Bootup from LAN

[Jeff Malka]

One of the Bootup options on my laptop is to boot from the LAN. How does
that work? I have a 2 PC home LAN, but the desktop this laptop is connected
to has several partitions. What needs to be on the other side of the LAN
the laptop is connected to for it to bootup from the LAN?

I am running XP Home on both PCs.

Thanks.

 

[NobodyMan]

One of the Bootup options on my laptop is to boot from the LAN. How does
that work? I have a 2 PC home LAN, but the desktop this laptop is connected
to has several partitions. What needs to be on the other side of the LAN
the laptop is connected to for it to bootup from the LAN?

I am running XP Home on both PCs.

Thanks.

Are you talking about the Wake on LAN feature in BIOS?

If so, just enable it. How it works will be different from system to
system.

My desktop will wake up (boot up) when it receives a packet from my
router (which is usually as soon as it shuts down since I'm on cable).
Hence, I disabled that feature!

My notebook will only WOL if it's put into stand-bye mode. If I power
it all the way down it will ignore the WOL signal.

As I said, different results based on different BIOS and system
setups.

 

[Jeff Malka]

No, I do not think this is wakeup from LAN. My new Toshiba laptop came with
the BIOS bootup set to start with the HDD. I wanted to change it to bootup
CD-ROM/HDD/ etc. However the only boot options that start with the CD-ROM
are CD-ROM/LAN/HDD/etc.

Now if there is a bootable CD in the drive, it will boot from the CD ahead
of the HDD - which is what I wanted. However, it first searches the LAN
(which I often leave disconnected) and gives me an error message that there
is no media in the realtek adapter and then goes on to bot either from the
CD or the HDD normally. That made me curious about booting up from a LAN
since I had never heard of that.

 

[NobodyMan]

No, I do not think this is wakeup from LAN. My new Toshiba laptop came with
the BIOS bootup set to start with the HDD. I wanted to change it to bootup
CD-ROM/HDD/ etc. However the only boot options that start with the CD-ROM
are CD-ROM/LAN/HDD/etc.

Now if there is a bootable CD in the drive, it will boot from the CD ahead
of the HDD - which is what I wanted. However, it first searches the LAN
(which I often leave disconnected) and gives me an error message that there
is no media in the realtek adapter and then goes on to bot either from the
CD or the HDD normally. That made me curious about booting up from a LAN
since I had never heard of that.

I've never heard of a "boot from the LAN" option, but won't discount
it. Wake on LAN is different from a boot...basically, WOL detects a
signal coming in from the network, then boots up the computer
normally. It does not boot "from the LAN" but follows the normal
start-up sequence. The LAN just sends a signal telling the computer
to wake up, starting the boot process.

I've worked with dozens of different computers, both desktop and
notebook, with varying BIOS, and have never seen a Boot from LAN
option.

 

[Jeff Malka]

I've worked with dozens of different computers, both desktop and

notebook, with varying BIOS, and have never seen a Boot from LAN
option.

Neither have I. That is why I asked. But, I just checked. This is a
Toshiba A25-207 laptop and the "Boot Priority Option" I had to select to get
the CD-ROM first is listed as

CD-ROM->LAN->HDD->FDD

and elsewhere there is something called "Network Boot Priority" which gives
an option between PXE and RPL defaulting to the former. It causes me no
problem except that since I selected it if the CD-ROM is not a boot CD I get
an error message telling me there is no media in the "Realtek adapter"
before going on to boot from the HDD.