How do I tell if a second hand PC is going to be PXE compliant (network bootable)?

Hi All,

I am just wondering if anyone is able to tell me how to tell (in
advance of being able to test it) whether a second hand PC will be
able to boot from the network )PXE Boot)?

What determines that capability? Is it purely a factor of the network
card or does the processor (for example) come into it?

Thanks,

Alan.
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The BIOS
You can use a boot floppy if the bios doesn't support it.

 

PXE boot is a BIOS feature, mostly seen on newer hardware (AIUI)

It may be possible to use a boot floppy to get a network boot.
or maybe you could use a NIC with a PXE boot ROM.

(NIC=Network Interface Card)

Bye.
Jasen

 

Hi Shannon,

I am quite possibly mixing up two separate things here, but for some
machines that do not have a native ability to boot from the network, I
try booting from a RIS (Remote Installation Services) Boot Floppy and
I get a message to say that the facility to remote boot is not
supported by the NIC.

Is that the same issue or two different issues? In other words, is
the initial network boot ability determined by the BIOS only, and the
secondard remote boot ability via floppy disk determined by the NIC?
Obviously the PC will *boot* from the floppy (assuming all is well),
but the next step is remote installation of the OS which is where it
fails at that point.

Thanks for the info!

Alan.
--

The views expressed are my own, and not those of my employer or anyone
else associated with me.

My current valid email address is:



This is valid as is. It is not munged, or altered at all.

It will be valid for AT LEAST one month from the date of this post.

If you are trying to contact me after that time,
it MAY still be valid, but may also have been
deactivated due to spam. If so, and you want
to contact me by email, try searching for a
more recent post by me to find my current
email address.

The following is a (probably!) totally unique
and meaningless string of characters that you
can use to find posts by me in a search engine:

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Hi Jasen,

I am quite possibly mixing up two separate things here, but for some
machines that do not have a native ability to boot from the network, I
try booting from a RIS (Remote Installation Services) Boot Floppy and
I get a message to say that the facility to remote boot is not
supported by the NIC.

Is that the same issue or two different issues? In other words, is
the initial network boot ability determined by the BIOS only, and the
secondard remote boot ability via floppy disk determined by the NIC?
Obviously the PC will *boot* from the floppy (assuming all is well),
but the next step is remote installation of the OS which is where it
fails at that point.

Thanks for the info!

Alan.

--

The views expressed are my own, and not those of my employer or anyone
else associated with me.

My current valid email address is:



This is valid as is. It is not munged, or altered at all.

It will be valid for AT LEAST one month from the date of this post.

If you are trying to contact me after that time,
it MAY still be valid, but may also have been
deactivated due to spam. If so, and you want
to contact me by email, try searching for a
more recent post by me to find my current
email address.

The following is a (probably!) totally unique
and meaningless string of characters that you
can use to find posts by me in a search engine:

ewygchvboocno43vb674b6nq46tvb

 

If the machine will boot from a floppy, then you could set up a floppy
containing a network boot loader. I did a google and came up with
something called Nilo <http://www.nilo.org/>.

 

Hi Lawrence,

Thanks for your reply. I guess that, upon refelction, I am mixing up
to totally different things.

1) Ability to natively boot from the network LAN connection (which
from other posters appears to be a BIOS issue)

2) Ability to 'pretend' to boot from the LAN when the machine is
already bootstrapped from a floppy disk. This must now be a NIC issue
since the BIOS is out of the way?

Thanks,

Alan.
--

The views expressed are my own, and not those of my employer or anyone
else associated with me.

My current valid email address is:



This is valid as is. It is not munged, or altered at all.

It will be valid for AT LEAST one month from the date of this post.

If you are trying to contact me after that time,
it MAY still be valid, but may also have been
deactivated due to spam. If so, and you want
to contact me by email, try searching for a
more recent post by me to find my current
email address.

The following is a (probably!) totally unique
and meaningless string of characters that you
can use to find posts by me in a search engine:

ewygchvboocno43vb674b6nq46tvb

 

a NIC and/or contents ov floppy issue