Snap Deploy PXE

When I PXE-boot my Dell PowerEdge SC1425 with SATA-RAID system the system does get valid address from my DHCP server then indicates:

Auto-Select:
Acronis Loader
BOOT SERVER IP: 0.0.0.0
PXE-E32: TFTP open timeout
TFTP.....


The system will not boot the Acronis Loader to get the Acronis Master Image Creator or the Acronis Snap Deploy Agent that are installed at my PXE Server.

The PXE server log shows no activity. The Management Console shows no hosts available in the "Deployment" tab.

When I boot from the Acronis boot CD created from the Management Console, the Snap Deploy agent starts, shows the Connecting to Management Server window, then goes to a blank window with just the Acronis watermark in the lower right and a working mouse.

The PXE server log shows no activity. The Management Console shows no hosts available in the "Deployment" tab.

The server is an eval license that shows status:
C:\Program Files\Acronis\LicenseServer>licenseservercmdline --status tinytot
Acronis Snap Deploy Trial -- 5/5 available

The server host (windows 2000 pro) has no firewall and is otherwise accessible, as suggeted by the PXE boot's Acronis reference (how else would it know what is available).

What shall I do to force an agent-server connection?

 

...and the same boot CD works fine with a Dell Precision desktop system: it makes progress through the "connecting to Acronis OS Deploy Server" stage and is visible from the Management Console as an available Deploying Client.
TPM

 

waiting for an answer on this too...

 

I submitted similar request to support@acronis.com regarding the Acronis True Image product. The first solid response is that "We regret to inform you that the current version of Acronis True Image bootable rescue media doesnt support CERC RAID because of the lack of open source drivers.
We`re sorry for your inconvenience."

I googled the cerc sata aacraid subject to find others with the problem and maybe some open source available... but also maybe even that source having problems with using the drivers against hardward configured for RAID.

Mightly frustrating...

 

This info helped a lot. 'Makes me frustrated to use Acronis in my Windows environment if I am dependent on having Linux support for all hardware before Acronis will work. Hopefully they will help me understand how this is not a limitation.

http://linux.dell.com/storage.shtml

CERC SATA 2S
The CERC SATA 2S RAID controller is a combination BIOS and driver-based software RAID solution, which uses the system motherboard's SATA controllers. It is not a hardware RAID solution such as the aacraid and megaraid controllers listed above.
Systems with this controller include the PowerEdge 800, SC1425, and 420SC.

Under Windows and Netware, there are special device drivers which operate in conjunction with the system BIOS to present the system SATA disks as a RAID volume.

Under Linux, the disks should be treated as two independent disks, which use the standard Linux "MD" software RAID layer for RAID 0 or 1 operation (if you so desire). System Documentation on support.dell.com describe how to configure the system BIOS to either disable the RAID mode, or to set up the disks as two independent RAID volumes (effectively disabling the BIOS software RAID feature).

 

well i dont have the same issue with the server, but sill awaiting some decent instructions on setting up the pxe service in windows
3com's boot services works, but i cant get acronis's pxe server to communicate with the clients

can anyone help with this - running a windows 2003 environment, with the pxe server currently on the DHCP server (i have put it on other machines, but the clients still timeout - i have it on the dhcp server because 3coms recommended), with the Scope Option 60 enable

??

 

Hello iodan,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Complete System Deployment Software.

Once you have installed Acronis PXE Server you should be able to connect to it after setting the appropriate option in BIOS. Please note that your computer must support booting with PXE to let you use this feature.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

I have a similar issue, with where the snap deploy fails. Ive configured the server and can send the image to the server but when i go to go into the deploy section the software locks up with a blue screen and the acronis watermark at the bottom. The systems im running are just basic systems and they dont contain any raid or sata drive's. Does the same thing on both the cd and pxe boot.

 

Hello Jason,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Complete System Deployment Software.

Could you please describe on which computer you get the blue screen with Acronis watermark? Also please clarify whether you are able to see the "Loading please wait" string after the splash screen.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

Yes it gets right up to the point its trying to connect to the OS Deploy Server then after a long time it clicks over to that blue screen. The machine is a Celeron 2.6 865G Chipset 512mb ram onboard lan and a 40GB IDE HDD

 

Looks like it times out connecting to the OS deploy server.

 

The e-mail support told me to hit f11 and take out quiet and enter a command mode and output a log file to disk but when i ran the command it got up to saying the network card was up and how fast it was etc and that was it.

 

Hello Jason,

Is it possible to take a shot of the screen after you press F11 button and send to support@acronis.com? Does the same thing happens when you boot with Acronis Bootable CD?

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

Both boot methods come back with the same result. It makes me think its a network/server issue cos ive tried two different machines but both with the same result two machines different hardware but both stop at the same point. Right after it says connecting to the os deploy server which the bars that show progress never appear to fill and it goes straight to the blue screen with your watermark.

 

make sure file server is running..

it should be running for TFTP to work

Acronis FileServer ==service

 

Hello Sundhar,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Complete System Deployment Software.

We appreciate your collaboration on this matter.

If you have any further experience to share, please feel free to post it on this forum.

Thank you.
--
Kirill Omelchenko