Making Ghost WinPE / Vista 32-bit to work with Intel i217-lm chipset.
By Terry Waskowich
First: This is not a Symantec supported solution.
Do Not call Symantec for support with this solution. Use at your own risk... But it works!
A fellow IT colleague on campus came and asked if we experienced communication issues with Ghost Console Suite 2.51 and Dell 9020/7020 computers.
I was asked to help them and find a solution. The colleague was adamant that there was no solution available.
After looking on both the Intel and Symantec forums to find they also acknowledged there were no solution available.
After some days working on this here and there, I downloaded the I210 driver set for Vista and modified the .inf to recognize the Dell 9020 i217-LM Network Adapter Hardware Id of PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_153A&SUBSYS_05A41028. Vista 32-bit loaded the driver set and received an IP address.
I used Vista 32-bit since it was quicker to load up driver sets than recreating the Ghost WinPE image or having to reboot Ghost WinPE when manually loading a driver set would not give me a proper result. Every post I read stated that if the drivers work under Vista 32-bit then they will work under Ghost WinPE.
Unfortunately this was not the case here. Ghost WinPE recognized the hardware but the driver fails to actually load in the bootable WinPE environment and resulting in no IP of course. Ipconfig.exe would only show one line : “Windows IP Configuration”. Ghost app shows an IP of 127.0.0.1 .
I started to look at this another way and searched for other intel chipset (with similar release years) that had issues with Vista. Found a post describing Vista 32-bit issue with a different Intel NIC. Downloaded the posted.sys file, renamed it and now the driver set works in both Ghost WinPE and Vista 32-bit.
Unfortunately posting a modified .inf and a nic driver .sys file that was pulled from an unkown source might be against Intel’s “materials” agreements.
So after some hard looking, the nic driver .sys is actually on Intel’s own site; believe it or not. (I did a MD5 checksum compare to find it).
Here are the instructions on how to create your own driver set for the I217.
After reading the following I feel embarrassed on how quickly this should have been accomplished before.
I would like that thanks the guys at https://communities.intel.com/thread/43218?sr=stream for starting the thread.
Thanks for kamouille on the intel communities for his comments.
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How to get the I217-LM to work in Ghost WinPE 32-bit (Vista 32-bit too).
1) Download the Intel 18.1 CD contents from http://downloadmirror.intel.com/22641/eng/18_1_CD.zip
*You can try other versions of Intel CD sets, but some will not load and the result is an IP of 127.0.0.1.
2) Extract the .zip file to your computer (eg: c:\)
3) Edit the e1r6032.inf file as follows: (thanks kamouille)
e1r6032.inf file from folder c:\PRO1000\Win32\NDIS61
in the [Intel.NTx86.6.0.1] section and this one line:
%E153ANC.DeviceDesc% = E1533.6.0.1, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_153A
in the [Strings] sections add this one line:
E153ANC.DeviceDesc = "Intel(R) I217-LM Gigabit Network Connection"
(optional for W2K8)
in the [Intel.NTx86.6.0] section Just have this one line:
%E153ANC.DeviceDesc% = E1533, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_153A
4) Save it!
Now you might have to add the &SUBSYS_05A41028 (This is from a Dell 9020) to the end of the PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_153A lines above.
This additional information can be found within Windows Device Manager.
Using Device Manager find the i217 Network adapter, go into the Properties and then under Details tab select Hardware Ids from the dropdown menu.
Some NICs need their &SUBSYS_xxxxxxxx information to load the driver properly.
You are Done. Now add that driver set to your Ghost Solution Suite WinPE via GSS Boot Wizard and enjoy not needing to walk to each machine!
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*** Now if you want a cleaner driver set do the following but only after the above modified driver set has been tested to work.
1) Edit your new modified e1r6032.inf and
remove all other entries under [Intel.NTx86.6.0.1] section so it only shows this one line.
%E153ANC.DeviceDesc% = E1533.6.0.1, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_153A
(optional for W2K8)
remove all other entries under [Intel.NTx86.6.0 section so it only shows this one line.
%E153ANC.DeviceDesc% = E1533, PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_153A
2) Save it!
3) Copy the following files from c:\pro1000\win32\NDIS61 to c:\i217
e1r6032.cat
e1r6032.din
e1r6032.inf
e1r6032.sys (MD5 checksum value : 31f6fd7d6013b2f713142ee6d627f935)
e1rmsg.dll
NicCo26.dll
NicInE1R.dll
PROUnstl.exe
I prefer this way since most IT techs have only one Ghost WinPE setup and this will prevents overlapping of driver sets that may have the same intel hardware Ids in the .inf file.
I hope this helps you all! This has confirmed to work on Dell 7020, 9020 and 9030 models. Worked on an HP Laptop with i217 as well.
* Please note there are no storage device driver for the Dell 7020 built into Ghost.
I will soon write up the how to make your own Dell 7020 compatible driver set for Ghost Winpe.
Terry Waskowich