A while ago I configured the freeware tftpd32 for DHCP and tftp, and used PXE to boot an image of the Bart network boot floppy. The image then allowed me to run Ghost. Whilst this was very useful, a DOS-only environment wasn’t ideal.

I’ve now setup an environment with the Microsoft DHCP server, and the Microsoft TFTPD to boot a BartPE ISO image.

The BartPE image has the advantage of running with Win32 network drivers, so imaging speed is significantly better than before. It does have the disadvantage of loading the BartPE .iso in to memory before running it, and thus needs at least 256Mb of RAM installed.

I have also added a basic menu using pxelinux, so that after doing the initial PXE boot it delays for 10 seconds, and then by default boots from the local hard drive, but gives the options of booting either the BartPE environment or the original Bart “floppy” environment.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 24th, 2006 at 4:02 pm and is filed under Microsoft, Linux, Install. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.