On Tue 27 Aug 2024 at 21:42:22 (-0400), Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote: > 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?
I assume your DVD drives are internal, so they're always present when you boot up, and they're always selectable in the BIOS menus. I have a laptop that only shows a USB stick as available in the menu /if/ it's already plugged in before you turn on the power. If you don't plug it in that early, you might be unaware that it could boot from a USB stick at all: there's no mention of that in the specs, and no hint in the extensive PhoenixBIOS documentation that you have to expand the /Hard Drive/ item in the Boot menu to reveal the USB stick under the actual hard drive. (You then have to promote the USB above the hard drive in the two-item list.) Cheers, David.
