Booting off NIC then map a drive

[Ron]

Here's the problem, a notebook with Win2k Pro fails to boot with an error
message: "missing NTOSKRNL.EXE" in the system folder. This notebook has no
peripherals (floppy/CD drive). I do have an external USB floppy drive and an
external CDROM drive + PCMCIA card but can't boot off of them because the
BIOS does not recognize them until it gets to Windows GUI (device drivers
loaded at this time).

I'd like to boot off the built-in NIC and map a drive to a shared folder on
another W2k machine, then copy NTOSKRNL.EXE to the proper location and
restart the notebook. Is this possible? Thanks.

 

[Oli Restorick [MVP]]

It's not trivial, but if you install Remote Installation Services on a
Windows 2000 Active Directory server and then buy of RISME (RIS Menu Editor)
from Argon (http://www.argontechnology.com/risme/) then you should be able
to achieve that.

If you're on Windows 2000 (rather than 2003) on the server, then there's
3COM's version of RISME (which was free) floating around on the net, but
it's no longer available for download from 3COM.

However, you will be stuck unless you're using a FAT32 filing system. If
you are, then don't feel too smug because you probably would never have lost
the file if you were running NTFS.

At www.sysinternals.com, you'll find an ERD Recovery disk that will enable
you to write to an NTFS partition from a DOS boot disk. This costs money,
though.

Oli

 

[Ron]

Oli, thanks for the info. I guess it is not easy to just boot off the NIC
and map a drive to another machine. Even if I could do it that way, I doubt
I will be able to read the local NTFS drive.

Ok, so my next move is to install W2k server RIS. I did this before when I
installed OS on the notebook. Back then there was no OS on the notebook HD.
This time, I'm going to relaunch W2k Pro setup off of the NIC through W2k
RIS. Since there's a W2k installation on the HD, do you think setup will
give me an option to repair current installation? Never been through this
route before. Thanks again.

 

[Oli Restorick [MVP]]

I don't think RIS can do a repair installation, but I'm not 100% sure of
that.

Oli

 

[Jim Boyce]

I was going to suggest using the Recovery Console, but that would only work
if you already have it installed on the notebook (since you can't boot it
from the CD).

RIS offers a Maintenance and Troubleshooting option if configured to allow
client boot selections, but I'm not sure if that implies a repair
installation. You could do an in-place upgrade from RIS.

Another approach that might take some legwork but which might end up being
easier than RIS is to pull the hard disk from the notebook, install it in a
desktop, and copy the file from there. I used to have a drive adapter that
would mount those micro drives in a desktop, and I'm sure they are still
readily available.

Jim

 

[Ron]

If any of you knows a good RIS related article to read please post it here.
I found this article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;298750

Thanks to both of you for your great suggestions.

 

[Helge Wunderlich]

I do have an external USB floppy drive and an
external CDROM drive + PCMCIA card but can't boot off of them because the
BIOS does not recognize them until it gets to Windows GUI (device drivers
loaded at this time).

It should be possible to boot off a USB floppy. You may have to enable
the feature in the BIOS setup, though. Toshiba call it "USB legacy
floppy emulation" or something similar. I'd be surprised if your
computer does not have something similar.

Many (not the very oldest) of the Toshibas I have worked with are also
capable of booting off the PCMCIA CD-ROM. Which computer do you have ?
Maybe someone knows a clever trick.

 

[Ron]

Yikes! Your reponse comes a bit late but thanks very much anyhow. I'm in the
middle of re-installing W2k Pro over RIS.

To answer your question, the notebook is Compaq Armada M300, a Pentium
600MHz. I don't recall seeing "USB legacy floppy emulation" in the BIOS.
There is, however, an entry "Enable legacy USB" (something like that) in the
BIOS. I've tried connecting a Sony USB floppy. The BIOS can't detect it.
Perhaps a newer Compaq BIOS will detect it.

By the way, RIS setup does NOT give me an option to RECOVER current
installation. It does try to detect what OS is installed on the HD but won't
give me a repair option. It blindly moves on to the next step. I think we
can configure it to allow repair. I need time to find out more about RIS.

 

[Jim Boyce]

I did a series of articles on RIS for techrepublic.com, so if you have a
membership there, do a search on the site. If not, email me and I'll try to
dig up the originals for you. - Jim

 

[Helge Wunderlich]

Yikes! Your reponse comes a bit late but thanks very much anyhow.

Sorry about that. My reply was less than 24 hours after your post.
Since I normally grab news once a day, that's all you can expect.

To answer your question, the notebook is Compaq Armada M300, a Pentium
600MHz. I don't recall seeing "USB legacy floppy emulation" in the BIOS.
There is, however, an entry "Enable legacy USB" (something like that) in the
BIOS. I've tried connecting a Sony USB floppy. The BIOS can't detect it.
Perhaps a newer Compaq BIOS will detect it.

I played with an Armada M-something once, but it was 1000 MHz. It came
without floppy, but booted happily with a Toshiba USB floppy. I think
the setting you found is the correct one. Did you press F9 to get the
boot menu, so that you could choose which device to boot from ? Also,
Compaqs have a BIOS feature where you can disable floppy boot for
security reasons. Check that as well.

I tried a search at Compaq's support web site:

http://j1hp.jeevessolutions.com/hp/...oppy+?&qsource=1000&origin=10&site_name=qcpc&

, and several of the hits look interesting. Alas, clicking the links
does not work. Typical quality of Compaq's web site, unfortunately.

I have never in my life seen an Intel compatible computer that is not
capable of booting from a floppy disk, and I expect I won't see one
for a long time yet.

 

[Ron]

I'll try signing up later. Thanks much for the offer.

 

[Ron]

Helge, I really appreciate your help. The link below does contain a lot of
info related to usb floppy booting. I'll save it for future reference. Once
again, thank you very much.