WinPE Network Boot Image ??

[John Barrett]

I've got a device that boots via PXE, but has no CD or Floppy in functional
condition (a very much battered Toshiba Laptop) that I'm using to learn
about XPe.

After several days I have yet to create an image that will load correctly on
the laptop, and would like to setup to boot WinPE to the laptop over the
network so I can get a TAP report on the hardware.

Is it possible to create a WinPE network boot image or is there someplace I
can get one ??

Detailed instructions appreciated !!

 

[KM]

John,

The question of network booting WinPE has been discussed in this NG:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group...indowsxp.embedded&q=WinPE+network+boot&qt_g=1

In short, unless you license MS WinPE to make your customization you won't be able to change it to meet your needs.
You can, however:
- Create your own XPe mini image to boot with. The image will be replacement for WinPE for you.
To create the image you don't really need to start with TAP but rather drag important components manually.
- Or look at the Bart's PE (search google)

In any case, this all seems to be an overhead to just run TAP on the device. Don't you have CD-ROM in the laptop? Or XP installed?

KM

 

[John Barrett]

The laptop is in VERY poor shape -- it will not boot floppy or cd -- and it
recently crashed its HD -- so I'm using it as a learning tool for XPe. The
eventual goal is to network boot diskless game stations. I've created
several SDI images using Target Designer, but despite jumping through every
hoop I have found mentioned on net, I still cant get any of them to work....
everything from missing/corrupt hal.dll, to unreadable boot device after
using sdimgr/readpart to create a "ramdisk image", and various iterations
with boot.ini menus

I know I'm missing something basic here, and its just been real frustrating
cause there is no single "start to finish" doc and I'm not sure I'm piecing
together what step fragments I have found correctly.

John,

The question of network booting WinPE has been discussed in this NG:
http://groups-beta.google.com/group...indowsxp.embedded&q=WinPE+network+boot&qt_g=1

In short, unless you license MS WinPE to make your customization you won't

be able to change it to meet your needs.

You can, however:
- Create your own XPe mini image to boot with. The image will be replacement for WinPE for you.
To create the image you don't really need to start with TAP but

rather drag important components manually.

- Or look at the Bart's PE (search google)

In any case, this all seems to be an overhead to just run TAP on the

device. Don't you have CD-ROM in the laptop? Or XP installed?

 

[KM]

John,

So, you don't have any OS currently running on the laptop?
Then can you open it and hook up whatever is needed (CD-ROM, another HD, etc.)?

Also, if the laptop BIOS supports USB boot you can boot to DOS off a USB flash key.

The same thing for PXe. I guess you do have this option in the BIOS (otherwise why you would ask about tthe RB). So, you can boot to
DOS or XP Pro using RIS (search this NG archive for 3COM/RIS soultion, I posted a link to it a while ago).

KM