PXE Boot Menu not updating

Dovik · 08-17-2008, 07:12 PM

Hi,
I have been poking at this issue for a couple days now and just can't get wrapped around it.
I am trying to image a new HP8510p and it appears to have an Intel onboard NIC.
I created a new boot image and configured a new boot disk (DOS) as part of the process, including two Intel 1000 family adapters. The PXE Config Utility appears as illustrated in the attached screen shot.
When I boot the notebook to PXE, I do not see the new boot option in the PXE boot menu on the laptop - in fact, I deleted one of the options in the console/config utility, yet it is still appearing as an option when the client machine boots to PXE.
What am I missing here???
I guess it does not really matter which model notebook, the boot options appear identically on any machine I boot to PXE.
Thanks!
Dov

P.S.
I already tried regenerating the boot images, restarting the PXE Service, just about everything I could think of short of rebooting the Server itself.

MikeAnderson1730 · 08-18-2008, 02:26 PM

Do you have multiple DS's / PXE servers in your environment?

Dovik · 08-18-2008, 03:08 PM

Hi Mike,
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
The short answer would be yes, we have another DS and PXE Server at our corporate HQ on the West coast (different subnet too), however as the client machine boots up it is, or appears to be connecting to our local PXE/DS (both on the same Server).
Are you implying the clients are getting the boot menu from the other PXE Server?
Thanks!

MikeAnderson1730 · 08-19-2008, 12:32 PM

That's what I was getting to. If there is a PXE server on the same subnet as the machines you are PXE booting, then it will default to that server. If that's not your situation, then I would verify that the IP helper for the subnet that you are building the computer on is pointed to the right place.

Dovik · 08-21-2008, 08:45 AM

Hi Mike,
Thanks for the tip but I seem to recall reading about multiple PXE Servers on the same subnet and I am almost positive this does not apply in my scenario.
So given the single PXE Server, I still do not understand why the boot menu does not get refreshed.
If I have to I suppose I can just delete all the existing boot option menus and their corresponding boot images and start over from scratch, but I do not have a high level of confidence the changes I make in the console will be reflected at the client. In other words, why bother if it will not make a difference?
Anyway, it just seems odd to me no one else has seen this behavior before.
Thanks again,
Dov

Dovik · 08-21-2008, 06:34 PM

I was able to get this problem resolved today and thought I would post the resolution in case it may be useful to someone else in the future.
The problem turned out to be the PXE.ini file not being updated correctly, however I suspect the actual root cause was the PXE Config Helper Service.
When comparing the contents of the PXE.ini against what was appearing on the client, one of the values was missing entirely yet appearing on the client, and the order in which the boot options were to be presented to the user appeared differently on the client than how they were configured in the .ini file.
I deleted everything in the PXE.ini file except for the first three rows, then restarted the PXC Config Helper Service. Actuall, when I tried to restart the Service the process hung, and then I just pressed the Start button on the toolbar and it fired right up.
After that, I rebooted a client machine and now see the current boot menu options.
Cheers!
Dov