Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of manojoswal
manojoswal

asked on

BOOT from LAN: no other disks (floppy or CD-ROM)

i have a laptop whose OS on hard disk (win98) has fialed. The first message on boot says... "operating system not found". It doesn't even give an option to boot in dos or anything. The machine doesn't have a floppy drive and CDROM doesn't work. Its intel LAN card is working and it has capability to boot from network(but only DHCP). I dont want to physically remove the hard disk.

Does anyone know of a way to boot the machine from netowrk using any old or IIIrd party lan software or standard method to boot it from lan and let me get into DOS prompt. I have a dump of windows98 setup on the machine. If i reach the prompt i can setup windows.

its quite urgent.

regards

manoj

Avatar of chad
chad

>>>operating system not found

Many times that refers to a hard drive problem rather than an OS problem.  
It is not finding the bootstrap.  Check you BIOS to ensure the hard drive is being properly detected.

The only method I know of to do a network install is to use Remote installation server available on win2k/2k3 server.
It can be used to install 2000 pro and xp i believe.
SOLUTION
Avatar of nazirahmed
nazirahmed
Flag of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of manojoswal

ASKER

i do have a usb port and a usb pen drive but the motherboard doesn't seem to allow boot via usb.
its a celeron with 64 mb so a windows 2003 is out of question. removing the hard is the last option, i wanted to avoid.

let us see, anyone ever used lantsatic?

manoj
Avatar of ShineOn
eeeee.

Sorry about the reaction to the reference to lantastic.

Anyway, what is the make and model of this laptop?   Many laptops without floppy had a proprietary external floppy.  TI was big on that.  Some, like the Compaq Armada E500, had a dual-bay removable floppy drive, that could be replaced by an additional battery.

By your statement of "the cdrom doesn't work" do you mean it is totally shot, or that you can't seem to boot from it?  If your CMOS config is set so the cdrom is a bootable device, then it should work to boot from an install CD.  Maybe the lens needs cleaning - have you tried that, using a CD-ROM lens cleaning disk?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
i am using a fijutsu siemens laptop lifebook 2130. not from the ones you hear about often. the cd rom is USB based so cant boot from it.
i have finally decided to take it to a repair shop who has a connector to remove the hard disk and connect it to it.

regards

manoj oswal
i think thats the only option left if your floppy and cd drive are not working. celecren 64mnb can be a RIS client.,,, if you have RIS server first.
>decided to take it to a repair shop who has a connector to remove the hard disk and connect it to it.

If you wanted to save some $$ you could just buy the micro-ide to standard IDE adapter and do it yourself (I presume you have another PC handy since you brought up remote booting) - the adapter should only cost a few bucks.

Cheers,
-Jon


In india its not very costly to go to a repair shop and get things done. a repair guy would charge may be some 10 dollars or so. I prefer to not to try things myself as i have a tough hand and the parts in it delicate!. Why take risk.
T H A N K    Y O U   A  L L    O F   Y O U ..... I  A M   T R U L Y   O B L I G E D

manoj  
>a repair guy would charge may be some 10 dollars or so

Either the value of the dollar is inflated where you live or your repair guy is an incredible bargain.  I'd have to pay between $25-$50 at the cheapest shop in town to get that done (and I've known the owner over 10 years - lucky I also know how to do it myself) - if I knew it would only cost $10 I'd have said take it to the repair shop for sure.

>i have a tough hand and the parts in it delicate

Hehe - it's a lot farther from brain surgery than you might think, but if you've never pulled out a hard drive before I can understand your concern.

Cheers,
-Jon


I lost that dell link I posted above.  It was suppose to go into a different thread and I spent an hour last night trying to find out where it went.  OOPS sorry about the confusion.

If I could take my computer to a repair shop for ten dollars, I wouldn't know anything about computers. ;-P