". pxeboot.0 only has the text "bootmgr.exe" in it (not "boot/pxeboot.0") so must be relying on some sort of 'current directory' assumption that I didn't think existed in TFTP.

Another usual site: www.boot-land.net

hey i tried to do the (bcdedit –store c:\BCD –create {ramdiskoptions} /d "Ramdisk options") and it wont work in vista cmd promt i donno if anyone els incountered this but i hope theirs a solution for this thanx alot

I followed the instructions precisely with the exception that i ran virtual pc from the same pc i was hosting from. I got the guid, and was able to deploy winpe 2.0 to another computer that was on my switch.

the real problem is that when i try to copy my tftp folder to another computer and use a new computer as a host, i get errors trying to load the image. 0xc0000022 or 0xc000000f

is the guid exclusive to the pc that generated it?

There is discussion/comments about whether or not bootmgr.exe must be in the root.

I have observed that the behavior changes depending upon whether you use '/' or '\' in the DHCP Option 67 Bootfile Name

This data was collected on the tftp server running:
win2k3r2
some other tftp server
MSFT DHCP service
wireshark network protocol analyzer http://wireshark.org/

If DHCP option 67 is configured with a backslash to say:
boot\pxeboot.n12

then it will proceed to load 'boot\bootmgr.exe'

If DHCP option 67 is configured with a forward slash to say:
boot/pxeboot.n12

then it will proceed to load 'bootmgr.exe' out of the root of the tftp server

Further investigation leads to the following observations:

\pxeboot.n12 -> \bootmgr.exe
/pxeboot.n12 -> bootmgr.exe
foo/pxeboot.n12 -> bootmgr.exe
foo\pxeboot.n12 -> foo\bootmgr.exe
foo/bar/pxeboot.n12 -> bootmgr.exe
foo\bar\pxeboot.n12 -> foo\bar\bootmgr.exe
/foo/bar/pxeboot.n12 -> bootmgr.exe
\foo\bar\pxeboot.n12 -> \foo\bar\bootmgr.exe


This seems to imply that the implementation is grabbing everything up to the last '\' character as the path. If there are no '\' chars, as in 'boot/pxeboot.n12' then the code does not find a prefix and bootmgr.exe is fetched from the root of the tftp server.


Miguel

Unfortunately, I'm loading pxeboot.0 from PXELINUX so no option 67 set which is where it must be looking for the directory to prefix.
I tested all versions of \ and / in the pwflinux.cfg\default file and it made no difference.

In this posting I am going to deal with getting WinPE booted from a Linux tftp server. We'll also address the issue of loading WinPE 2.0 from under pxelinux.

When I posted my previous findings related to '\' and '/' behavior I had not yet made it through the entire boot process ... I had to go to bed :-)

While pxe bootstrap loader code uses the path prefix for fetching bootmgr.exe, it is not consistent.

I used Option 67 to specify "foo\pxeboot.n12"

The wireshark dump showed the following TFTP Read Requests:
foo\pxeboot.n12
foo\pxeboot.n12
foo\bootmgr.exe
\Boot\Fonts\wgl4_boot.ttf
\foo\boot.ini
\Boot\BCD
\Boot\BCD
\Boot\Fonts\wgl4_boot.ttf
\hiberfil.sys
\boot\testpe.wim
\boot\boot.sdi
\boot\boot.sdi
\boot\testpe.wim
\Boot\Fonts\wgl4_boot.ttf

We can see that it is not consistent and that several things are wired to \Boot. The capitalized versions of \Boot came from MSFT's loader code. The lower case \boot came from the entries that I put in my BCD file.

So, we have some more issues when trying to use a Linux TFTP server.

* \backslash\ vs /slash/ in the pathnames
* some things are hard-wired to \Boot
* case insensitivity on Windows could be an issue
* Robin's issue of wanting to launch from pxelinux,
where it is too late to set Option 67

The solution on linux platforms is to use the 'filename remapping' feature that is available in HPA's tftpd. I am running tftp-server-0.42-3.1 on Fedora Core 6. I feel like I saw some reference to a bug in this remapping feature at some point, so if you are using an older version then you should investigate this.

The 'filename remapping' feature allows you to use regular expressions to remap the filename string that is requested by the tftp client. See 'man tftpd' for more details.

We are going to need to pass the name of the remapping file to tftpd so that it will apply the remapping rules. I created my remapping file as /etc/tftpdremap

My /etc/tftpdremap looks like this:
# remap WinPE 2.0 filenames
#
# Map these isolated file names and go
re ^pxeboot\.n12 winpe20/pxeboot.n12
re ^pxeboot\.com winpe20/pxeboot.com
re ^pxeboot\.0 winpe20/pxeboot.n12
re ^bootmgr\.exe winpe20/bootmgr.exe
# map these path prefixes
r ^\\Boot\\ winpe20/
r ^\\boot\\ winpe20/
r ^\\ winpe20/
# change all remaining \ to /
rg \\ /
# THE END

On my linux tftp server I put the winpe20 stuff in a subdir called 'winpe20' instead of 'boot'. Some might want to call it 'Boot' so that it would be consistent with a Windows tftp server configuration. Call it whatever you want, the remapping rules will take care of it.

I encourage you to see 'man tftpd' to understand this remapping syntax.

pxeboot.0 is in there so that you can boot this thing from underneath pxelinux. For those of you who don't have a lot of experience with pxelinux, recall that the filename extension is very important to the pxelinux loader. If you try to load a .com file then pxelinux will think it is a MS-DOS .com file. If you try to load a .n12 file then pxelinux will think it is a linux kernel ... since it doesn't recognize the extension. If either of these things happens then you are hosed.

You need to use the .0 extension so that pxelinux will load it as a PXE network bootstrap program. The mappings that I showed above just mapped pxeboot.0 to winpe20/pxeboot.n12. You can call it whatever you want, just change the mapping file.

Note that I did not put the font files up there. If you play with them you may run into some case-sensitivity issue. If so, then you can use the remapping rules to turn everything into lower case.

Since you have to use the remapping file anyway, I recommend that you make symbolic name changes there, rather than renaming or copying the files. That way the files on your linux box are simply a copy of the c:\tftpboot\Boot subdirectory on your Windows tftp server.

While playing with this filename remapping you are going to want to make tftpd logging a little more verbose ... another argument to tftpd.

tftpd is spawned by xinetd, so the configuration is in /etc/xinetd.d/tftp

Mine now looks like this:

service tftp
{
socket_type = dgram
protocol = udp
wait = yes
user = root
server = /usr/sbin/in.tftpd
server_args = -s /tftpboot -m /etc/tftpdremap -v
disable = no
per_source = 11
cps = 100 2
flags = IPv4
}

After making changes to this file you need to do the following as root:
#service xinetd reload
#pkill in.tftpd

You can then bring up a terminal that watches the log file for interesting tftpd stuff:
#tail -f /var/log/messages | grep tftpd

just leave this running.

It should now work for you.

In your /etc/dhcpd.conf you can specify the filename as 'pxeboot.n12' or pxeboot.com'

If you want to run under pxelinux then you can say:
kernel pxeboot.0

If it doesn't work for you then:

* watch the 'tail -f /var/log/messages | grep tftp' to see that
the mappings are OK

* if you make changes to /etc/xinetd.d/tftp you must:
service xinetd reload

* if you make changes to your /etc/tftpdremap mappings you must:
pkill in.tftpd

* use wireshark to pick up DHCP and TFTP request on your tftp
server with capture filter:
port 67 or port 68 or port 69


Good luck!
Miguel

Joshua,

We use the network boot with tftpd and winpe now for quite a while and it works perfect! (on computers with minimum 512 MB RAM).
One thing I haven't been able to figure out, is how to change the inputlocale of winpe to belgian (point). I know it's 0813:00000813, but I can not change the input. Even the correct command "wpeutil SetKeyboardLayout 0813:00000813" that gives a succesful result, does not change the input for the prompt. But if you start another program in winpe, then the program has the correct keyboard layout. Can you help me?

I believe the SetKeyboardLayout command only effects new processes, so you need to start a new command shell to see any result.

I managed to get PE 2.0 to PXE boot under Linux using the following:

# bcdedit –store c:\BCD –set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdidevice Boot
# bcdedit –store c:\BCD –set {ramdiskoptions} ramdisksdipath \Boot\boot.sdi

I changed "boot" to "Boot" as bootmgr.exe has this hard coded for some reason.

My TFTP setup for Windows PE is placed in winpe/boot/, so I use the following TFTP mapping rules:

r ^\\Boot\\ \\winpe\\Boot\\
rg \\ /

See Miguel's post for further details, but these two rules are enough to make everything work for me.

DHCP config as follows:

filename "\\winpe\\Boot\\pxeboot.n12";

The Microsoft documentation says to load wdsnbp.com, which I cannot get to work. I assume that this loader requires WDS to work properly, but the documentation does not say that.

I have been fighting the dreaded "\boot\BCD Status: 0xc0000022" error for 2 days now.

I must have retyped the bcdedit commands a dozen times thinking I'm just impossibly dumb.

What kept striking me as odd is that looking at the TFTP logs it looked like everything was perfectly fine until it got here:
Read request for file <\Boot\BCD>. Mode octet [15/05 17:08:34.937]
Error EACCESS on file \Boot\BCD. Ext error The directory name is invalid

"Directory name invalid"??? That didn't make sense because everything else up to that point (pxeboot.n12, bootmgr.exe) was loading fine from that same subdirectory.

Then I tried copying the BCD file all over the place - I had a copy in every subfolder of my tftp root. I even made a subfolder "Boot" of my folder "Boot" ("\tftproot\Boot\Boot") and put a copy of BCD there!

Nothing worked.

Then I realized that the earlier file loads in the log looked like this:
Read request for file <Boot\pxeboot.n12>. Mode octet [15/05 17:08:17.578]
Read request for file <Boot\bootmgr.exe>. Mode octet [15/05 17:08:17.672]
<Boot\pxeboot.n12>: sent 49 blks, 25068 bytes in 0 s. 0 blk resent [15/05 17:08:17.687]
<Boot\bootmgr.exe>: sent 817 blks, 417896 bytes in 1 s. 0 blk resent [15/05 17:08:18.453]

Those files loaded fine, but BCD wouldn't load. FINALLY I noticed the difference... the earlier entries were "<Boot\blah>" but the BCD entry was "<\Boot\BCD>" (notice the additional "backslash" at the beginning!!)

OK... so clearly the initial files loaded, based on the data they read from the DHCP server option 067 (bootfile name) which was "boot\pxeboot.n12" but then something changed to look at "\Boot" instead of "Boot".

Something made me look at my TFTPD32 settings. I've been using TFTPD32 for a while (other projects) and never had to enable the value... but right there at the bottom of the advanced tftp server options list is "Allow '\' As virtual root".

Holy crap.

"ENABLED"

Boot...

<Boot\BCD>: sent 25 blks, 12288 bytes in 0 s. 0 blk resent [15/05 17:20:15.880]

"Windows is loading files"...

:)

Fact is, Robin nailed it above in the post on 01 March... I just missed that one comment - and wasted 2 days.

So if you're still fighting this, and you haven't switched to Miguel's linux TFTP server, enable that feature!

(learning experience, right?)

I finally got it to work!

BCD, boot.sdi, Wdsconfig.inf and winpe.wim need to be moved into a subdirectory called boot. So the finished tree looks like;

C:\apps\tftpboot\Boot
|-abort.pxe
|-bootmgr.exe
|-hdlscom1.com
|-hdlscom1.n12
|-hdlscom2.com
|-hdlscom2.n12
|-pxeboot.n12
|-wdsnbp.com
|[dir] Boot
|-BCD
|-boot.sdi
|-WdsConfig.inf
|-winpe.win

tftpd32 was set to allow / as virtual root and pxe compatable

I follow all of your steps but when it comes to the part where I copy the BCD files with net use from the virtual pc to the technician computer, It gives me an error saying that the workstation service is not running. Then I try to type net start workstation to start that service and it says that it could not be started, files not found. Any suggestions?

Josh, you rock!
saved me a bunch of trial and error on my own part, though i did pull an all-nighter, even with your wonderful guide.. (i made a custom WinPE image and a batch file that auto generates the WinPE file. I still don't understand the NEED for the lengthy BCDedit and GUID crap, but i'm sure i will understand soon.. (vista yadda yadda), this is a cool little tool i'm looking at, incase it may help in generating those BCD's...

http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

i wonder if we could get THAT running on WinPE.. that would be spectacular..

anyway, thanks again for the writeup!.. now i'm off to learn how to image with the new Vista ImageX..

batch files here i come!

Just as a FYI I was having problems too, After checking the BCD file 4 or 5 times and redoing it. I looked at the tftp32 logs and for some reason the path to the WinPE.wim file was getting mangled. It was trying to load \Boot\WinPE\win which I find very weird. . But this was resulting in the infamous

ERROR
Status: 0xc000000f
Info: Boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible

Error.

So the work around I did was to copy \Boot\WinPE.wim to file called \Boot\WinPE\win and viola worked like a champ.

I am curious to know though what was mangling the path to the WinPE.wim file, If anyone has any ideas.

Thanks for the information. I have used this (and several other sources) to get WinPE up and running using gPXE. I have also documented the full procedure at

http://www.etherboot.org/wiki/winpe

Michael Brown
Etherboot Project

After half a day of aggravation I feel compelled to add my solution for others. My configuration is much like Miguel's, mentioned above. I am using Linux as my pxe, tftp, and dhcp servers. So the tftp remapping is a must. However, after all of that, I still had no luck. I kept getting "TFTP Download failed". I did a wireshark (Etheral) capture, and found that pxeboot.n12 (renamed to pxeboot.0) was loading correctly, but then bootmgr.exe was not being found. Here is the details of that:

12080 432.947088 192.168.79.103 0.0.0.0 TFTP Read Request, File: bootmgr.exe, Transfer type: octet, blksize=1456

The above looks suspicious. 192.168.79.103 (the machine I am trying to PXE boot winpe on) is the source of the read request, but look at the destination... It's all 0's. It's saying tftp the file bootmgr.exe from host 0.0.0.0. Six attempts are made, and then the message "TFTP Download failed" is given.

My pxe server and tftp server are at IP address 192.168.79.101

This turned out to be a problem with my dhcpd. I did not have:

next-server 192.168.79.101;

in my dhcpd.conf file. After adding that line to the correct place, I was able to boot winpe with pxelinux. My pxelinux.cfg file looks like:

LABEL WinPE
MENU LABEL ^WinPE
kernel pxeboot.0


Scott Lightsey

Found this post via Google, I really appreciate the detailed walkthrough and the feedback in the comments.

I had my own host of problems with the bcdedit lines, namely they would throw syntax errors when I copy&pasted them into Vista. Not very helpful ones, either.

You're blog encodes the hyphen in "bcdedit -store" as a dash (slightly longer, used for "breaks") and that completly threw bcdedit off the tracks. Only the first -createstore is encoded correctly. Even the official walkthrough has that problem, which is even more puzzeling.

I actually studied bcdedit manual pages for half an hour until I figured out the problem. The solution is rather simple, of course: Replace the dashes with the normal hyphen (the minus key).

I m typing "for net use y:\\TFTPCOMPUTER\SHARE"

net use y:\\DESIGN\TFTPBOOT\Boot


But I have have the following error message:

System error 67 has occured. The network name cannot be found.

Why cant windows PE find my network? The name ist Design and the folder is as described.

What is y:

I know that I might need later y: drive to install Windows Vista trough windows PE, by command NET USE y: \\servername\sharename

But how can I specify y:, what is y: or might y: be my HDD C: ?

Questions over question, I mstucked

Iva asked nearly 10 forums on that subject.

Please help me. or the world would have one more human less.

Haha joke :D, but please, I m a little frustrated.

this appears to be the only blog on the web where information regarding TFTP booting is relavent, well done guys!!

my problem is that i am trying to boot diskless clients using wds. i have tried wtware and tftpd32 but all my problems revert back to RIS (WDS is the replacement for RIS in server 2k3 R2). i then uninstalled wtware (they have not tested their software with WDS yet) and used WDS and then created the files as per the instructions near the top of this blog. the files are created in a directory called remoteinstall in the root of C:\. all the files i created form using the WAIK command prompt are the same as the ones in the remoteinstall directory.

my erros are that when using wdsnbp.com it says the file is not a valid image and if i use pxeboot. com it says the file is not found, both files are in the same directory. by defualt wds puts all the files in a sub dir called x86. i moved the files to the boot dir (as above) and i still get the same error.

any ideas of what i am doing wrong? i have configured all the scope options 60, 66 and 67 correctly and even pointed the default boot image for x86 architecter to the boot folder and not the boot\x86 folder, still with the same results.

any help will be appreciated.

andy

Hi,
What does "MyWinPE Boot Image" means in bcdedit -store c:\BCD -create /d "MyWinPE Boot Image" /application osloader

Thanks

Hi
Thanks for the great post sorted out almost all of the problems I've been having execpt for one query....

It Loads Windows Files twice when booting? Why
(i.e it finds the TFTP server Displays Loads Windows Files the bar gets to the end and it does it agin). Winpe then loads.

Is this normal?