Ok, so I read the article about listing specific hardware id's into the skip.pci.manifest file, however after adding the entry and recompiling the PE image, I get the same hardware error when i run an eval or retarget.  Anyone have any ideas or am i missing something?

skip.manifest.txt is not needed for DA. It is used purely for the situation when one wants to use Winpe to execute tasks from Console but has no driver for it hence why Console will complain and will not let to boot to Winpe. This is only for when this driver can safely be ignored, eg generic AHCI driver.

It is not the case with DA. To match any device on PCI bus DA queries its PCI and Vendor ID and subsystems. It then matches those IDs to IDs in the driver database and installs appropriate drivers. As you can appreciate standard PCI bus driver has no ID to match on hence why no INF. How would you match something that is supposed to be used for matching other devices on?

We probably will need to think of another way of specifying generic drivers as "bunch of drivers to be just taken and installed" rather than being matched. Does your standard image that you deploy not contain this pci.sys in it? You can always manually add it to the base image.

Hope this helps.

Our image does include the pci.sys file, however we're currently trying to test the limits of DA, basically trying to see how wild we can get as far as "hardware independence" goes.  So in this current test, we're trying to push a dell latitude d505 image onto an optiplex 755.  we've already done it the other way around (755 image to older laptop), just trying to figure out why this is problem.  Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Tim

The other variable, and im not sure about this one, is if the pci.sys file changes between service packs.  i don't think it does based off the driver date listed in device manager but i'm not 100% sure.

It could be more to do with the version of the OS that is on the source computer. What OS [including service pack] is on the source?

Also, have a look in

C:\WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386

on the source please post the listing

source os is XP Pro SP2.

it has driver.cab, and sp2.cab

is that what you were looking for?

It is what I asked for, thanks.  Unfortunately it doesn't help solve the problem. This problem may have something to do with the chipsets on the 2 machines being different...but we aren't sure, and we haven't been able to reproduce this type of error in our testing.  The fact that it works going from newer->older but not the other way around is interesting.  If we find anything that can help I will post it to the forum.

So one thought that occurs to me is to reduce the age gap of the machine between the source and target.  If that works, then try going from that target to the 755.  If you do try this, please let us know the outcome.

I'll see what we come up with, if i can get past this stupid pci.sys file, then all is good....grrr!

i've tried several different images from various models both xp sp2 and sp3.  The ONLY images that will run through the DA process successfully is the image taken from another 755.  Even a 745 will not take on this machine. 

A 755 is one of my main test machines and there are no problems with it.  Have you changed the Drives/SATA Operation to ATA in the BIOS? [the default is AHCI]

Michael,

I work with bornslippy and I tried your bios change.  I have to reply that is was a success!!  Switched that and I had a Success with both the /eval and full /target.  

i'm happy to get this resolved, this is really the only problem we've experienced with DA.  Thanks Michael

I will have to report back as to what my BIOS settings were on the 755 I used DA to put an image on today. I'm pretty sure I always leave them default - ATA\Detect or something like that.

Did you happen to switch back the BIOS settings after the successful image transfer?

we'll be trying that tomorrow, or today depending on how you look at it.  I have a feeling that you'll get a blue screen if you change the bus configuration from ata to ahci

Well, to report back I did have the 755 set to "Legacy" and I changed it to "RAID/Auto Detect" and the computer rebooted fine! So I guess I'm all good with this image.

Now, I was able to switch back to RAID/Auto Detect without any type of Boot looping or BSOD's from Legacy mode.

Our 755's do not have a RAID/Autodetect option.  We have RAID/AHCI, RAID/ATA, RAID, and Legacy.

RAID/AHCI and RAID (obviously) will not successfully implement DA with an image of a PC using ATA technology. 

The other two options will work with no problems. 

I'm sorry it is RAID Auto Detect/ATA

BIOS version A11

correct.  ata and legacy modes will work.  Change your option on your test machine to RAID Autodetect/AHCI and see what happens.

bornslippy - I have something for you to try on your Optiplex 755's that allowed me to deploy a Optiplex GX260 to a Optiplex 755.

I wil say to start off that trying to DA the image with RAID/AHCI enabled did produce the pci.sys error.

So you will have to set the BIOS to RAID auto detect/ATA or Legacy to get DA to work. Maybe they will fix this issue?

So, once you use DA to re-target the NIC,HAL, and Mass storage driver you will be able to boot into Windows successfully if you leave the BIOS on RAID Auto Detect/ATA or Legacy.

Once booted into Windows you can change the driver for the Mass Storage to allow you to RE-ENABLE AHCI.

Here are the steps I took.

1. Download driver - R165147 - Linky

2. I used 7-zip to extract the driver, but you can use the self-extraction utility.

3. Go to Device Manager

4. Select IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers

5. Select Standard Dual channel PCI IDE Controller

6. Right-click and slect Properties - you will know you have the right one when it says

       PCI Bus 0, device 31, function 5

7.Go to Driver Tab and click on Update Driver

8.You DO NOT want Windows to search for driver - Install from Specific location

9. Select the radio button "Don't Search. I will install driver myself"

10. Navigate to where you extracted the drivers.

11.Windows will warn you  about it not being the correct driver

12. Windows will give you some drivers to choose from, I selected the bottom one "ICH9" driver.

13. Reboot

14.Success