Dell Latitude E6410 - PxE - NIC issue

Im leaving my pcs all to default SATA.  I just make sure i select teh correct driver in sccm for injection.

Can you post a link to the driver you used?

Is there anything in the SMSTS log that would give you something to go on?

Yea, closely examined both the SMSTS log and the x:\windows\inf\setupapi.app.log (no driver failures which is surprising) and  neither turned up much.

disable ALL boot sequence except NIC, this has solved our company's PXE issues at least.

Check TPM security policy matches your group policy.

Have you tried a bios update?

What OS are you deploying to this model?

XP, but that is almost irrelevant.  It fails in WinPE before selecting the task sequence or the OS is deployed. 

not necessarily irrelevant to me... you are deploying exactly as I am.... I had the same troubles... I just wanted to be sure that the steps I am about to provide will match what you are trying to do. I will post back shorly with the steps I used to get it corrected here at my end. I have Dell models 620 through 6410 that I am imaging, and they are all working.

Here were the steps I had to take to get the comptuers imaged. I understand that you may have already done some or all of these. But these were my steps.
 
boot into the comptuers BIOS and change only the SATA Operation to ATA... click apply and then exit. (I am findig that on all of the E6410's that I am getting, if I change any other setting in the BIOS after I change the SATA.. .the change in the SATA does not stay. I have had to boot to BIOS many times on several computers because the SATA setting did not stay at ATA.) This is the very first thing that I know would cause the comptuer not to accept any kind of an image procces. If this settings does not stay, then the computer will fail everytime afer the WinPE download goes to memory. It will not be able to write a temporary directory on the HD in order to continue the process. Also just to be sure... make sure the computer did not come from Dell with any kind of HD encryption installed. This will cause failure as well. (Learned this the hardway also)
 
Next Be sure that you do not have both the WinXP and Vista nic drivers loaded into the BOOT image for start up. Only the Vista32 driver should be installed. If the Driver package you downloaded from Dell (not Intel) for the Nic does not contain all versions of the driver windows xp32 through win7 64... then it is incomplete.
 
The driver package from Dell I am using for the nic that is working is OEM VER: 11.5.10.0 When I download and install the driver to an E6400 machine I let it setup in the default area on the C drive of the local comptuer. once it is unpackaged there I can copy the entire Nic folder to the server and prepare it for import.
 
You have to import the Vista32 driver into the boot image only. Do not import it into the Drivers folder or package for the E6410, if you do it will cause further issues. If it fails to import then there is another driver already there with the same name and information that needs to be removed. I found this out the hard way. I ended up having to remove all nic drivers in the boot file and adde them back in.
 
Make sure the WinXP32 driver gets imported into the Drivers file and package along with all other necessary drivers for the E6410. Take all drivers that you import for the E6410 and assign them to a category specifically for the E6410.
You will need to use a category if you are still imaging the E6400 series as there is a conflict with several drivers between the two models. The Nic driver is a prime example.
 
In your task sequence create a new Auto Apply Drivers group for the E6410 and place it before the regular Auto Apply Drivers that runs for all other computers. Make sure you check the option under "For each hardware device" to be "Install onl the best matched compatible drivers" or else it will try to match any driver for any other model, and this is where the different models and drivers conflict. In the section to select the drivers or specific categories, select "Limit driver matching to only consider drivers in selected categories" and then check the E6410 category you created.
 
Now in the Options area of the Auto Apply Drivers for the E6410 you need to be sure to add the condition that tells SCCM to look for the model of computer in order to apply the correct drivers first. Use this WMI Query:
WMI Namespace: root\cimv2
WQL Query: SELECT *FROM Win32_ComputerSystem WHERE Model LIKE "%E6410%"
 
Honestly it took me about 2 days to go through all the drivers and make sure everything was correct that I needed before I got it working. But I am pretty sure that as long as you make sure that the SATA has stayed at ATA and you have the Vista32 driver imported to the Boot image only and the WinXP32 driver imported to the driver package for the laptop along with the drivers for E6410 all gathered in a category that can be applied before the regular drivers for all other models it should work.
 
 
 
 
 
 

As of mid-week this issue has been resolved.  We found that while we were playing with NIC drivers, we were only importing and then updating the boot images at the secondary site we were located at and the primary (parent) site.  We did not want to update the boot image across all sites (roughly 85 around the globe) until we had a working driver.  Ultimately, once we imported the Win7 driver and added to the boot images and updated all DPs it worked without a problem. 

A bit frustrating, but at least it's been taken care of and on to the next challenge.  We've added the drivers to a driver package and are auto-applying with MDT, but are finding the touchpad and USB mouse aren't working once the image/TS completes.  Haven't looked into this much yet, but we'll see how it goes.

Thanks for all the responses and follow up on this.