Urgent Windows Help Needed! iSCSI migration

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Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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All,

I have and existing WS2012 R2 installation. Nothing really exciting, but it is there. I need to get it booting off of iSCSI (FreeNAS Corral) and hopefully today for some testing.

I think I need the "for dummies" guide to this: Boot Directly from an iSCSI SAN

From where I got yesterday/ this morning Network booting help: Installing and Booting Windows to FreeNAS Corral iSCSI I can connect to the iSCSI, it will start to boot, then the iSCSI OS drive just disappears. I think the OS is taking over the NIC and that is killing the iSCSI connection.

Basically what I need to do is lift an existing installation, change the boot to the iSCSI LUN. I can get all the BIOS bits to work, it is just the Windows part that has be perplexed.
 

cesmith9999

Well-Known Member
Mar 26, 2013
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About iSCSI Boot

Requirements for iSCSI Boot deployment
This section details the requirements for deploying iSCSI Boot on Windows computers.

Windows versions iSCSI Boot is supported only on Windows Server. Client versions of Windows, such as Windows Vista® or Windows 7, are not supported.

Network requirements When you configure a server to boot by using iSCSI, you must have a dedicated network adapter on a dedicated network for iSCSI network traffic. At least one additional network port and adapter are required for all other network traffic.

Chris
 

Patrick

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@cesmith9999 if only it were that easy... dedicated NIC - no problem! Windows Server 2012 R2 OS. This is killing me.
 

nitrobass24

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Dec 26, 2010
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Can you post the settings for your target on FreeNAS? Also do you have DHCP Option 17 configured for your iSCSI boot network?
 

Patrick

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Can you post the settings for your target on FreeNAS? Also do you have DHCP Option 17 configured for your iSCSI boot network?
At this point not using DHCP for iSCSI to eliminate potential failure points.

One issue was the disk was not initialized. I mounted on a Windows machine, initialized and that helped.

The next was I was using UEFI on the second machine. That makes it so you cannot find the iSCSI volume.

I got past Copying Windows Files

and then got stuck at Getting Files Ready for Installation 0%

Fun times.
 

Patrick

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@cesmith9999 only one Intel NIC is configured as "primary" the second NIC is configured as "disabled".

upload_2017-4-10_16-56-12.png

If someone wants to do this, $100 if you can get it working :)
 

Patrick

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Need to get Optaning!

So, just as a test I did the:
  • iSCSI mount the FreeNAS LUN on Win 10 in the office
  • Make Win 10 Hyper-V VM, offline the lun and give to the VM
  • Install WS2012 R2 through the VPN link
Right now it is 35% and slowly going so the problem vectors are narrowing.
  • iSCSI on FreeNAS - If it can install WS over a WAN connection, I know that it isn't too slow of networking (FreeNAS has a 40GbE and the Optane server has a 10Gbase-T).
  • I also know the FreeNAS LUN is working.
  • Since I can see and start the installer locally via iKVM ISO mounting in the data center, and doing that I can see the FreeNAS LUN in the Windows installer, I know that something is at least right/ close with the BIOS and X540-at2 firmware.
So close! I am going to try a sysprep on the iSCSI LUN after it finishes
 
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Marsh

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May 12, 2013
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I am going to detail how I remote iscsi boot my Intel H2312JFJR chassis with Intel S2600JF , S2600WP , S2400LP system boards.
No sure how it will help you.

Windows 2012r2 server os
System BIOS setting , Network : configure iSCSI instead of PXE boot, enter iSCSI target configuration.
Boot from DVD or virtual DVD.
At some point, during the Installation dialog, ( I forgot which screen ), it would prompt you for addition drivers if you have it.
The Intel network driver bundle with the Windows 2012r2 OS DVD is few years old, ( not good for iSCSI boot ).
I extract the latest Intel network driver NDIS64 from ProWinx64.exe into a USB stick, make a directory called
Intel_W81_WS12_NDIS64 ( the directory name reminded me it is NDIS64).
Install the new Intel network driver, then continue with Windows installation.
 
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Marsh

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google "windows wfp iscsi boot" for more fun time.

a new NDIS Light Weight Filter (LWF) driver is introduced called “WFP Lightweight Filter”. When Windows is installed on a local disk, this filter driver is installed and bound to all network adapters, including the network adapter to be used for iSCSI boot. If Windows is installed directly on an iSCSI disk, Windows Setup makes sure that the LWF driver does not get installed on the network adapter used with iSCSI boot. If, however, there are secondary iSCSI boot adapters (like in a fail-over environment) in the machine that are not configured for such roles during the Windows installation (e.g. an iSCSI Bios Firmware Table (iBFT) is not presented at install time or such devices are added later), the LWF driver is installed and bound on all such secondary or fail-over devices.


To get around LWF problem, sometimes , I install Windows OS on a local disk, run bindview.exe to unbind LWF filter from the iSCSI network card. Then capture the images ( example using GHOST.exe ) and copy the OS image to iSCSI disk.
 

Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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FreeNAS Corral iSCSI Windows Intel NIDS64 Driver ISO.JPG FreeNAS Corral iSCSI Windows Intel NIDS64 Driver.JPG

Now I am getting:
FreeNAS Corral iSCSI Windows Intel NIDS64 Driver Error.JPG

It will not get past the first step.
 

Marsh

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How do you have Drive 4?
Could you limit to disk 0 for Windows Installation?
 

Patrick

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How do you have Drive 4?
Could you limit to disk 0 for Windows Installation?
No chance sadly. There is an Optane disk and P3700 and I do not see an option to disable them in BIOS.

The goal is to have Optane v. P3700 v. S3700 v. 12gbps SAS so it is sitting in the DC with all of those.

Looks like the install is now stalled here upload_2017-4-10_20-25-24.png
 
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Marsh

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Is FreeNAS iSCSI required?

Sometimes, I installed Windows OS to a physical disk, then run disk2vhd , copy the vhd file to a Microsoft iSCSI server, then boot the baremetal off Microsoft iSCSI server with the newly created vhd file.
The caveat is no hardware change allow, must run with the incidental hardware when vhd was created.
 
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