Booting from LAN / Network boot

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immortalsoul

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Jul 20, 2006
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Hi everyone,

I am a new member, I joined the forum today. The problem that brings me here is as follows:

I am having a laptop which was purchased about 11 months back. The operating system installed is Windows XP HOME. The problem is that the computer doesnt boot. It shows some error (something to do with the registry and the hive file) and makes more attempts to load windows and fails. I cannot even start it in safe mode.

All I have to do is retrieve the DATA stored on the HDD of the laptop. The DVD drive is faulty and it does not detect any CD/DVD so the option of booting from a disk is not there in my case. I have to find a way by which I can boot the laptop, access files and save them onto another drive (possibly a USB HDD or my desktop computer). I have heard about Booting from LAN and Booting from a USB Thumb/Pen Drive. That would require changes in BIOS settings.

I have another desktop computer which can possibly be used to boot my laptop. I checked the BIOS, on my laptop ( by Phoenix Technologies ) and it does not support booting from USB. There is an option of Network boot.

I am looking forward to some help. The data is very important for me and I want to retrieve it as early as I can. I have the Phoenix PXE server and ImageCast installed on my desktop computer.

Waiting for a reply very soon. Thanks in advance.

- immortalsoul


"together we grow" - anonymous
 
Easiest way to do this would be to grab a notebook HD enclosure, remove the HD from the laptop and plop it into the enclosure. Then you can connect it to any computer your heart desires and pull the data off.
 

immortalsoul

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That is a very obvious way of retrieving data. I use a laptop HDD enclosed in a casing which I use as a USB device for storage. I wish SONY laptops did not have the screw over the place where the HDD is placed. I cannot open it as the warranty is likely to be void if i do so. And I have to get the faulty DVD drive repaired / replaced somehow in another 20 days.

I already mentioned that my laptop is 11 months old and most laptops have 1 year warranty. Hope that makes sense.

Thanks for a reply. This solution was the first thing that came to my mind. I wish it was possible for me to do, I would not have spent (wasted) a week trying to find options to get the data back.

If someone can come up with a clear cut solution regarding network booting, I will be very thankful.

Cheers

- immortalsoul

"together we grow" - anonymous
 
Don't worry about the warranty... unless there is a seal on the hard drive, it would be impossible for them to know you removed it from the laptop. Besides, since the hard drive is easily accessible, I doubt removing it would void your warranty anyway... it's not like you have to actually open the laptop to remove it.

Removing the hard drive is no worse than removing the battery or the CD/DVD/ROM/RW/floppy drive.

Oh and another thing... all laptop manufacturers use a screw to secure the hard drive in the laptop. This is to prevent the hard drive from being easily removed when the laptop is running.
 

markov

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Sep 12, 2006
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Has your problem been rectified ? You mentioned that laptop's warranty is near to expire. Did you get the new one ?
 

snee

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an emergency boot cd will allow access to your hd - if it's FAT32, a floppy would do. the cd option is good though - it SHOULD alow you to copy the entire hard drive to another computer via a network or replace/delete whatever is wrong with the laptop
 

LadyBow

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Holy wow!
You explained the exact same problem that I'm having right now. My laptop is 10 months old, and mysteriously just stopped running everything and won't let me do safe mode. The tech guy also told me I need a new hard drive.

Only problem is, I don't understand what an "HD enclosure" is. I know this topic is old- I'm sorry if I resurrected it unnecessarily but I really don't want to lose my stuff either.
 

jeff101

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I have the same troubles with a Toshiba laptop. Toshiba support told me that it would be ok to slave
the laptop HD off of my desktop PC to retrieve the needed files prior to returning the laptop to Toshiba
for service. The laptop has Vista on it and the HD is going bad so doing a restore from the restore partition would work for me.

Jeff
 

liloplan

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You can open you Laptop with a Linux Live CD and transfer evey thing on your laptop to the home desktop with the lan network connection .


Liloplan.
 
G

Guest

Guest
I have a problem with my OS and it does not boot properly.
My DVD drive is also at fault can anyone say me other ways to format my Laptop.??
 

captObvious

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Jul 19, 2010
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Ok. So i see that NO ONE THAT RESPONDED actually answered his question... and it seems that none of you even fully read what he posted...

"The DVD drive is faulty and it does not detect any CD/DVD so the option of booting from a disk is not there in my case"

BOOTING FROM CD/DVD IS NOT AN OPTION!!!

is there ANYONE that actually knows how to set up and boot FROM the network? that is the main question, not using a "boot cd" because that means ur illterate or something because you obviously can't read.

boot cd = fail

also " I checked the BIOS, on my laptop ( by Phoenix Technologies ) and it does not support booting from USB."

so booting from flash/usb/thumb (all the same thing) DOES NOT WORK

flash/usb/thumb boot = FAIL


the only option that he is asking which i NEED to know as well is how to boot from network

"There is an option of Network boot"


I talked to a friend and he suggested a program like Norton Ghost or similar but i don't wanna pay 70 bux for something i'm only going to do once... Getting the cable is the obvious way but that wasn't the question either!

DOES ANYONE THAT CAN READ KNOW HOW TO BOOT OVER THE NETWORK TO ACCESS THE DATA ON THE HARD DRIVE!!!!!!!!!

jeez...
 

SLX

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Jul 29, 2010
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Well, for non Linux users this can be difficult. For booting from LAN, you need:
1. Another working computer.
2. DHCP server application on it.
3. TFTP server application on it.
4. FTP server or something for transfering files from damaged disk. (or pendrive if it will work)
4. Files of operating system which can be booted from LAN.

It is very simple on Linux, it has every application you need for this, more info at:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/Netboot
http://www.debian-administration.org/articles/478

There are many methods of recovering data, for you I recommend downloading Live CD of Ubuntu and extract files to TFTP server. It needs some configuration to work (you must edit /pxelinux.cfg/default) but then it's easier with graphical interface.

If not, from install screen of netboot version, at damaged computer (if you successfully boot it from LAN), you can run second console (ALT+F2) and do for example:

mkdir /mnt/disk_c
mkdir /mnt/disk_d
mkdir /mnt/disk_e
mount -t ntfs -o ro /dev/sda1 /mnt/disk_c
mount -t ntfs -o ro /dev/sda2 /mnt/disk_d
mount -t ntfs -o ro /dev/sda3 /mnt/disk_e

and so on... depending on how many partitions you have. For coping files:

mkdir /mnt/pendrive
mount -t vfat /dev/sdb /mnt/pendrive
cp /mnt/disk_c/* /mnt/pendrive

You can list directory by command "ls", and change it by "cd".



Maybe you have free space on working computer, so you can consider installation of some Linux for example Ubuntu. Be careful do not format your Windows files, it is often mistake during installation. It will be simpler then.
 

truck_twelve

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Sep 18, 2009
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i am kinda having the same problem except my lappy is not under warntie and i have a bad hdd i just want to use my lappy arround the house booting it off a hdd on my main pc with a fresh legal single copy of xp on that blank hdd my desktop currently runs a legal copy of vista and i want my lappy to run my legal copy of xp that way i can sit anywhere in my house and take my lappy with me i know its possable but i dont know how to do it yes my lappy has the option of network booting i just dont know how to set it up please any help would be great TY in advance :)
 

tomsresults

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Feb 7, 2011
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To everyone who has read / posted in this thread: it is impossible to get direct access to a hard drive by simply booting it's host computer over the network. The wake on lan functionality is purely for TURNING ON the remote pc. To access the files on the remote computer, it would have to be able to boot properly and run an FTP server.

The only solutions are to:
a) Boot the computer from another storage device (using a live CD or usb),
i) if your CD/DVD drive is broken, and you can't boot your computer from USB, you're going to have to spend some money to replace the CD/DVD drive;
OR
b) use a hard drive enclosure.
 
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