How to boot from LAN?

skinart · Oct 17, 2006

I got a Toshiba M70 Laptop only about 6 months old and the damn DVD rom dont work no more, just makes grunting noises when a DVD is put in it, just like the DVD has a scratch on it and it carnt read it, ive tryed several DVD's with the same results, what is weird though it will read a Music and Data CD?

Anyway........... before I take the laptop back for warranty I want to make sure its not a software problem that is causing it. and then they make me pay for the fix lol.. I downloaded new drivers from toshiba and reinstalled them all but with no change...

So the recovery CD is actually a DVD so it carnt read it to boot from it haha so I got a USB External DVD.... guess what no boot option for USB, so then I see LAN.... but LAN searches but dont find nuthing.... saiz somthing about DHCP from LAN??? Way over my head.... can anyone tell me how to boot from LAN, ive been reading some and it saiz I may need some software.... but what to get???

It also has an FDD boot option??? what the hell is that?? (Ok maybe Flash Drive Disk?)

any help greatly appreciated, feeling quite lost without my fully operational laptop lol

Chad

sandrock · Oct 17, 2006

FDD boot option is floppy disk.

In order to boot from LAN and reinstall the operating system, you'll need an extra computer that is running a DHCP server and a TFTP server. Easiest way to accomplish this would be with a Windows Server 2003 Remote Installation Services server.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/deploy/depopt/remoteos.mspx

If you dont have access to Server03, you should be able to accomplish the same thing with Linux, though I haven't done that yet.

K15 · Oct 17, 2006

skinart said:
I got a Toshiba M70 Laptop only about 6 months old and the damn DVD rom dont work no more, just makes grunting noises when a DVD is put in it, just like the DVD has a scratch on it and it carnt read it, ive tryed several DVD's with the same results, what is weird though it will read a Music and Data CD?

Anyway........... before I take the laptop back for warranty I want to make sure its not a software problem that is causing it. and then they make me pay for the fix lol.. I downloaded new drivers from toshiba and reinstalled them all but with no change...

So the recovery CD is actually a DVD so it carnt read it to boot from it haha so I got a USB External DVD.... guess what no boot option for USB, so then I see LAN.... but LAN searches but dont find nuthing.... saiz somthing about DHCP from LAN??? Way over my head.... can anyone tell me how to boot from LAN, ive been reading some and it saiz I may need some software.... but what to get???

It also has an FDD boot option??? what the hell is that?? (Ok maybe Flash Drive Disk?)

any help greatly appreciated, feeling quite lost without my fully operational laptop lol

Chad

Hell i'm young, but even I know what a floppy drive is

In all seriousness, if it doesn't have a built-in floppy drive, that's not really an option either, since any external floppy drive will be USB.

DHCP is dynamic host configuration protocol. It is basically used to assign IP addresses automatically (among other things.) I would guess your router is using DHCP, so enable that if that's an option. Of course if your router is using static IPs (and you would know, since you would have to enter them manually), then you would have to enter the IP somewhere.
Anyway, hopefully there's something helpful there, I don't know all that much about networks either.

skinart · Oct 17, 2006

I have never heard a Floppy Disk called an FDD lol ok now that you have all had a good laff.... lol

I have other computers on the network but none of which have Windows server 2003 on them, there all XP machines..... that sux.....

So im basically screwed...... I dont mind taking the machine in if its deffenatly a hardware problem but if its a software glitch there gunna charge me for it for sure, and im cheap i dont wanna pay them hahaha.

I have 2 of the same laptops but I dont wanna start ripping either apart as im sure they have some special decal somwhere that will tear when i remove somthing and void my warranty, other wise i would just swap hard drives, install the OS on other laptop then switch it back to the other, since they are identical machines i couldnt see it having a glitch.....

ahhh what to do.....

Thanx for the help guys

Chad

sandrock · Oct 18, 2006

skinart, I did a little more searching and came up with these:

http://tftpd32.jounin.net/ - everything you need (DHCP, TFTP)
http://pxes.sourceforge.net/howtos/ms_only_environment/ - Instructions on how to setup (not your exact configuration, but pretty close).

I would suggest checking both of those out.

ErikD · Oct 18, 2006

If you have the extra PC and want to try an install over the LAN MS offers a free trial of Server 2003 R2. It will let you get installed, I have done it a few times myself.

jajmon · Oct 18, 2006

how to boot from the lan is the question? Without going into to all the details and requirements to do such a thing - you don't have them. By a new dvd rom. Thousands cheaper.

skinart · Oct 18, 2006

wow i appreciate all the help guys, but after a small amount of reading from links from sandrock, that stuff is WAY WAY over my head, so tonight i dropped off the laptop at the local store where i bought it, they didnt seem to really care if it was sofware or not, they said they would look at it and fix it for me either way, so that was nice of them.

thanx again for all ya help peoples

Chad

ErikD · Oct 19, 2006

jajmon said:
how to boot from the lan is the question? Without going into to all the details and requirements to do such a thing - you don't have them. By a new dvd rom. Thousands cheaper.

No, not really. As I mentioned MS has a fully functional Server 2003 trail to download for free. Totally legal. All you need is a spare PC to run it on (Mine is a PIII 500MHz). Then the big hurdle is learning how to setup remote installations, all the information you need is available online free if you want to spend the time.

skinart,

It does sound like more of a hardware problem of some sort. Probably better off getting the thing fixed, especially if covered by warranty. Might as well have a fully functional DVD drive rather than one that sort of kinda works, right?

jajmon · Oct 19, 2006

ErikD said:
No, not really. As I mentioned MS has a fully functional Server 2003 trail to download for free. Totally legal. All you need is a spare PC to run it on (Mine is a PIII 500MHz). Then the big hurdle is learning how to setup remote installations, all the information you need is available online free if you want to spend the time.

That's why I said , without going into the details

How to boot from LAN?

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