skipping LAN in boot sequence

[Jeff Malka]

I have a Toshiba laptop that when first purchased was set to book from the
HDD first.

Because I need to be able to use some utilities that boot from the CD-ROM I
went into the BIOS to change that. The only option that would check the
CD-ROM before the HDD was one that went as follows: CD-ROM/LAN/HDD/etc. This
causes a delay because on normal bootup (that is not using the CD-ROM boot
option) because the laptop stops for a while as it searches the LAN. If I
disconnect the LAN, it still stops for a while and then tells me the Realtek
adapter finds an error before continuing to boot from the HDD

There is no option in the BIOS that would skip the LAN. Is there a way to
do this in XP?

 

[Malke]

I have a Toshiba laptop that when first purchased was set to book from
the HDD first.

Because I need to be able to use some utilities that boot from the
CD-ROM I
went into the BIOS to change that. The only option that would check
the CD-ROM before the HDD was one that went as follows:
CD-ROM/LAN/HDD/etc. This causes a delay because on normal bootup (that
is not using the CD-ROM boot option) because the laptop stops for a
while as it searches the LAN. If I disconnect the LAN, it still stops
for a while and then tells me the Realtek adapter finds an error
before continuing to boot from the HDD

There is no option in the BIOS that would skip the LAN. Is there a
way to do this in XP?

No, because the bootup process you're talking about happens before the
operating system comes up. It's searching for the files to start an
operating system, any operating system, and is looking where it was
told; i.e., first the cd, then the lan, then the hdd. I find it hard to
believe that any modern Toshiba won't have the option to boot to the
hdd second without the lan, but since you didn't post the model, I'll
take your word for it. Maybe you should contact Toshiba.

Malke