In the case of two of the three laptops I have here to play with, it's simply a matter of telling it to boot off the DVD drive and then inserting the appropriate disc and going on from there. In the case of this other one, things get a little weird.
On powerup I see messages referring to PXE, which if I remember correctly involves booting off a network connection? There's "Media test failure, check cable" followed by "Exiting PXE ROM" and then I get "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key. The thing is, this machine doesn't have a DVD drive. What it does have is a couple of USB ports (two different color connectors so I assume different speeds?). I am also assuming that simply putting an iso file on to a USB stick won't quite do it. No idea about how to implement anything to do with PXE, though I can probably safely assume that I have what I need on the LAN here. Any thoughts on how best to deal with this? -- Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters" - Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James M Dakin
