SCCM - Task Sequence Fail - Machine Reboots after 'Preparing Network Connections...'

Symptoms:

Machine network boots ok
Machine picks up dhcp ok
Machine establishes contact with the tftp site ok
The machine downloads the wim file and the boot image beings to load
Windows is Starting Up message appears:

Preparing network connections message pops up and then…..

The system then reboots

Possible additional symptoms: You reboot your sccm server to try and fix the issue and then discover the WDS service will not start. And to make matters worse you encounter this rather vague error message: “Error 1067: The process terminated unexpectedly”

Cause:

The boot image is missing the network driver which means the machine in question can't pull down the task sequence. Assuming you've enabled CMD prompt on your boot image, you can confirm this by hitting F8 to open the cmd prompt. Here, enter ipconfig and check to see whether you have an ip address - if the NIC drivers are wrong you'll have no ip address. 

OR

The boot image is missing the mass storage driver and can't see the disk. Assuming you've enabled CMD prompt on your boot image, you can confirm this by hitting F8 to open the cmd prompt. Here, enter Diskpart...(wait for diskpart to load).....List Disk.....and at this point you should see the disk listed.

OR

A new driver has been added into the boot image which has effectively broken the boot image.

OR

Something else is afoot.

Solution:

Plan A
Confirm you absolutely, positively have the right drivers for the machine included in the Boot Image under either the Windows PE tab (SCCM 2007) or the Drivers tab (SCCM 2012 R2)

Plan B
Restart the WDS service

Plan C
If you've opened up cmd prompt and confirmed you have an ip address (thus indicating that the network drivers you have stuck in your boot image are ok), the next port of call is the smsts.log:

Have a look in this log file for any error messages or failures which might point to why the TS hasn't launched. Since reading it text file can be a pain, export it to your desktop or a share and open it with CM Trace. Once you've found your error message, get Googling!

Plan D

(this option is for situations where everything was working fine, then you added a new driver to a boot image and suddenly everything stopped working)

1. Start with removing the following folder “C:\Windows\Temp\PXEBootFiles”.
2. Remove all bootimages from sms pxe distribution point [ ie. Drive\SMSSIG$\smspxeimages$ share]. To do this Right Click on the Boot Image > Manage Distribution Points > then delete the image from all the pxe distribution points.
3. Remove the driver(s) that were added to the bootimage
4. Redistribute the bootimage
5. Restart the WDS Service.

Random Bonus Stuff to Try

Change Advertisement/Deployment Properties

Try altering the the dp settings. 

In SCCM 2007: Configuration manager > site database > computer management > software distribution > advertisements > right click on the advertisement you want to edit and choose properties > "distribution points" Tab -> tick "when no local distribution points is available, use a remote distribution point" and "when no protected distribution point is available, use an unprotected distribution point.

In SCCM 2012 R2 the setting can be seen by right clicking on the Application/Package and looking at the Distribution Settings tab.

Set the TS to Available rather than Required
A bit of an odd but i've experienced this a couple of times. Not sure there's any logic behind it, but in SCCM 2012 R2 changing the Deployment Settings of the TS from Required to Available 


Confirm all Task Sequence Packages are on the DPs

Unlikely but always worth a check - if it's in the Task Sequence, has it been distributed to the DPs? Even if it looks like the package/application is deployed to the DP, the smsts.log may tell a different story: