[syslinux] pxeLinux on an Intel SE7501WV2 with 82546EB

Jay Winks Jay.Winks at teksouth.com
Tue Jun 3 15:31:29 PDT 2003


All:

I have recently discovered pxeLinux/memdisk and have been using them without alot of pain in a somewhat unconventional setup.. Win2k DHCP server and tftpd32 on WinXP. Don't throw rocks at me - you use what you've got. Anyways, thanks to HPA for a great tool.

I am running into an odd little problem now for which I was wondering if there might be some remedy. On a particular motherboard (Intel  SE7501WV2 with 82546EB onboard controller, latest mobo firmware) I am having problems. pxeLinux loads fine, memdisk runs and does the drive detection. tftp delivers the boot image (have tried Win98 dos and DOS 6.22) and then I get a lovely "non-system disk" error. Sad thing is, these same images have booted fine on several other configurations, including...

Intel STL2-based servers w/Intel 8255x 10/100 LOM
IBM eSeries x345 w/Intel 82546EB Dual-Port Gigabit LOM
IBM eSeries x235 w/Broadcom NetXtreme Gigabit LOM
Dell PowerEdge 2450 w/Intel 8255x 10/100 LOM

It is also worthy of note that I have discovered that the problem appears to be related to the absence of a floppy drive. The servers I'm using have no floppy disk or CD-ROM (so you can see how I ended up running pxeLinux to get them installed), but I was installing some S/W via a floppy I temporarily hooked up and forgot to remove it when rebooting. To my surprise, the boot image loaded. I thought I had inadvertently fixed something. Then I removed the floppy and it was no go again. So I put the floppy back on and it worked again.

I'm wondering what information I might provide the group that would help them tell me what I can do to avoid this. I have discussed it for awhile with Intel's pxe guy and he seems to think that it has to do with the fact that DOS doesn't like it if it doesn't detect a physical disk and blows if it is not present. He claimed that DOS 6.22 did not make the check, but I have not had any success with 6.22 either, so either he is wrong about 6.22 or there is a slightly different issue. Any and all help appreciated.

Thanks
Jay Winks 



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