PXE OSD failed with “System partition not set”

ISSUE

PXE OSD failed with “System partition not set”

The task sequence OSD goes into a legacy BIOS partition and failed at the partition step.

ERRORS

smsts.log

TSManager    800 (0x320)    The condition for the action (Partition Disk 0 - BIOS) is evaluated to be true
TSManager    800 (0x320)    Successfully completed the action (Partition Disk 0 - Physique 80/20) with the exit win32 code 0
ApplyOperatingSystem    1552 (0x610)    System root for target OS is C:\Windows, System drive is C:
ApplyOperatingSystem    1552 (0x610)    OSArchitecture=X64
ApplyOperatingSystem    1552 (0x610)    OS version is 10.0 ( OS system file version found to be 10.0.19041.1202 )
ApplyOperatingSystem    1552 (0x610)    Successfully loaded a source BCD boot system
ApplyOperatingSystem    1552 (0x610)    SetupNewOS: Loaded source boot system from target volume "C:\"
ApplyOperatingSystem    1552 (0x610)    System partition not set
ApplyOperatingSystem    1552 (0x610)    Unable to find the partition that contains the OS boot loaders. Please ensure the hard disks have been properly partitioned
Unspecified error (Error: 80004005; Source: Windows)
ApplyOperatingSystem    1552 (0x610)    Bcdboot failed! bcdboot.exe C:\Windows /l en-US failed (15299)

Generally, after partition completes we should see a System type volume. Verify this by running the command diskpart list volume. For example, the line in bold shows a partition of System type. It size is generally very small, eg. 500 M.

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 0     C   :            NTFS   Partition    476 GB  Healthy    Boot
  Volume 1     D   Save Me      NTFS   Partition    475 GB  Healthy
  Volume 2         Windows RE   NTFS   Partition    499 MB  Healthy    Hidden
  Volume 3         SYSTEM       FAT32  Partition    499 MB  Healthy    System
  Volume 4                      NTFS   Partition    700 MB  Healthy    Hidden

This is exactly what happened in this case.

Solution

1. Go to “Partition Disk 0 – BIOS”
2. Add one volume as shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2.
   • Disk type: Starndard(MBR)
   • Partition type: Primary
   • Tick Make this the boot partition
   • Tick Do not assign a drive letter to this partition
   • File system: NTFS

Figure 1

Figure 2

References

• BIOS/MBR-based hard drive partitions