Syslinux - Apr 2011 - 1 model out of a dozen hangs at "loading boot sector... booting..."

Hello,

I am new to this list. We are trying to move away from our WDS server with
PXElinux mods and are testing using iPXE on a linux box only. We mainly use HP
but also have Dells, Panasonic, and Lenovo. On almost a dozen models tested now,
everything works great. These were mostly laptops but a Dell Optiplex 360 and
380 booted fine. So far we have just had a problem with the HP 6005 Pro SFF
desktop. With this model it hangs at "loading boot sector...
booting...". This is using version 4.04.

I tried doing some regression testing and I did manage to figure out that I
could break a HP 2540p laptop with the same message by using memdisk version
3.51. Every version after that seems to allow the 2540p to boot. I thought maybe
this information might prove useful in isolating what was changed in that
version but maybe not. Every version I have tried with the 6005 has hung in the
same spot.

We would like to put this into our production environment if we can get it
working with all models so any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jeff

On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 18:12, Alexander,Jeff <Jeff.Alexander at wwt.com>
wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am new to this list. We are trying to move away from our WDS server with
PXElinux mods and are testing using iPXE on a linux box only. We mainly use HP
but also have Dells, Panasonic, and Lenovo. On almost a dozen models tested now,
everything works great. These were mostly laptops but a Dell Optiplex 360 and
380 booted fine. So far we have just had a problem with the HP 6005 Pro SFF
desktop. With this model it hangs at "loading boot sector...
booting...". This is using version 4.04.
>
> I tried doing some regression testing and I did manage to figure out that I
could break a HP 2540p laptop with the same message by using memdisk version
3.51. Every version after that seems to allow the 2540p to boot. I thought maybe
this information might prove useful in isolating what was changed in that
version but maybe not. Every version I have tried with the 6005 has hung in the
same spot.
>
> We would like to put this into our production environment if we can get it
working with all models so any help is greatly appreciated.
Could you provide some details?  What does your config look like?
What LABEL results in this behavior?  Which driver/format of iPXE did
you use (a file of undionly.kkpxe indicates undionly driver and kkpxe
format)?  If you're using MEMDISK, did you try any of the 3 other
memory access modifiers (see syslinux:doc/memdisk.txt; safeint is
default)?

-- 
-Gene

On 4/26/2011 3:12 PM, Alexander,Jeff wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am new to this list. We are trying to move away from our WDS server with
PXElinux mods and are testing using iPXE on a linux box only. We mainly use HP
but also have Dells, Panasonic, and Lenovo. On almost a dozen models tested now,
everything works great. These were mostly laptops but a Dell Optiplex 360 and
380 booted fine. So far we have just had a problem with the HP 6005 Pro SFF
desktop. With this model it hangs at "loading boot sector...
booting...". This is using version 4.04.
>
> I tried doing some regression testing and I did manage to figure out that I
could break a HP 2540p laptop with the same message by using memdisk version
3.51. Every version after that seems to allow the 2540p to boot. I thought maybe
this information might prove useful in isolating what was changed in that
version but maybe not. Every version I have tried with the 6005 has hung in the
same spot.
>
> We would like to put this into our production environment if we can get it
working with all models so any help is greatly appreciated.
When you did your testing, did you change pxelinux.0 versions along with 
memdisk? Their versions need to match.

-A

I am not using pxelinux.0, I am using ipxelinux.0 so that the image can be
delivered to the client machine via http instead of tftp.

-Jeff


-----Original Message-----
From: syslinux-bounces at zytor.com [mailto:syslinux-bounces at zytor.com] On
Behalf Of Andrew Stuart
Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2011 7:17 PM
To: syslinux at zytor.com
Subject: Re: [syslinux] 1 model out of a dozen hangs at "loading boot
sector... booting..."

On 4/26/2011 3:12 PM, Alexander,Jeff wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am new to this list. We are trying to move away from our WDS server with
PXElinux mods and are testing using iPXE on a linux box only. We mainly use HP
but also have Dells, Panasonic, and Lenovo. On almost a dozen models tested now,
everything works great. These were mostly laptops but a Dell Optiplex 360 and
380 booted fine. So far we have just had a problem with the HP 6005 Pro SFF
desktop. With this model it hangs at "loading boot sector...
booting...". This is using version 4.04.
>
> I tried doing some regression testing and I did manage to figure out that I
could break a HP 2540p laptop with the same message by using memdisk version
3.51. Every version after that seems to allow the 2540p to boot. I thought maybe
this information might prove useful in isolating what was changed in that
version but maybe not. Every version I have tried with the 6005 has hung in the
same spot.
>
> We would like to put this into our production environment if we can get it
working with all models so any help is greatly appreciated.
When you did your testing, did you change pxelinux.0 versions along with 
memdisk? Their versions need to match.

-A

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