Hello all. Hopefully I can get some help here, as I have been banging my head against the wall for over a week on this one:I am trying to setup OSD for an HP DC7800. We use SCCM Bootable media (USB) to load the WinPE and then we pick a task seqence, which builds the machine for us. This process has worked well on other HP models (DC7900).When we try to boot a DC7800 with the USB, the WinPE begins to load, and displays "Initializing Hardware devices", and then fails with the error: "Unable to read task sequence configuration disk". I see this message in the smsts.log:Failed to find the current TS configuration path TSBootShell 01/12/2010 7:57:46 AM 800 (0x0320)ConfigPath::FindConfigPath(sConfigPath), HRESULT=80070003 (e:\nts_sms_fre\sms\client\tasksequence\bootshell\bootshell.cpp,550) TSBootShell 01/12/2010 7:57:46 AM 800 (0x0320)Failed to find the configuration path. The system cannot find the path specified. (Error: 80070003; Source: Windows) TSBootShell 01/12/2010 7:57:46 AM 800 (0x0320)Execution failed with error 80070003. TSBootShell 01/12/2010 7:57:46 AM 800 (0x0320)I am not sure what this message means exactly, but I am suspicious that it has something to do with the Intel 82566DM network card driver not installing correctly in the WinPE. If I press F8 to load the command prompt in WinPE, and do an ipconfig, I get no results.If I use the exact same usb stick on a DC7900, it works perfectly. Am I on the right path by focusing on the NIC driver?The hardware ID of the NIC in device manager is:PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_10BD&SUBSYS_2818103C&REV_02What I've tried:- Deleted all drivers and driver packages from SCCM console- Imported XP, Vista, and Win7 drivers from HP.com and Intel.com for the 82566 NIC- Built the 7800 using the factory Vista image and pulled the NIC drivers from the C:\drivers folder, and imported them into SCCM- Tried to manually edit the e1e6032.inf driver file and added the Hardware Id for the NIC. This caused the WinPE load to hang- Used the WAIK tools Imagex and the peimg /inf= command to inject the drivers directly into the boot.wim provided by SCCM- Created the boot media using both the x86 and x64 boot images.- Updated the distribution point for the Boot Images between every stepI have read several posts on the net about people having problems with the 82566 driver, but none of thier solutions have worked for me. Is there anybody who could offer me any advice?Another interesting note: When I boot a DC7900 using the USB media, a Windows 7 based WinPE appears to load, but when I use the exact same stick without any changes on a DC7800, a Windows Vista based WinPE appears to load.If anybody could help me out, I would GREATLY appreciate it! Thanks in advance!

you didnt say what version of sccm you are using, if its sccm 2007 sp2 then use only windows 7 nic drivers in your boot.wim files, upgrade both the x86 and x64 boot.wim images with the nic drivers cheers niall My step by step SCCM Guides I'm on Twitter

Thanks Niall. I am using SCCM 2007 SP2.I have imported the Win7 32bit and 64bit drivers from Intel.com into the 32bit and 64bit boot images respectively. This still did not fix the problem.Although now, the boot process seems to hang sometimes at the "Windows is loading files" screen, and then sometimes boots up to the usual "unable to read task sequence configuration disk" error. The hanging problem is similar to when I tried to manually edit the e1e6032.inf to include the exact hardware ID for my NIC.Is there a way to check what version of the WinPE is loaded using the WinPE command prompt?(UPDATE: WMIC OS LIST BRIEF, this returns value of 6.1.7600, which is Windows 7. Still strange that I see the Vista-style loading screen during bootup)Is there a way to check the detected hardware in WinPE command prompt? Is there a "Device Manager"?Can you explain why it looks like a Vista-based WinPE appears to load, but only on this particualr model of hardware? On all other hardware it appears that a Win7 based WinPE is loading. I do not have a Vista-base PE anywhere in SCCM! (See above update)Thanks again for you help.

Does anybody out there have any other ideas for me? Any help is appreciated.

are you booting from usb key ? cd ? or pxe when this problem occurs ? My step by step SCCM Guides windows-noob on Twitter

USB.

and have you definetly and absolutely updated the boot images to the dps and then recreated the usb key after that ? My step by step SCCM Guides windows-noob on Twitter

Definitely and absoultely yes. Do you think the NIC driver is the source of this problem? Or could it be some other issue? I don't think it is HDD drivers because I am able to browse the HDD from the command prompt in the PE.

We have the same issue, I am conducting BIOS changes to see if I can resolve the issue. Update 22/04/2010:- I have found that a test machine we have here is a DC7800p and has BIOS V1.04 (initial release) our task seqeuence is querying WMI for:- WMI Namespace : root\cimv2 WQL Query : Select * FROM Win32_BIOS WHERE SMBIOSBIOSVersion LIKE "%786F1%" Which clearly it has not been working for a while, I am doing a re-build/re-image now and will look at the task seqeuence to see why it has not evaluated it. Update : 23/04/2010:- I found the fix :-) the machine we had was not built to a recent Task Sequence, therefore the WMI query wascorrect and upgraded from V01.04 -> V01.27 then the USB works, therefore we are using the following before a machine is built from a USB stick for DC7800sff :- http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=uk&prodTypeId=12454&prodSeriesId=3459241&prodNameId=3459245&swEnvOID=1093&swLang=13&taskId=135&swItem=vc-66351-1&mode=3 Use the DOSFlash folder and the only files you need for direct BIOS flashing are:- 7F1_0127.bin flsh.cpu <!-- [if gte mso 10]> <mce:style> 1. Copy the BIOS files to the root of a removable storage device 2. Insert the removable storage device with the BIOS files into the machine and power it on 3. Press ‘F10’ to enter the BIOS 4. Select ‘English’ 5. Select ‘System Information’ 6. Check that the ‘System BIOS’ field states ‘786F1 V01.27’ Note: If the ‘System BIOS’ field already states ‘786F1 V01.27’ you do not need to continue this section 7. Press ‘Any Key’ to continue 8. Select ‘Flash System ROM’ 9. Select your removable storage drive that the BIOS files reside on then press ‘F10’ 10. Select ‘7f1_0127.bin’ and press F10 11. Press ‘F10’ to start the flashing process (WARNING – Do NOT power off or restart ) 12. Once complete press ‘any key’ to continue and press ‘F10’ -> Enter -> ‘F10’ 13. Enter the BIOS by pressing ‘F10’ -> Select ‘English’ -> Select ‘System Information’ -> Check that the ‘System BIOS’ field states ‘786F1 V01.27’

Updated my post above with the fix that we are using.

Wow, thank Aaron. I feel pretty stupid for not thinking of trying a BIOS update. I was focused on SCCM drivers being the issue. Thanks again!

Had the exact same issue on the HP dc7800. BIOS update fixed the issue. Thanks!!!!