Easy way to PXE Boot Windows

Introduction
This guide provides an easy and relatively quick way to PXE boot windows which means you can install Windows over the network with PXE without the need for a CD drive. While the previous guide allows you to slip stream updates and add extra programs it took a LONG LONG time to do, especially with all the downloads it needed to do, this one just installs a vanilla XP, nice and simple, and a lot quicker

Changelog
2008-05-26 Initial article published 2010-06-22 Updated last stage with instructions for injecting NIC drivers courtesy of Maarten

Step 1: Getting started.

What youll need: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Windows 2000/XP CD (to get the i386 directory off it) PC running 2000/XP (to act as a server) Laptop capable of booting over PXE (such as the L400). Tftpd32 Bart Network Boot Disk SMARTDRV.EXE A Share. The Server must be able to share files (any Microsoft Windows computer can). Working router or plain crossover cable.

Once youve collected all of the above, lets begin; 1. Create a share, for the sake of argument create it at c:\WINSTALL 2. Copy your i386 folder and SMARTDRV.EXE into this folder 3. Make a note of your computer name/host name, you can find this out by right clicking on My Computer, going to properties, go to Computer Name tab, look under Full computer name, in my example, the computers name is STAR, i believe the name needs to be 12 chars or less for this to work in dos mode, so if its longer change it and reboot.

4. Create a folder to PXE boot from, c:\OUTPUT Pages: 1 2 3

This entry was posted on Monday, May 26th, 2008 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Easy way to PXE Boot Windows

Step 2: Setting up a TFTP Server.
1. Install TFTPD 2. Create the following directory c:\OUTPUT\pxelinux.cfg\ (i.e. go to c: right click, select create new directory, name it OUTPUT, open OUTPUT, right click, select create new directory and name it pxelinux.cfg) 3. In the c:\OUTPUT\ directory download pxelinux.0 memdisk menu.c32 bartdisk.IMA (Download the files and put them in this directory) 4. In the C:\OUTPUT\pxelinux.cfg\ directory, create a text file that youll name default, (not default.txt, easiest way to do this is open notepad, copy and paste the details below, click save, navigate to C:\OUTPUT\pxelinux.cfg and name it default including the quotes) containing:
DEFAULT menu.c32 TIMEOUT 300 ALLOWOPTIONS 0 PROMPT 0 MENU TITLE PXE Boot System LABEL BartBoot MENU LABEL ^Bart Network Disk kernel memdisk append initrd=bartdisk.IMA LABEL BootNormal MENU LABEL ^Boot Normal LOCALBOOT 0

5. Launch TFTPD (if you get unable to locate configuration file Boot Failed: press a key to retry, or wait for reset, then you have NOT named the default file correctly) and configure it the following way:

6. Tip : if you close and reopen TFTP32 and the Current Directory defaults to your home directory rather than to C:\OUTPUT, right-click your TFTPD32 shortcut, go to Properties, and set the Start in textbox as C:\OUTPUT. 7. switch to the tab DHCP Server and fill in your network setup. Note that the PC you want to boot must be in the same Subnet. Enter pxelinux.0 as the boot file. The Screenshot below shows my setup. (IP pool starting address is the ip addresses the DHCP server can start from, size of pool is the amount from the starting address, in my example the DHCP server can give a client an address from 192.168.2.210 192.168.2.240) 8. Dont forget to SAVE.

Pages: 1 2 3
This entry was posted on Monday, May 26th, 2008 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Easy way to PXE Boot Windows

Step 3: Installing Windows.
1. Boot laptop 2. Select Bart Network Disk (You may have to press the relevant F key to get the boot device list try F8 or F12 or go into the BIOS and change the boot device priority so network is first) 3. Just accept all the default values this time 4. type c: then fdisk 5. Choose option 3 and delete any partitions 6. Choose option 1 to create a partition, then 1 again to create a primary dos partition 7. If you wish to create 2 partitions, 1 for the windows installation and 1 for data then select N for using maximum available size 8. Select your drive size in MB, i chose 8198 for mine 9. Esc back to the options menu, then select option 2 to make a partition active 10. select partition number, probably 1 as was the case for me 11. Esc out of fdisk and restart the laptop 12. Select Bart Network Disk again 13. Accept defaults up until Identification Settings, tab accross till you come to the lmhosts option, and pless the spacebar to enable it, then go to Ok.

14. In the blank file that opens up type the ip of your server, followed by tab and its host name, in my case it looked like:
192.168.2.100 STAR

15. Press Alt + X to save the file and quit 16. Just press enter through any other questions to accept the defaults 17. When you get to the command promt type: format c: /Q 18. When that finishes type net use x: \\HOSTNAME\SHARE so in my case i typed net use x: \\STAR\WINSTALL 19. type x: 20. type SMARTDRV.EXE 21. type cd i386 22. type winnt 23. It will now copy the files from the share onto your harddrive and start the windows install, at this point its worth closing tftpd32 if you havent already so u dont accidentally boot back into the boot floppy on reboot, 24. Perform a normal windows install, enjoy

Injecting NIC Drivers

If Bartdisk is unable to load drivers for your network card, follow these instructions, they were supplied by a commenter, Maarten, so i havent personally used them, but many commenters have had success with it 1. Download your driver from http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/network/makedisk-old/#niclist 2. Download and install WinImage trial from http://www.winimage.com/ (you can use it for 30 days without cost) 3. Open bartdisk.IMA with WinImage 4. In WinImage, go to \lib\ndis. Youll see a bunch of .cab files. 5. Choose Image->Inject and browse for your newly downloaded driver file. Click YES to inject it into \lib\ndis\. 6. Now goto \etc\ and right-click on _msnet.nic 7. Choose Extract and save it on your desktop. 8. Open the file on your desktop with notepad. 9. Delete the last line in it and replace it with your driver info. Youll need to replace the last line, otherwise your driver will not show up in bartdisk menu. For instance if your NIC is a VIA Rhine (you should have downloaded and injected fetnd.cab into \lib\ndis) youll want to enter:
FETND VIA Fast Ethernet NIC

10. Save _msnet.nic and inject it back into bartdisk.IMA, overwriting the original. 11. Save bartdisk.IMA and close WinImage. Pages: 1 2 3
This entry was posted on Monday, May 26th, 2008 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Windows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.