We’ve got a weird mix of HP/Compaq, Dell and Gateway desktops at work and we’re just now getting to the point where using WDS is actually worthwhile. I ran into a nifty little problem today and couldn’t find any documentation to explain it.
I booted up one of the new Dell desktops and configured it as a master for imaging. I sysprep-ed it as normal and used WDS to PXE boot and image the drive. The image installed back to the machine I ripped it from just fine. The problem (which sort of defeats the purpose of WDS) is that whenever I deployed that image to any other machine, I got the following error:
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.
It’s worth noting that I was using WDS to deploy a Windows XP image, not Vista. I’ve run into this problem before and had a feeling that the error was actually with boot.ini.
The Cause: Dell loads the machines with 2 partitions: 1 for diagnostic tools and 1 for Windows. Note that Windows can’t see the diagnostic partition due to the formatting used.
The image’s boot.ini looked like the following:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=”Microsoft Windows XP Professional” /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
However, because of the Dell diagnostic partition, Windows was actually installing on partition 2.
The Cure:
- Export the image from WDS.
- Mount the image using Imagex.
- Edit the boot.ini file to point to partition 2 (on both lines 3 and 5 of the above example).
- Unmount the image, using the /commit switch.
- Replace the WDS image with the edited copy.
The Result: Windows installs like a charm and I don’t have to teach the tech staff to use diskpart for all 2000 machines.
April 2, 2008 at 8:33 pm |
I am seeing the exact same issue in our school district. Do you know how to automate the removal if the Dell utility partition when booting into WinPE 2.1?
April 3, 2008 at 12:26 am |
I don’t know of any way to automate it, unfortunately. The problem is that the first opportunity you have to edit partition data using this method is when you’re booted into winpe. The format utility doesn’t even see the partition, so that’s pretty useless.
You might be able to do it if you were using Ghost and some creative scripting, but not using WDS. I found it easier to just change thr boot.ini than explore uch further.
August 18, 2009 at 9:55 am |
We have just started using WDS at our school and I have 3 images that are working however I am seeing the same issue with one image. I have searched my mounted image and don’t seem to be able to find the boot.ini file, any help would be greatly appreciated!
August 18, 2009 at 10:59 am |
Yeah, it’s a bit of a pain. Once you find it though, it should work just dandy.