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PXE Bootable usb network adapter


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Hi

This is perhaps not the right forum for this question but I guess someone here may know about this.

I am looking for a USB network adapter with support for PXE boot which works in MS DOS.

Anyone know about anything like this?

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I may be messing up the terminology :) Thught you needed PXE support to avoid needing a disk or something to boot from a network device.

Anyways, you understood me correctly, Ive been looking at that exact usb network adapter and also sent them a mail asking wether they support a dos driver for it.

We're ghosting lots of machines every day and its started getting a bit chaotic setting up dos drivers for all the various network cards and also even loads of the same drivers with different device and bus nr. etc :)

Would be really great to just insert the usb network adapter and ghost away.

Havent found anything on the net myself so I think maybe your right in that theres no dos drivers for usb network adapters :(

Thx for your answer though.

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Hi,

even older PC's can make trouble with USB and DOS. We had an imaging scenario with a DOS disk and an USB sticks which worked on many machines pretty well, but the USB sticks died sometimes and now we don't have floppy disk drives.

So now we install the PC's over the network and if the onboard network adapter is a problem (not every adapter supports PXE) we install an Intel Pro 1000 Desktop adapter.

We used Motto Hairu' USB Driver driver.

The config.sys looked like

[COMMON]
device=himem.sys
device=USBASPI.SYS /r /v
device=Di1000dd.SYS

lastdrive=z
files=10
buffers=10
dos=high,umb
stacks=9,256

The autoexec.bat

@ECHO OFF
SMARTDRV.EXE

rem find the USB stick
IF EXIST J:\USB.USB J:
IF EXIST J:\USB.USB GOTO next

IF EXIST I:\USB.USB I:
IF EXIST I:\USB.USB GOTO next

IF EXIST H:\USB.USB H:
IF EXIST H:\USB.USB GOTO next

IF EXIST G:\USB.USB G:
IF EXIST G:\USB.USB GOTO next

IF EXIST F:\USB.USB F:
IF EXIST F:\USB.USB GOTO next

IF EXIST E:\USB.USB E:
IF EXIST E:\USB.USB GOTO next

IF EXIST D:\USB.USB D:
IF EXIST D:\USB.USB GOTO next

IF EXIST C:\USB.USB C:

:next
rem here we go...

Regards, Nils.

Edit: I forgot: MS-DOS 6.22 can only use the FAT (16) file system and so files (and partitions?) are limited to 2GB. Maybe you have to use an other DOS which allows larger sizes or have a look for a Linux system.

Edited by derniwi
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@derniwi

Just for the record, that driver is a very old version.

Latest should be this one:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=126444

http://www.mdgx.com/drv.htm#DTC

A "reference" USB drivers diskette is this one:

http://johnson.tmfc.net/dos/usbdrv.html

@KingAFW

There used to be an USB network thingy (not PXE enabled):

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=4743

http://www.spacetools.com/tools4/space/445.htm

but CATC has been incorporated or whatever by LeCroy:

http://www.lecroy.com/catc/

and it seems like they abandoned this line of products.

What if you use two USB devices, one for PXE and one for networking and a Network hub?

Pretty much complex...;)

But these USB thingies have drivers for DOS:

http://www.topmay-computer.com/products/De...158&MaxID=3

and they appear to be prolly cheap:

http://www.telcominstrument.com/p_302_27_6...n-ethernet.html

http://cgi.ebay.it/SCHEDA-DI-RETE-ADATTATO...1742.m153.l1262

They seem to be pretty much low-level, and they do have:

q) RPL boot ROM for Novell Netware, Microsoft NT

r) Software support:

1) On - board EEPROM () programming tool

2) Setup / diagnostic program for DOS / Windows

3) Driver for UNIX

which should mean that it could be possible to "burn" some PXE code such as Etherboot:

http://etherboot.org/wiki/index.php

to it's ROM.

Given the cost of the thingy, it may be worth a try.

I'll check too if I can find something else like that....:unsure:

jaclaz

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Can probably hook both up in a 1->2 usb splitter and pretend its one device :)

Hmmm, I may be wrong, but I would define that as an all new look to the sentence "looking for trouble" :whistle:

Usually booting from USB with a hub gives problems.

I was thinking more about a hub (or a passive splitter of some kind :unsure:) on the "ethernet" side.

jaclaz

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Hmm

You know how this trouble manifests? :)

Just tried to connect a USB hub with a mouse and a USB stick and I had no trouble booting with this. Can I assume this would work with other USB devices then?

Not sure how to set it up on the ethernet side.

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Hmm

You know how this trouble manifests? :)

Just tried to connect a USB hub with a mouse and a USB stick and I had no trouble booting with this. Can I assume this would work with other USB devices then?

Not sure how to set it up on the ethernet side.

From the reports I have seen, it seems like some USB hubs are not "liked" by some BIOSes...actually whenever a given stick boots on a number of machines and fails on another, the culprit is generally a "picky" BIOS.

Since most recent computers have more than one USB ports free, it is advisable to use them directly instead of using a hub, the problem with two devices would be that of having two network connections on the same place or needing to unplug and re-plug the network cable after having performed the PXE boot.

However, until you cannot get your hands on one on those thingies and experiment, I guess it's just "academic talking" ;)

jaclaz

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I just happened to found two links in Italy, but this probably happens because of my Google prefs.

I haven't dealed with any of them, but from experience, items on Shops on e-bay are generally (besides being cheaper) often delivered by mail quickly, though I cannot swear that the item is exactly the same.

Why don't you try writing an e-mail to both those shops?

Mails:

http://www.telcominstrument.com/index.php

info-AT-telcominstrument.com

http://stores.ebay.it/SAM-trading-ms_Infor...8QQftidZ2QQtZkm

new.seller-AT-yahoo.it

Maybe you could check some electronic online shop in Norway, to see if they have anything like that.

Problem with most of these thingies is that they are advertised/re-sold without mentioning producer part N. or producer at all, and often finding it is simmply impossible, although they are there.

This is another one:

http://www.pittjug.org/catalog/earphone_an...20_lan_127.html

(but they seem more a wholesales than a shop) :unsure:

jaclaz

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Should be interesting, will be really nice if this works.

Sure, keep us informed. :)

I was thinking, since there are actually problems from time to time in PE 1.x (and I guess also in PE 2.x) besides DOS, that having one of those thingies could be a rather inexpensive way to make sure you can actually connect to the network on any machine, something to keep in the toolbox anyway... :unsure:

jaclaz

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