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"No boot device available" after company image installed
We use a company image ISO to burn a boot flash drive to install scripted company deployment on Optiplex and Precision desktops. We suddenly have a major problem with this deploy method. Once the image has been pushed out and the script is finished, the PC boots beautifully as long as it is still in Legacy mode and the flash drive is still in the USB slot. As soon as we change back to UEFI, or simply remove the flash drive, the system hangs on "No boot device available". We can change it back to factory BIOS settings, still does the same thing. No combination of UEFI settings will work to make it see the boot disk. If we change it back to Legacy, the flash drive has to be inserted for it to boot through to the hard drive. No flash drive = "No boot device available"; any combination of UEFI settings = "No boot device available." This has happened on at least 6 computers in the last two weeks. Dell won't help because we are using a company image. Doesn't make sense to me with the symptoms, but it is what it is. Anybody seen similar symptoms?
MikeInThe901
2 Posts
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April 1st, 2019 14:00
Thanks for your reply.
1. Why would you think it is normal? We should be able to boot to a newly deployed Windows 10 image on the factory hard drive normally without the flash drive that created it still having to be in the USP slot. We have been using company images like this for years; have been using Win10 images successfully for at least the last year that I'm aware of.
2. This has happened on several Precision 3430, and several Optiplex SFF 7050.
3. The image has company logos on it; I'm not sure what app the folks at HQ used to create it. They are troubleshooting/researching separately, but we need answers quickly so I thought I'd see if anyone else has seen the same thing and might have a fix. The fact that it boots just fine if we bypass an inserted flash drive, but can't see the hard drive otherwise, is perplexing.
Tesla1856
8 Wizard
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17K Posts
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April 1st, 2019 14:00
Sounds normal/expected to me.
You don't mention them, so not sure what:
- machines you have
- what version of Windows
- what Imaging software
However, if you search the forum you will find tips and likely your answer.
Philip_Yip
7 Technologist
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16K Posts
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April 2nd, 2019 03:00
How are you making a Bootable USB from this image? Are you using Rufus? If so you should use the GPT Partition Scheme. Note also if your company images install.wim (found in the sources folder of the USB) exceeds 4 GB it will format the USB flash drive as NTFS opposed to FAT32 - so won't pass Secure Boot (this could be one of the reasons you are using a Legacy Boot). You should split your wim to 4 GB chunks in this case. See here for an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1jgF1M0ud4
speedstep
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47K Posts
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April 2nd, 2019 10:00
Systems past Skylake do not support MBR or legacy booting.
Imaging is not supported by Dell or Microsoft.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/314828/the-microsoft-policy-for-disk-duplication-of-windows-installations
This is also why Norton Ghost does not support windows 8 or 10.
EaseUS Todo Backup is 3rd party software for imaging but again its not supported by dell.
https://www.easeus.com/backup-software/tb-free.html
Sysprep is responsible for removing system-specific data from Windows, such as the Computer SID. During installation of Windows, a computer SID is computed to contain a statistically unique 96-bit number. The computer SID is the prefix of the user account and group account SIDs that are created on the computer. The computer SID is concatenated together with the Relative ID (RID) of the account to create the account's unique identifier.
The following example displays the SIDs for four local user accounts. Notice that only the last four digits are incremented as new accounts are added.
S-1-5-21-191058668-193157475-1542849698-500 Administrator
S-1-5-21-191058668-193157475-1542849698-1000 User 1a
S-1-5-21-191058668-193157475-1542849698-1001 User 2
S-1-5-21-191058668-193157475-1542849698-1002 User 3
Cloning or duplicating an installation without taking the recommended steps could lead to duplicate SIDs. For removable media, a duplicate SID might give an account access to files even though NTFS permissions for the account specifically deny access to those files. Because the SID identifies both the computer or domain and the user, unique SIDs are necessary to maintain support for current and future programs. For more information about issues that might occur if you clone an installation of Windows 8 or of Windows Server 2012, go to the "Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 specific information" section.
In addition to the computer SID, many other components and features must be cleaned up, generalized, or specialized in order to be imaged. Some examples include the following:
Tesla1856
8 Wizard
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17K Posts
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April 2nd, 2019 12:00
It's expected because it sounds like you are using cloning (a maintenance tool) as a Deployment solution.
And just because you "got by with it" before, does not mean you always will ... especially with UEFI-based systems.
Ingrid1987
13 Posts
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April 9th, 2019 01:00
Possible causes would be: virus infection, wrong boot drive, damaged internal disk or corrupted MBR.
You can try:
1. Press Shift+F10 from boot to start command prompt in WinPE. Run "chkdsk c: /f /r /x" to check the system drive.
2. At the prompt, input these commands in order:
BOOTREC /FIXMBR
BOOTREC /FIXBOOT
BOOTREC /SCANOS
BOOTREC /REBUILDBCD
If you cannot enter the command prompt from boot, you may need a WinPE bootable device. Follow this page to get the detailed steps: No bootable device available on Dell.
speedstep
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47K Posts
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April 9th, 2019 06:00
Systems Past Skylake require 64 bit windows 10 and UEFI GPT.
Legacy MBR Booting is no longer an option going forward.
This is also why cloning tools like Norton Ghost say they DON'T SUPPORT Windows 8 or 10.
https://community.norton.com/en/comment/4371493#comment-4371493
32 bit driver support is dropped by ATI, NVIDIA, INTEL, QUALCOMM etc.
Once UEFI Bios gets to CLASS 3 LEGACY CSM will be gone forever.
Daz1234
4 Posts
0
January 30th, 2020 03:00
Hi MikeInThe901
We're just seeing this now with Windows 10 1903 UEFI imaging on some 7050 SFFs. We've had no problems with our previous 1803 images.
Did you find a decent fix for this issue?
An observation I have is that in the BIOS / Firmware, I see it has a Windows boot option, but weirdly it is unticked after imaging - this does not happen on any other models (so far).
Cheers, Daz.