Re: Unattend over network with USB boot device
From: Patrick J. LoPresti (patl_at_users.sourceforge.net)
Date: 03/30/04
- Next message: Gerry Hickman: "Re: Tape drive broke, now what?"
- Previous message: Edson: "script for AD"
- In reply to: Patrick J. LoPresti: "Re: Unattend over network with USB boot device"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
To: "Gerry Hickman" <gerry1uk@netscape.net> Date: 30 Mar 2004 15:53:48 -0500
"Patrick J. LoPresti" <patl@users.sourceforge.net> writes:
> DOS will need a way to find its own files, of course. But if you use
> SYSLINUX+memdisk to boot a virtual floppy, this will be no problem.
>
> My favorite option, and the one I intend to try, is to boot a diskless
> Linux system and run winnt.exe under dosemu. Actually, this is now
> supported and working in the current release of
> <http://unattended.sourceforge.net/>. We provide ISO-9660 and PXE
> images, but they are identical except for the boot loader (ISOLINUX
> vs. PXELINUX, respectively). The exact same images should boot fine
> from a USB stick using SYSLINUX. Once the diskless Linux system is
> booted, you are home free.
For the record, my USB stick finally arrived and I got this working
today. Basic process is as I described:
1) Put a standard boot sector in the MBR of the USB drive. (I used
FreeDOS).
2) Download SYSLINUX (http://syslinux.zytor.com/), install it on the
boot sector of the main partition of the USB drive, and make sure
the partition is "active".
3) Download unattended-4.0b.zip and unattended-4.0b-linuxboot.zip
from http://unattended.sourceforge.net/
[Well, I did not actually do this, since I already have the
original copy :-) ]
4) Copy unattended-4.0b/linuxboot/tftpboot/bzImage and .../initrd to
the USB stick. Copy
unattended-4.0b/linuxboot/tftpboot/pxelinux.cfg/default to the
USB stick and rename it "syslinux.cfg".
5) Enable "USB emulation" in the BIOS (Dell Precision 360).
6) Plug in the USB memory key, press F12 while booting, and select
the USB stick as the boot device.
>From there, installing Windows went off without a hitch.
And you are right, it is kind of cool. Booting from the network is so
TC. (*)
But network boots are still faster. And booting from USB drive is
only supported by new BIOSes. Even my (1 year old) Dell Latitude C640
cannot do it. (I have read that the "D" series Latitudes can.)
Still, it is neat to see it working at all.
- Pat
(*) "Twentieth Century"
- Next message: Gerry Hickman: "Re: Tape drive broke, now what?"
- Previous message: Edson: "script for AD"
- In reply to: Patrick J. LoPresti: "Re: Unattend over network with USB boot device"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Relevant Pages
|
