iPXE boot failed when raid configured logical disk is created and attached on smart array card

[wonhiwon]

Hello

I have operated number of various generation of HP Proliant 2u servers and recently added ipxe server in our networks.

DHCP and ipxe servers were properly configured and tested well.

Initially tested server did not have local disk. iPXE worked successful. It correctly received IP and boot strap location and iscsi IQN. OS (Windows 2008 R2) was booted correct.

Issue was occurred when raid configured logical disk was added.

As the logical disk was attached  even though  iPXE process seemed to work correct but system was hang after it found iscsi IQN address.

Servers are DL380 and on board NICs are mostly  331T.

I have seen several similar threads but not root causes or solutions were posted. I'd like to share your knowledge on this matter if anyone has experienced of this.

Thanks for your input in advance

[BS33]

this is due to IRQ sharing between the local SA controller and the NIC.   As a workaround, you can use NIC port 2 as the network boot (or any port that does not share the same IRQ as the local SA controller). 

1. go into ROM Based Setup Utility (RBSU) (F9).    

2. set the network boot option for NIC port 1 to disabled and NIC port 2 (or which ever port chosen) to enabled.  This setting is found under the system options, embedded NIC option in ROM Based Setup Utility (RBSU).    

If you already have WIndows 2008 R2 deployed on the iSCSI target, there are multiple Microsoft KB articles and a HotFix available from Microsoft that will need to be deployed before changing the NIC boot port.  Failing to deploy the hotfix from MS will cause the system to BSOD 0x7B or reboot during OS load. 

From one of the MS KB articles:

"Cause:
In Windows Server 2008 R2, 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.

The NDIS LWF driver is neither a boot-start driver nor is it compatible with paging I/O. When any of the above systems, where NDIS LWF driver is bound to an iSCSI boot adapter, are started, Windows may fail to boot and/or causes a bugcheck 0x7B (INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE)."

"0x0000007B" Stop error when you replace an iSCSI or PCI Express network adapter or a motherboard with an identical device on a Windows Server 2008 R2-based or Windows 7-based computer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2344941

Windows may fail to boot from an iSCSI drive if networking hardware is changed
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/976042

FIX: Stop error when you replace an iSCSI network adapter or a motherboard by using an identical device on a Windows Server 2008-based or Windows Vista-based computer: "0x0000007B"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2487376