[wds] Deploying Windows 7 to a Dell Optiplex 380

[Fatmas]

Right, I've had the deployment for Windows 7 working on all of the machines in the school (Optiplex 760's, SX280's, 755's D520's etc.) Now we have a new Optiplex 380 in so we try and deploy W7 to that and this is what happens after clicking on "Install new OS "

 

http://imgur.com/RU5rC.jpg

 

 

I've downloaded the Network drivers from the Dell website and injected them into the share. I had also read that it may be a problem with the machine being too quick and not waiting for the DHCP to catch up so I also have a script that delays that a bit. None of these things are working and I'm starting to rage.

 

Any ideas? It seems like the driver isn't installed but i've injected and reinjected the network drivers in and it doesn't make any difference. /Ragequit

Edited April 26, 2010 by Fatmas

[SYNACK]

Did you rebuild the deployment share and PXEboot WIM image after adding the drivers and then re-add the newly compiled WIM boot image with the drivers back to WDS. This caught me out the first time I did it to as it is not automatic and will keep using the old image without the drivers till you re-add the newer WIM image.

[Fatmas]

Yeah I updated the deployment share and forced it to renegerate the boot image, it still isn't working.

 

One thing we are going to try and do is install Windows 7 onto the machine using the DVD, extract the drivers and create a new image from that machine. If we do that and it works on the other models we have I will be happy. (Yet Raged that it didn't work in the first place).

[ZeroHour]

Is it possible that you have 2 instances of the same driver (different versions) to the boot image?

[Fatmas]

Where I have been mucking around there are a couple of instances of this particular driver (Broadcom 57xx) so I have deleted the copies. I'll let you know if it makes a difference!

[Fatmas]

Update: Deleted the copies of drivers and it still didn't work. On Dell's website they had a WinPE cab file that had a bunch of drivers included. I added those and rebuilt the image but alas, it still comes up with the same error message.

 

Has anyone else had this or similar problem?

[ZeroHour]

Do you have the inf file?

Can you rename it to .txt and attach and I will literally check to see if the card is supported.

[Fatmas]

Attached. It matches the driver it was complaining about number for number. It's still broken.

 

Oh, and now other models fail during deployment. This is brilliant

oem3.txt

[ZeroHour]

Ahh btw what I have found when you accidently merge multiple versions is that you should manually go to the boot image->properties and remove all the drivers that are duplicates (including the one you want to remain) then rebuild the boot image. After its rebuild integrate the drivers again and see if it works this time. I *think* it has issues removing duplicates and that would explain why all that use that broadcom are now borked for you.

[Fatmas]

Right, I have the deployment back working on every other model of machine without any problems. But on the 380 it comes up with the "Cannot connect to deployment share" malarky. I've stripped out drivers and re added them. Everything I can think of but the damn thing just won't connect to the share.

[CaptainJack]

Are you mixing up your x86 and x64 versions? That was one of the problems we ran into. Also, we managed to overcome the whole mess by dumping every NIC driver we had into the boot image. It bloated the boot image, but at least we were able to get it to work. The nice thing about this was that it not only solved this problem, but it has (so far) kept our older machines from being picky. I wasn't able to tell from what I read, did you delete ALL of your other boot images after injecting the drivers?

[Fatmas]

Update: FIXED! I finally managed to fix the issue. CaptainJack actually suggested it but I had already fixed it when I saw his reply. I dumped the NIC drivers for those new Broadcom 57xx ethernet chips into the boot image and it started working. It's strange as I have never had to do that with any other network drivers. If anybody else has this problem here are 3 useful links I found that clarified the process. N.B I used DISM rather than Imagex as the latter seemed to cause my PC to crash and burn each time.

 

Mount a WIM image using DISM

 

Add or remove drivers using DISM

 

Unmount and cleanup WIM image using DISM

 

 

This was the best thing I saw all day yesterday:

 

http://imgur.com/iowSD.jpg

 

Note: I changed the Solution Accelerators banner at the bottom as those guys were far too happy.

Edited April 30, 2010 by Fatmas

[CaptainJack]

I'm glad to hear that worked for you. I don't know what it is about those Broadcomm NICs.

[whobe]

Did you rebuild the deployment share and PXEboot WIM image after adding the drivers and then re-add the newly compiled WIM boot image with the drivers back to WDS. This caught me out the first time I did it to as it is not automatic and will keep using the old image without the drivers till you re-add the newer WIM image.

This is what it ended up being for us. Even though MDT recreates the boot image you still need to go into WDS and replace the boot image there as well. Thanks for the tip SYNACK.

[Mifodiy]

Fatmas hi.

Can you tell me wich image you injected with NIC drivers ? boot or install ?

I kinda tryed both , but WDS still says there is no driver for NIC.

Please help , i have about 100 machines to install !!!