F12 network boot, can i temporarily disable it?

[mrbios]

Basically ive killed our ghost server (on purpose) but come monday morning any PCs that are left with lan boot in there boot order will sit on the network boot stage for ages and ages because there isn't one there, is there any way i can temporarily setup something to fake respond to it that can be done very quickly?

[Grommit]

Basically ive killed our ghost server (on purpose) but come monday morning any PCs that are left with lan boot in there boot order will sit on the network boot stage for ages and ages because there isn't one there, is there any way i can temporarily setup something to fake respond to it that can be done very quickly?

 

Why don't you just change the boot order ?

[mrbios]

Why don't you just change the boot order ?

 

Because that would mean going around 500 pcs finding which ones are going to have the problem, rebooting them all into the bios and setting them correctly before i leave today

[Domino]

Set up a fog server, it'll boot to a menu for a configurable number of seconds before booting the first hard drive.

[srochford]

Why don't you just change the boot order ?

 

Because there are lots of PCs scattered around the place and it would take a long time to do it??

 

You can quickly setup a replacement tftp server (eg tftpd32) - my thinking would be that it would send out something that would say "boot from first hard disc" but I've no idea how to do that :-(

 

There's stuff here Guides about TFTPD32 and PXE LAN booting on using tftpd which might help.

[mrbios]

I think i might just set this server 2008 R2 box up quickly as possible now to the point where i can remote from home to finish setup just to get it back to responding to network boot again, finding alternative paths looks like it'll take me just as long to find out how to set them up and put them in place, damn installs taking so long >_<

[maniac]

Edit your DHCP settings and remove the PXE boot settings (Probably Options 66 and 67 will be set) then the machines will get an IP number, but then just boot from the HDD as DHCP won't tell them to do anything. Remember to make a note of what they are so you can set them back again when the Ghost server is restored.

 

Mike.

[mrbios]

Never mind, cheers for the help folks, i ended up just completely setting up WDS on a fresh server 2008 install, only took 2hours to get it all back to the way it was

 

....now i do have one question though, how do i convert an old RIS based boot file to a .WIM file?

 

EDIT: looks like i might be asking for something only symantec can tell me, im trying to get the ghost solution suite boot system to work under WDS native mode, THINK i may have found the solution though, will have to wait till monday to try it

Edited January 29, 2010 by mrbios