I am trying to perform Windows Server OS installation on an iSCSI disk presented over my NIC adapter, using Microsoft?s iSCSI initiator, but the iSCSI disk shows up as offline in the OS installation phase. I have confirmed that
a. there is a single path (no MPIO) to the iSCSI disk and there are no partitions on the iSCSI disk.
b. NIC adapter?s UEFI driver detects the iSCSI disk and lists the same under bootable devices
c. The iBFT (iSCSI Boot Firmware Table) is setup correctly by the UEFI driver. This is also confirmed by the fact that the disk is detected, the iSCSI login process has been successful.
After the disk shows up as offline if I try to bring it online (either via the installation GUI or diskpart), I get the error code 0x80042811 which resolves to VDS_E_SYSTEM_DISK (Disk attributes cannot be changed on the current system disk or BIOS disk 0).
I could not find any documentation on what causes the installation process to mark the disk as offline (other than MPIO configuration). Any pointers on how I can proceed with debugging this issue? Is there any specific requirement for the installation process to show the disk as online?
Did you provide the NIC driver to the OS installation? You may need to inject the driver to the installation media, so it will be available at early WinPE boot phase.
> I could not find any documentation on what causes the installation process
to mark the disk as offline
IIRC from my past experience working on making a NAND Flash SSD with host-side drivers bootable, this happens in the scenario Alex already mentioned - i.e. the device was accessible in the UEFI processing phase through the EFI driver for the hardware but the host side driver is not loaded in PE environment which could happen for numerous reasons.
>Being inbox may not necessarily imply being loaded. Can you check the logs to
ascertain the same ? There is this Technet forum discussion where a user seems
to have the NIC driver in the boot image but it is not getting loaded :
The driver has loaded correctly and it does transport iSCSI traffic on the network which is what lets the disk being discovered. The specific problem I have is that the disk shows up as offline (as in I cannot perform any operations on the disk)
Yes Alex, the iSCSI login and subsequent SCSI commands are successful. Currently I am checking on any specific UEFI requirements for the disk to show up as online. Will update this thread if I have any breakthrough.
<lun. thus it decides that the volume is not boot-accessible.> Would you know what specifically does WinPE look for as part of matching the UEFI LUN? I am looking at the usual fields such as the MAC/IP address of the initiator port, IP address of the target, IQN and logical unit number and they all seem to match.</lun.>
It’s been a long time since I worked on similar stuff. IIRC, Windows is matching a drive signature in the MBR. I don’t think BIOS provides INQUIRY information. The installer may need to modify the MBR for that through BIOS.
Does UEFI need to support write? Does your UEFI driver support iSCSI write?
Yes Alex, the UEFI driver supports iSCSI write.
Digging deeper, I noticed that there were a few read requests that the UEFI driver failed to transmit on the wire, happening as soon as the Windows loader kicks in. I suspect this is a possible reason for the disk to show up offline.
Right now, this is being debugged from UEFI pov.