Booting from PXE to WinPE using RIS and RAMISK - biosinfo.ini error

[ppicozzi]

Hi All,

First thing I should say is that I've only been using RIS/WinPE for a
few day's now so the problems I'm having are 'probably' down to user
error... However....

I built a boot CD with MS BDD using Server2003SP1 and WinPE 2005. This
CD works fine and boot's to my RIS server and allows OS installation as
I expected.

I then decided that I would be nice to dispose of the boot CD and boot
from PXE, I followed the instructions here
"http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q304992".
After an initial error with the location of the "TXTSETUP.SIF" which I
fixed by placing a copy of the file in the "\i386\templates" folder I
am now receiving an error directly after the machine completes the
"Loading RAMDISK mage" section.

The error is " File \I386\SYSTEM32\BIOSINFO.INF could not be loaded.
Error code is 18"

So far I have checked the file does exist, played with the
capitalisation of the file/location (no Joy) and spend hours on google
all with no success.

As I said before, I'm new to this and am not sure where to go next, so
any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Dyslexic

 

[Johan Arwidmark]

Error 18 is most times a memory error, e.g. your computer has too
little RAM for the iso to load into RAM.The computer needs to have the
ISO file size + about 64 MB.

Tips for reduce the WinPE Size (minimizing WinPEfootprint)

1. Extract your WinPE image to a folder (C:\MyWinPEImage in this
exampe)

2. Copy the SAMPLES\SERVERSP1-REMOVELIST.TXT from the Windows PE 2005
CDROM to C:\WINPE

3. Edit the C:\WINPE\SERVERSP1-REMOVELIST.TXT file and remove the
following lines

inf\net21x4.inf
system32\drivers\dc21x4.sys
system32\mfc42.dll
system32\odbc32.dll
system32\odbcint.dll
system32\urlmon.dll

Note 1: urlmon.dll is required for network support, and the
net21x4.inf and dc21x4.sys files is for Virtual PC 2004 Nic support.

Note 2: The mfc42.dll, odbc32.dll and odbcint.dll files are needed if
using ZTI (BDD)

4. Create a batchfile named ReduceWinPE.cmd in the C:\WINPE folder
containing the following lines

cd /d C:\MyWinPEImage\i386
for /f "eol=;" %%i in (C:\winpe\serversp1-removelist.txt) do del /q
%%i


Note: the newsreader might have wrapped the last line in the batch
file.

regards

Johan Arwidmark
Microsoft MVP - Setup/Deployment