OT? Boot order

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micky

My Acer Aspire One netbook uses F2 to enter the BIOS and F12 to see the
Boot Order.

F12 only shows two items, the hard drive and Atheros network boot.

OTOH, F2 - Boot Order shows those two and USB hard drive, USB CD, and
USB Floppy.

The difference seems strange to me. ?

And I've googled and wikied for Atheros network boot or boot agent, and
can't find anything helpful. Is this a public service, so anyone who
can't boot without it can do so with it? I doubt that so could someone
give me a hint about what it does.


(I have an external CD drive, and an external HD, that I coudl boot with
but if I'm out of the house, it's a lot of effort to take one of those
with me.)

Thanks.
 
micky said:
My Acer Aspire One netbook uses F2 to enter the BIOS and F12 to see the
Boot Order.

F12 only shows two items, the hard drive and Atheros network boot.

OTOH, F2 - Boot Order shows those two and USB hard drive, USB CD, and
USB Floppy.

The difference seems strange to me. ?

And I've googled and wikied for Atheros network boot or boot agent, and
can't find anything helpful. Is this a public service, so anyone who
can't boot without it can do so with it? I doubt that so could someone
give me a hint about what it does.


(I have an external CD drive, and an external HD, that I coudl boot with
but if I'm out of the house, it's a lot of effort to take one of those
with me.)

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Micky,

Network boot can be used for imaging.

Windows Deployment Service or WDS is a service that can run on a Windows
Server (2003,2008,2012)

that allows for deployment of Windows or other OS's from the WDS server.

An ip address is assigned via dhcp upon network boot and the WDS menu is
displayed.

It is useful in installing an OS on a system that has no boot device (CD,DVD
etc..)

I use it extensively to install pre-configured images over the wire.

Speed is much faster than from optical media (DVD) as it runs on the LAN
(Gigabit ethernet in my case)

This is a extermely basic description of what "Network Boot" entails.

So not really applicable to most home users but I just wanted to give a
brief explanation of what the Atheros network boot can do.

Hope this helps....

JT
 
micky said:
My Acer Aspire One netbook uses F2 to enter the BIOS and F12 to see the
Boot Order.

F12 only shows two items, the hard drive and Atheros network boot.

OTOH, F2 - Boot Order shows those two and USB hard drive, USB CD, and
USB Floppy.

The difference seems strange to me. ?

And I've googled and wikied for Atheros network boot or boot agent, and
can't find anything helpful. Is this a public service, so anyone who
can't boot without it can do so with it? I doubt that so could someone
give me a hint about what it does.


(I have an external CD drive, and an external HD, that I coudl boot with
but if I'm out of the house, it's a lot of effort to take one of those
with me.)

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Network boot, is for when one computer has no hard drive ("dickless"),
while a second machine has the hard drive as well as some sort of
image.
+------------------------+
| |
Thin_client Server
(Network Boot) (with boot image)

At one time, the machine would use BootP to get an IP address.

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

If you look in the BIOS, your NIC chip will have a "boot ROM"
with something like "PXE" showing on the screen if that boot
ROM is ever used to boot at the BIOS level. There would be
some sort of spinning cursor characters while it
searches for the server. Most people wander into the PXE text
messages, when their regular boot order is a shambles (not
working). If you disable the boot ROM on the NIC, then it
cannot use PXE.

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

So the Atheros Network Boot would be some flavor of that stuff.
I don't know how the Windows version works, but these sorts
of things have been going on for quite some time. I think we
had Xterminals (cheap non-computer with display) that used
to boot from a common image stored on a server. Which meant
the terminal could avoid having extensive internal
storage of its own.

I've never done anything like that at home here, because
it's basically a waste of time. For one-off installs, it's
always less time consuming to just install to the (multiple)
drives in my desktop. Investigating that stuff may be of interest
to a laptop or netbook owner, but it's still a lot of work.
Somehow, you have to store a suitable image on the boot server.
And I don't know how exactly you go about that, whether it's
just a bitmap copy of a partition, or involves some other
details.

*******

And I'm really surprised your F12 popup boot menu, is not
listing the USB devices currently connected. Check the BIOS
to see if all the USB related stuff is enabled.

Paul
 
Micky,

Network boot can be used for imaging.

Windows Deployment Service or WDS is a service that can run on a Windows
Server (2003,2008,2012)

that allows for deployment of Windows or other OS's from the WDS server.

An ip address is assigned via dhcp upon network boot and the WDS menu is
displayed.

It is useful in installing an OS on a system that has no boot device (CD,DVD
etc..)

I use it extensively to install pre-configured images over the wire.

Speed is much faster than from optical media (DVD) as it runs on the LAN
(Gigabit ethernet in my case)

This is a extermely basic description of what "Network Boot" entails.
Click to expand...

It's plenty. Thank you.
So not really applicable to most home users
Click to expand...

And that's important too!
 
Network boot, is for when one computer has no hard drive ("dickless"),
while a second machine has the hard drive as well as some sort of
image.
+------------------------+
| |
Thin_client Server
(Network Boot) (with boot image)

At one time, the machine would use BootP to get an IP address.

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

If you look in the BIOS, your NIC chip will have a "boot ROM"
with something like "PXE" showing on the screen if that boot
ROM is ever used to boot at the BIOS level. There would be
some sort of spinning cursor characters while it
searches for the server. Most people wander into the PXE text
messages, when their regular boot order is a shambles (not
working). If you disable the boot ROM on the NIC, then it
cannot use PXE.

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

So the Atheros Network Boot would be some flavor of that stuff.
I don't know how the Windows version works, but these sorts
of things have been going on for quite some time. I think we
had Xterminals (cheap non-computer with display) that used
to boot from a common image stored on a server. Which meant
the terminal could avoid having extensive internal
storage of its own.

I've never done anything like that at home here, because
it's basically a waste of time. For one-off installs, it's
always less time consuming to just install to the (multiple)
drives in my desktop. Investigating that stuff may be of interest
to a laptop or netbook owner, but it's still a lot of work.
Somehow, you have to store a suitable image on the boot server.
And I don't know how exactly you go about that, whether it's
just a bitmap copy of a partition, or involves some other
details.
Click to expand...

No, I'm not interested in doing all that. I'll read the wikip articles.

Thanks for much more than the hint I asked for. ;-)
*******
And I'm really surprised your F12 popup boot menu, is not
listing the USB devices currently connected. Check the BIOS
Click to expand...

Doh! That's got to be why nothing else is there. Nothing's connected
yet! I was planning for the future.
to see if all the USB related stuff is enabled.
Click to expand...

I read somewhere that even though XP will boot from the USB stuff I
listed, it won't boot from a USB Flashdrive. Was that true? Is it
true for the Acer Asprire One that is several years old. I bought it
used 4 years ago. I think I can find out the age if it matters.
 
micky said:
I read somewhere that even though XP will boot from the USB stuff I
listed, it won't boot from a USB Flashdrive. Was that true? Is it
true for the Acer Asprire One that is several years old. I bought it
used 4 years ago. I think I can find out the age if it matters.
Click to expand...

If you install WinXP on a USB flash drive, during the boot
of that installation, the USB bus does a reset, and the boot
process loses communication with the USB flash drive.

There is an involved procedure, that changes the USB bus to
be a member of boot bus extender class. By doing that, the USB bus
is commissioned at a time that resetting the bus won't hurt
anything. And then, apparently, the OS will finish booting.

I haven't tried it, because I don't really have a usage
for the idea. Due to the activation issue, moving the key
around won't do much good.

If you want solid state, put the OS on an SSD.

Paul
 
If you install WinXP on a USB flash drive, during the boot
of that installation, the USB bus does a reset, and the boot
process loses communication with the USB flash drive.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a problem!
 
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