Sometimes, you can really lose your time for a little error. Your eyes see, but you don't see what is visible... During my IT Life, I had installed a lot of RIS / WDS. This time, it wasn't me but a colleague with my documentation which had installed a mixed RIS / WDS server on a subsidiary site . Problem when he came back from his trip, he said me it was impossible to install a workstation. Every time, PXE works then we enter all normal information (user, password, then select os...). All works until it hang in "Setup is starting windows...". (This is just after loading drivers in memory or just before windows format your partition).
Strange. In my first analyze, it looked like to be a router problem. Well, I decided to see DHCP configuration: Server options and vlan options seems to be good. I try to find some information on the net about this error, but all that I find is error on windows 2000. (we are in 2003) or problem with network card or graphic card but these workstation had been already installed before at QG without any problems. I search on cisco router to find something, but configuration on core or switch like ip-helper are the same than other sites. I Had tested all what I know, try options 66, 67 and even 60. Well, I had even installed ethereal/wireshark to analyze all frames.
For information, there is no IT on this subidiary at 4000km on south where I work. And like there is no ILO on workstation, to test RIS, I installed vmware player with a .vmx folder containing just definition of a windows XP vmware. I can test a lot of time RIS installation by pushing F12, and try, and try...
Come back to my problem. I test RIS installation on ris server vlan (by changing workstation vlan port), and here it works ! That confirm it is really a router problem. I retest dhcp vlan options, I re-check ethereal capture. Nothing wrong. Switch and core all well configured. All is correct. What's wrong ? ......my eyes... Yes. All the time I will see vlan option, I only see yyy.zzz in router ip address www.xxx.yyy.zzz , and problem was xxx.... My colleague had type 10.20.210.1 as router and not 10.19.210.1 . But something is fun: why workstations already installed didn't have any problem even if this gateway was not good ???... All work on this workstation on this vlan... Except if you try to RIS it...because this wrong gateway didn't exist...
So next time, "put your glasses", Mr Franck RICHARD, put your glasses...
