WDS + MDT No response from server

[magikmike]

Hopefully someone who's used WDS can help me out with this one...

 

I'm beginning a deployment of windows 7, and found that some of our machines just cannot boot into the WDS environment. It seems location specific rather than related to the hardware of the machine - for example in one lab where this error occurs I brought a machine back to my office where it worked perfectly!

 

The machines all get DHCP data correctly, and load the wdsnbp.com file they're directed to in DNS. They then state "DHCP Referral" before they then hang for a few seconds then say "no response from windows deployment services server" and offer the usual press F12 to boot - pressing F12 just gets a winPE error of cannot find boot file.

 

The machines that boot successfully dont say anything about a "DHCP Referral" as it seems they discover the WDS server directly.

 

I'm not sure why this happens - we don't use VLANs, and everything is in a single subnet (although the servers are above the DHCP address range, they're still part of the same subnet)

 

Thanks for your help!!

[MordyT]

Hit f8 and see if you can do a IPconfig....

Edit: may not apply in your case since pe hasn't loaded yet. Disregard.

Edited May 28, 2013 by MordyT

[morganw]

I would take a guess that you have STP enabled on some of your switches, but not on others. It's probably causing a timeout on the DHCP referal. If this is the case possible solutions could be: disable STP on your switches, enable the portfast STP mode on relevant ports, or set DHCP options for bootfile-name and next-server on your DHCP server rather than rely on WDS to interject with it's own settings.

[magikmike]

Thanks for your quick replies!

F8 doesnt work, as i cant get that far. STP isnt enabled on any of our switches, and i even double checked the switches between this location and the server. I also already have DHCP options set for server and boot file name :-(

[magikmike]

I've been doing some more testing on-site, and found that anything behind a HP Procurve 2626 switch fails to PXE boot correctly. I looked up the latest firmware, and there in the resolved issues of the release notes it states "DHCP Snooping (PR_0000044797) - When a PXE protocol DHCP-offer packet is sent from a boot server through a trusted port, the switch drops the packet."

 

looks like i'm upgrading firmware tomorrow!

[MordyT]

I'm fighting a similar issue, except i think the problem is in the bios firmware. Good luck to you

[magikmike]

seems it's definitely the switch - all the procurve 2626 switches we have on site behave exactly the same, and a firmware update hasnt fixed it... not impressed!!!

[Guest Guest1245]

Have you been able to resolve this issue? I am currently facing the same issue.