Problem With Remote Boot

C

Craig

We've built a target with the RAM Disk Component and confirmed that the RAM
Disk is present in the device list.

Created an SDI file from our target using the procedure outlined by MS ...
no problem there.

Loaded the SDI file on our Windows 2003 Server ... we are using the Win 2003
QFE version of the Remote Boot Manager ... the old will not install on Win
2003. This process went smoothly. Also, the folder the SDI file is stored in
.... C:\Program Files\Windows Embedded\Remote Boot Manager\Download ... is a
share.

The image is roughly 925 MB right now ... the target has 2 GB RAM.

Anyway, when we boot the target with PXE enabled in the BIOS, we get an IP
sucessfully, but then we get an error message as follows:

"Windows could not start due to an error while booting from a RAMDISK.

Windows failed to open the RAMDISK image."

Has anyone seen this error before?

Thanks,

Craig
 
S

Slobodan Brcin

The image is roughly 925 MB right now ... the target has 2 GB RAM.
Are you trying to set record in remote boot image size?
How long will it take to load this image from server to target device?

I don't recall that I saw this error.

But you should try to put some small file let say 50 MB and name it as sdi.
Just to see if there is problem with file size.


Currently I don't know what else to suggest.

Regards,
Slobodan
 
C

Craig

The size is huge right now, but over GB Ethernet, it's not bad ... loads in
a few minutes. Remote bootability is required as an optional capability for
the product we're developing.

I am making a (much) smaller version for testing and I expect to eventually
cull all the uneccessary stuff out of the TD configuration.

Craig
 
S

Slobodan Brcin

I asked this because my hardware (most likely BIOS) can't even reach 2%
efficiency of my Gigabit network adapter (when used for remote boot).

Have you been able to test load speed trough TFTP, on your device?
Or you have expectations that this will work with speed of 10-100MB per
second.

Regards,
Slobodan
 
C

Craig

I reduced the image size to <400 MB and everything works fine ... boots in
about 3 minutes. Evidently, the rule-of-thumb that says RAM must be 2X the
image size is bunk. Maybe there's an upper limit to image size regardless of
available RAM. I'll have to look into this because of our requirement to
remote boot images that could be up to 1.5 GB.

Craig
 
S

Slobodan Brcin

I'm baffled now with your new question.

Here you said: "Windows failed to open the RAMDISK image."
Why do you think that it is a RAM disk driver problem?

It is RAM disk problem only if your image is loaded in memory (you see
progress bar for long time), and then during the boot it fails (BSOD).

If you don't see SDI image load to memory then this problem is related to
ntldr.

You can try to do RAM boot from local HDD, too see if ntldr. supports images
with such size.

If not then you can create your own loader that will load all data to memory
and then you can execute RAM boot (this is described on MS site).

It is possible that RAM driver also has limitations, since kernel address
space is limited to only 2 GB. So no matter how memory you have if RAM disk
driver does not support some very odd ways to handle this addressing problem
(very unlikely). Then you can't use it for very large images.

You'll probably need to wait for 64 bit XPe. Or to create an alternative
solution.


Regards,
Slobodan
 
P

Pat Azzarello \(Microsoft\)

I think Craig's issue is the size of the image he's trying to load into the
RAMDisk. The RAMDisk size is limited to 500 meg (so you can't have an
embedded image greatern than 500 meg).

He posted another set of questions (see post a few above this one) in
regards to RAMDisk image size.
 
S

Slobodan Brcin

I know that it is related to size, that was my first suggestion.
But I wanted to hear from Craig who can't deal with this image size, ntldr.
or ramdisk driver.

I saw new thread, but since it said (MS Issue) I've choose to post here.

Regards,
Slobodan
 

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