PXE Boot from a CD

[sb1920alk]

I'm currently booting computers to WinPE using PXE. I have a few older computers who's nics do not have an option to boot to the network. If possible, I would like to boot these computers with a CD that can perform a PXE boot. I would prefer this over simply burning the WinPE image to a CD so that any future changes to the boot image will not require buring a new stack of disks.

Has anyone found bootable CD that can PXE boot computers?

Thanks,

[Tripredacus]

You are confusing technologies. You can't boot a system twice without a bit of programming and a bunch of testing. Or maybe I have that backwards.

What do your PXE clients normally boot into? If it is a WDS you can use a WinPE CD.

[jaclaz]

You are confusing technologies. You can't boot a system twice without a bit of programming and a bunch of testing. Or maybe I have that backwards.

Well, no.

You can use - as an example - a BOOT CD that boots grub4dos or Syslinux/Isolinux and from it PXE boot.

PXE "assumes" that you have a PXE booting option in BIOS AND a ROM containing the actually PXE booting code in the actual LAN card.

But obviously this can be replaced by a PXE booting floppy, which actually is the "right way to experiment":

Q: why do you think that rom-o-matic was made:

http://www.rom-o-matic.net/

A: As a nice way to have an Etherboot or gPXE:

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

image built automatically

You can have, among others:

http://www.rom-o-matic.net/gpxe/gpxe-1.0.1/contrib/rom-o-matic/

• floppy
  
• CD
  
• Rom
  

jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

I understand what you mean. I know that NICs exist out there that are PXE capable but you cannot access their boot menus OR select them as a boot device in the BIOS. However, I am not experienced in Grub (only when it goes grub grub grub grub x grub) so I did not know it *could* do a PXE boot.

I wanted to make a joke about Novell in my previous post...

[jaclaz]

I understand what you mean. I know that NICs exist out there that are PXE capable but you cannot access their boot menus OR select them as a boot device in the BIOS. However, I am not experienced in Grub (only when it goes grub grub grub grub x grub) so I did not know it *could* do a PXE boot.

I wanted to make a joke about Novell in my previous post...

You still missing the general concept.

MANY NIC's are sold with a ROM socket (but some without the actual EPROM).

PXE in this case is simply a BIOS extension.

Most modern motherboards have a NIC integrated (and the PXE capability in the "main" BIOS).

If you buy a NIC without the (programmed) EPROM, you can program an EPROM or an EEPROM by yourself and put it in it.

You can even put in the EPROM or EEPROM something else, like a bootmanager (there is a special grub4dos version for it, as an example) or even a "real" OS, see here:

http://rayer.ic.cz/romos/romose.htm

If you don't have the Eprom, or have a NIC without the socket for it, you can use a boot floppy or .iso image.

jaclaz

Edited October 31, 2010 by jaclaz

[sb1920alk]

You are confusing technologies. You can't boot a system twice without a bit of programming and a bunch of testing. Or maybe I have that backwards.

Well, no.

You can use - as an example - a BOOT CD that boots grub4dos or Syslinux/Isolinux and from it PXE boot.

PXE "assumes" that you have a PXE booting option in BIOS AND a ROM containing the actually PXE booting code in the actual LAN card.

But obviously this can be replaced by a PXE booting floppy, which actually is the "right way to experiment":

Q: why do you think that rom-o-matic was made:

http://www.rom-o-matic.net/

A: As a nice way to have an Etherboot or gPXE:

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

image built automatically

You can have, among others:

http://www.rom-o-matic.net/gpxe/gpxe-1.0.1/contrib/rom-o-matic/

• floppy
  
• CD
  
• Rom
  

jaclaz

Awesome! This is exactly what I was looking for. I followed the instructions on http://etherboot.org/wiki/removable and have sucessfully PXE booted to WinPE a computer that had no option to do so before.

So, are you saying that the NIC does in fact have the ability to PXE boot, but the motherboard simply doesn't have an option to select it? Are there older NICs that simply won't PXE boot even with a disk like this?

@Tripredacus: I could burn a WinPE cd and boot from that, but there are things in the boot image that I change from time to time. With a PXE boot, all I have to do is update a file on a file server. With WinPE cds, I'd have to burn a new stack of disks every time I made a change. With the disk I made from the rom-o-matic site, I don't think I'll ever need to burn more than one stack of disks. This is really just for some of the older machines that don't have an option for PXE boot already.

[jaclaz]

So, are you saying that the NIC does in fact have the ability to PXE boot, but the motherboard simply doesn't have an option to select it? Are there older NICs that simply won't PXE boot even with a disk like this?

NO.

The NIC itself has "nothing" to do with PXE booting.

"OLD" motherboards (that had NO integrated NIC/LAN card) used ISA (very old) or PCI LAN cards or NIC's.

These cards can have:

1. NO ROM on board (and no socket on it)
   
2. NO ROM on board (BUT a socket on it)
   
3. a PXE ROM on it
   

Boards of type #2 and #3 operate with a mechanism (like SCSI cards usually do) called BIOS extension or "expansion ROM":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS#BIOS_boot_specification

In practice the BIOS reads the whatever is in the ROM and "appends" it to the booting options.

If the ROM contains PXE code, you have PXE booting added.

"New" motherboards have the PXE code already in the main BIOS.

But the ROM can contain also "something" else, as said.

The used ROM's are (rare or old) actual ROM chips, or EPROM (old) or EEPROMs (new).

The general idea is (in order of difficulty):

1. if you have a motherboard with integrated LAN and PXE, OK
   
2. if you have a motherboard without integrated LAN, BUT with a NIC with a PXE ROM, OK
   
3. if you have a motherboard without integrated LAN, BUT with a NIC without a PXE ROM BUT with a socket for it, you can TEST with a floppy or CD, then "burn" the PXE code to an EPROM or EEPROM chip
   
4. if you have a motherboard without integrated LAN, AND a NIC without a PXE ROM BUT without a socket for it, you can use a a floppy or CD
   

In other words:

• provided that you have enough money to buy a NIC complete with PXE ROM, you can add PXE booting to *any* desktop.
  
• failing that, if you have a NIC with a ROM socket, and an EPROM or EEPROM (and you may also need a programmer for them) and have enough time to do the DIY job, you can test the PXE booting through floppy or CD and then burn the ROM, thus PXE booting to *any* desktop.
  
• if you have no money and a NIC without ROM socket, you are stuck to using a floppy or CD all the times (an interesting alternative being using grub4dos or syslinux on the internal har ddisk, either to directly PXE boot or to map a floppy or CD image)
  

Just as an example, these:

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=763637&CatId=200

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3981752&CatId=200

are NIC's with a socket

These ones:

http://argontechnology.com/pci-fast-ethernet-10100mb.html

http://argontechnology.com/pci-gigabit-ethernet.html

include the ROM

jaclaz

[sb1920alk]

That's a lot of info. Thanks.

My interest in updating the rom is pretty low. The cd-to-pxe option is good enough for me for the PCs that don't have another way to pxe boot.