OEM manufacturer's BIOS will not allow for machines to boot to PXE or iPXE

Products

• Ghost Solution Suite
• Deployment Solution

Issue/Introduction

Some newer BIOS won't allow for the machine to PXE or IPXE boot 

Environment

This BIOS is on some newer or updated BIOS version from OEM manufacturers

OEM manufacturers such as Dell, Lenovo, and HP are starting to add DMA protection to the BIOS to prevent unintended Direct  Memory Attacks for all DMA-capable devices during the boot process.

Cause

"Enable Pre-boot DMA Support" is enabled in the BIOS

Resolution

If there are two options in the BIOS for DMA Support of 'Enable OS Kernel DMA Support" and "Enable Pre-Boot DMA Support" then disable only "Enable Pre-Boot DMA Support" in the following location:

BIOS > Security > Virtualization > Enable Pre-Boot DMA Support > Toggle: OFF

If "Kernal DMA Protection" is also listed then disable it too.

It is recommended to keep the client BIOS/Firmware updated for successful boot to PXE. These settings should be verified if a BIOS/Firmware update is applied.

Additional DS (Deployment Solution) and GSS (Ghost Solution Suite) files that are not a pointfix but new versions you may want to consider are found in KB article Updated 64-bit ipxe.efi (ipxe v1.21.1+) binaries

Additional Information

Other articles of interest:

Kernel DMA Protection - found in KB article Black or blank screen after attempting to boot to a properly installed Automation Folder or PXE config

Microsoft: About DMA protection - found in Microsoft article Kernel DMA Protection (Memory Access Protection) for OEMs