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Garbled console text on a headless computer (serial port only) when booting from a PXE image

  • 1.  Garbled console text on a headless computer (serial port only) when booting from a PXE image

    Posted Jul 03, 2007 03:32 PM
    I have a computer that has no keyboard or monitor. It has a serial port to which I have a laptop connected. I view the activity on the console of this computer by viewing activity on the serial port. To view it I am using the Windows HyperTerm.  The serial port is COM1: set up as 9600,n,8,1.  When I attempt to save an image from this computer onto my GhostServer  I perform a PXE boot on the client and I see the following messages:
    PXE menu Boot File v1.10
    Transferring Image File
     
    After about 10 seconds I see about 10 lines of "garbled text" displayed on the screen and then the client connects to the Ghostcast Server.    I have tried various HyperTerm translation modes and baud rates but the text continues to be garbled. All text is displayed correctly until the PXE image is transferred and the computer boots up on that image.
     
    I have added the line "CTTY COM1:" to the autoexec.bat and config.sys files within the "pxe" file.  I also added the "-blind" command line argument to the line in autoexec.bat where Ghost is executed.
     
    Any suggestions as to why the text is garbled once the pxe image is downloaded and then executed? I need to be able to see the text for troubleshooting purposes as I have had problems saving and restoring images to this "blade" computer.

    Message Edited by DaveK on 07-03-200712:34 PM



  • 2.  RE: Garbled console text on a headless computer (serial port only) when booting from a PXE image

    Posted Jul 09, 2007 04:50 AM
    Hi Dave,

    I assume you use 3Com PXE server, is that right?

    Most probably, the garbled text is appearing when the PXE menu is displayed. Since this happens before the machine boot to DOS, what ever is changed in the image is not gonig to help.

    Could you try directly assigning the boot image (instead of the PXE menu) and see if it works?

    Krish