[wds] Windows is loading files...

[Skibby]

Hey you guys,

 

I'm trying to upload a software image using Windows Deployment Sevices. I've created the boot file on the server and booted a client up and got the F12 prompt. After selecting the capture image to use it freezes on a screen displaying "Windows is loading files..." the status bar has got to the end and below that is the IP address of the server and the boot file. It is frozen here and doesn't do anything else. It's been a couple of hours now.

 

I've added the correct drivers using imageX and it's made no difference.

 

Any ideas?

 

Ta.

[sparkeh]

How much RAM you got in the machine?

I had this with a machine with a small amount of RAM.

[Skibby]

It's got 4GB.

[sparkeh]

Ha not that then

[Divaldo]

I have the same problem, we're using Stone laptops and Windows PE wont load, it freezes on the 'Windows is loading files...' screen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SYNACK]

Is it AMD based per chance, I have had some terrible slow down issues with AMD chipsets in Vista/7 PE where the system will hang up for 10 minutes at a time in the initial deployment wizard. Once it gets past this its fine and when installed both 7 and Vista perform fine with no slowdowns. I have never tracked it down as it was a small subset of machines but perhaps it is a chipset issue where the PE drivers hang. Have you tried leaving it for 10 minutes to see if it starts up after that timeout.

[Divaldo]

Thanks, ours are 64bit Intel Core 2 Duo T6600's and we've left them for 4 hours so far!!

[SYNACK]

Have you tried booting the PC locally with a Windows PE cd and manually taking a WIM image to the local hard drive Windows PE 2.0: a tiny version of Windows for system maintenance You may need to add imagex.exe to the disk or have it avalible on the HD of the machine you are imaging.

 

You should be able to add this to WDS manually and it removes the NIC from the equation.

[sted]

might be worth trying one with 2gb ram if its x86 pe might be having issues

[Skibby]

Have you tried booting the PC locally with a Windows PE cd and manually taking a WIM image to the local hard drive Windows PE 2.0: a tiny version of Windows for system maintenance You may need to add imagex.exe to the disk or have it avalible on the HD of the machine you are imaging.

 

You should be able to add this to WDS manually and it removes the NIC from the equation.

 

 

Thanks! It booted from CD fine. I presume this means the problems I'm having are network driver related?

[sparkeh]

Thanks! It booted from CD fine. I presume this means the problems I'm having are network driver related?

 

To me it looks like that.

I haven't used WDS on its own for a while but I just had an SCCM (which uses WDS) capture fail at exactly the same point die to incorrect network drivers. I guess its the point where is stops using the PE driver and tries to use full OS driver?

[rpycroft]

Hi guys, we've just started messing around with WDS and seem to have it working on most PCs but we have a certain type of computer that has this same problem (hanging at the end of the "Windows is loading files..." screen) - the motherboard (which has the LAN card on is an AsRock 775i65G - I've tried updating the BIOS to the latest version to see if that would help but so far not done anything.

 

Has anyone got any ideas how to get around this issue?

 

Thanks for any help offered.

Richard

[rpycroft]

Hi all,

 

Just as a follow up I've sorted the problem at our place now, dunno if it'll help any of you but basically I just disabled a load of stuff in the BIOS (onboard audio, onboard modem, USB, etc (don't disable onboard LAN obviously!) and it appeared to get to the main WDS screen fine and create/deploy images without a hitch. Not quite sure which one it was exactly that was causing the issue but seems to have done the trick.

 

Cheers

Richard

[eejit]

Thanks for that information Richard.

 

We are having the same problem on some RM laptops - but the BIOS is basically empty so there is nothing to enable/disable.

 

Bit stumped at the moment.

[eejit]

Breakthrough!

 

For people in future, there are a certain brand of motherboard that just can't be built using WinPE from the network. Instead burn the ISO and build from there. Worked for us anyway.

Cheers.

[pete]

Have you tried injecting the correct drivers (chipset, nic, storage) into the boot wim using dism.exe?

[MichaelH]

I realise this is a long time after the last posts.... but it may help others later......

 

I have had this problem on a Stone laptop as well, but after some trial and error changes to the BIOS (Phoenix SecureCore) I found that under Advanced --- there is an option for Installed O/S, here I chose Vista / Win 7, but made sure I then changed the SATA Mode Selection to AHCI from IDE.

 

I have now progressed to a Windows setup screen, wich is a heck of a lot further than I have got before. (TIP: If installing a XP image remember to switch SATA Mode Selection to back to IDE from AHCI or you will get a BSOD.

Edited December 4, 2012 by MichaelH

[mrbios]

How to Modify the BCD Store Using Bcdedit

 

Scroll down to find the commands for configuring TFTP window and block size, I've found modifying these to certain values helped me get around issues PXE booting various SIS based boards and some other random ones. Also....and this is going to sound crazy, but i have one particular brand of PC here that can't be imaged unless i completely disable audio in the bios, no word of a lie, i went through every bios setting enabling and disabling until it worked, and on every one of that model disabling the audio worked. Computers eh?

[sonofsanta]

I just turned up here to post this.

That is all.

 

/is clearly just waiting till 4pm at this point

[morganw]

I had this problem on some Samsung laptops. The problem was dodgy PXE boot firmware and a BIOS update from Samsung fixed it.

[ACouch]

I know this is a very old thread but I just wanted to thank mrbios. After spending many frustrating hours working on this issue I finally tried disabling the audio in the bios and unbelieveably this did the trick.

[fairm010]

Click the green Thank Post button