I would say use Norton Ghost, its amazing and extrmely fast, and using the serial port would possible take a few days to transfer the data =]
- overid3 Stefan Srdic wrote: > I've recently gotten a contract with a "rent to own" company in the > city. I will be verifying computer hardware and installing the operating > system (Win9x) on all of the computers that they deal with. > > My goal is to write an installation floppy that will handle the entire > installation process. The floppy will be responsible to boot the > computers into real-mode (MS-DOS) and connect to my Linux host via > serial ports. On my Linux host I will have a "master image" of the > operating system CD and a Windows installation script. Once connected > the computers will access an installation script that will start an > automated Windows installation over the serial cables This will enable > me to start multiple OS installations at once and periodically check on > them all. > > Why go with serial cable? Because most of the computers will not be > equiped with ethernet cards. I have though about purchasing Norton > Ghost, but I will be dealing with multiple version of the Windows > operating system as well as several different hardware configurations. > > I already made a few serial cables using low capacitance cable and a few > db9 and db25 connectors along with a few gender changers. I plan to get > an old 10Mbps ISA NIC that runs under Linux and plug it into my hub, I > then can use a few ethernet -> serial adapters and have up too 4 > computers (4 ports on the HUB) running through the installation process > at once!!! > > The best part is, I can configure my Linux host to masquerade the > internet to the computers. With that I can run Windows update and > install the apropriate drivers for the hardware too. > > This idea of mine sounds great but I'm not sure if it will work. For > example, to connect to the Linux host via the serial ports I will need > some sort of serial network driver for MS-DOS, where do I find it? And, > what type of service will I need on my Linux hosts in order for the > DOS clients to mount network shares? Will I be able to configure the DOS > clients for TCP/IP networking? > > Thanks in advance > > Stef > > -- > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
