I just moved to WinPE 3.0, and am having similar issues with a similar NIC - all new HP models have the 82577LM and 82577LC NIC. I can PXE Boot to the console just fine with my modified WinPE image. I can run the clone task from the console successfully, but if I include "configuration" in the task, it will clone the machine, go back to the console, disconnect and push down the configuration, and then reconnect to the console, and just wait - constantly indicating its connected to the console. The task will eventually time out as it never makes it to the target OS.
When dealing with a machine that has always worked in PCDOS environment (HP dc7900) - when running a clone task on a system that is already in the OS and shows up in the console as connected, it updates the PreOS files, pushes the configuration, and then just waits for it to reboot into the virtual partition. It never occurs. What does happen though is the virtualpartion files on the root of C are there, the client disconnects from the console, and occasionally explorer or the system lock up. But no reboot and the task times out. Forcing a reboot doesn't work. And once again, if you pushed configuration, it has already created the new machine account, but isn't re-imaged and doesn't re-connect, so each time the system comes back up after attempting a clone, it is now disconnected from the domain....
I updated the WinPE drivers in the Ghost Boot Wizard with Vista drivers before ever starting, and made sure the machines I'm working with have the proper PreOS client selected. I've tried re-installing the client. I've switched to PCDOS, performed a config refresh, switched to WinPE, did another refresh and tried again to no avail. The task still just starts, gives the warning splash, pushes the virtualpart files to the root of C:\, and then just sits and times out - eventually the client and/or OS will hang. On reboot the machine is off the domain (because in the configuration step it creates the new machine account). Without configuration selected in the task, the machine just sits, client disconnects, and then task times out. No domain disconnect, but system still ends up hanging with no reboot into virtualpartition.
Sounds like WinPE 3.0, the newest version of ghost, new NIC drivers, and simple reboot commands aren't working together in some fashion. Any help would be much appreciated as WinPE is pretty much the only PreOS option anymore - none of our new hardware coming in has PCDOS compatible drivers anywhere to allow SATA imaging etc., and 2K8 R2 pretty much necessitates that we use WinPE for our environment.