Netboot not showing when holding option key

Question

Layne_Staley Author

Level 1

16 points

Netboot not showing when holding option key

I have 2 Netboot servers on my network.

One 10.6.8 Server (latest) hosting latest Deploy Studio

One 10.8.2 Server (latest) hosting Casper

On some machines (seemingly all machines after 2010), I can hold option key and see all netboot images.

On other, seemingly older machines, holding the option key only shows local disks including attached USB and FW drives. On these same machines, when booted to system disk, I can go into system preferences and the netboot disks all show up and I'm able to boot to them.

On one test machine (MacBook (13-inch 2008) SMC Version:1.31f1/Boot Rom: MB41.00C1.B00) running 10.6.8 which is having the issue of not seeing the netboot images, I reset PRAM and it had no effect.

I'm looking for some troubleshooting tips so I can netboot all machines on my network.

Thanks for any assistance.

Posted on Feb 8, 2013 9:08 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Brian Nesse

Level 4

3,049 points

Feb 11, 2013 8:07 AM in response to Layne_Staley

This is based on the firmware of the machines. The older machines only support network booting to a default volume (hold the 'N' key while booting and the system will NetBoot from whatever volume is specified as the "Default" in Server Admin/Server.app.)

All machines can be NetBooted by selecting a volume in Startup Disk.

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Answer 2

Layne_Staley Author

Level 1

16 points

Feb 11, 2013 9:35 AM in response to Brian Nesse

That's unfortunate.

Is there any documentation regarding which model/firmware has specific features?

Thanks.

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Answer 3

Feb 12, 2013 8:01 AM in response to Layne_Staley

None that I'm aware of. The introduction of the new style boot picker more or less coincided with the introduction of the MacBookAir I believe... maybe around the 2nd generation?

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