Win7 Network rebuild for WinXP machine

[Rowan2074]

Uncovered a load of Toshiba Sat Pro A300 that are not in use but set up as networked machines. Looking to rebuild one to Win 7 from school network to test performance, hoping to refurb the set and put them back into use. Problem is XP machine won't pick up network on boot so currently unable to rebuild. Any thoughts to solve? It's not my fault, and I don't know what I'm doing. Supposedly there's a way of setting up XP with appropriate win7 drivers so it can pick up our Win7 network, but google is not my friend on this occasion.

 

Many thanks

[Michael]

I imaged some of these recently to Windows 10 and it works OK given its age/spec, so should be fine running Windows 7.

[Joanne]

Check all the BIOS settings and make sure PXE boot is enabled. I know on the older machines it used to be disabled

 

Even if it shows in the boot order it won't boot unless it is enabled somewhere else, usually in hardware or advanced.

[Michael]

At PXE level the OS installed locally (XP in this case) is irrelevant.

 

When you see the Toshiba logo, press F12 and it'll give you a boot menu.

[Rowan2074]

At PXE level the OS installed locally (XP in this case) is irrelevant.

 

When you see the Toshiba logo, press F12 and it'll give you a boot menu.

 

Unfortunately Mr Nobody added a bios password several years ago.

[Michael]

The only way around this is to remove the watch battery for 5 mins, but on some Toshiba's it's easier to get at than others.

 

I would have thought that the F12 boot menu would bypass the BIOS screen/password requirement? Obviously not from what you're saying.

[FN-GM]

Unfortunately Mr Nobody added a bios password several years ago.

 

Give this a try -

[Joanne]

Is that the old "touch the connectors under the RAM" trick? If it is, it works (y) did it on a LOAD of EEEPCs a few years back.

[Rowan2074]

yeah the boot menu asks for pw too. I've looked into removing the battery, its a bit of a kerfuffle with this machine but yes it's probably the way I'll have to go.

[hallb15]

Have you tried the 'usual' passwords (with and without capital letters):

Toshiba

password

fred

letmein

1234

12345

123456 (and so on)

fred

football

rugby

cricket

monkey

shadow

 

If you know anything about the previous user can you make a more educated guess. Name of first child is always a good place to start. Favourite football team/player. etc...