Dos network boot and XP SP2

I have a few machines that I've upgraded (overtime) to XP SP2. What I've noticed is that they don't seem to allow other machines booted with Bart's network boot disk to connect. The network is on a standard workgroup config. The firewall is turned off and the service is disabled. Logging on as administrator. The NIC driver is correct - the boot disk hasn't changed. I unplugged from my router and plugged all boxes into my switch incase the router was doing something hokey.

This used to work with XP when it was SP1. It connects to my old 98 box without a problem. I can't figure out what needs to be turned on or off. I've googled til I'm blue.

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

**edit**
I can ping both the DOS and the XP box. So there is connectivity.

 

I wasn't familiar with the disks and took a look at http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/ .

There are at least a half-dozen different pieces that could have been broken by updating to XP-SP2 and retaining all the same files and specs that worked previously. SP2 tightened up XP security quite a bit.

Why do you need to use the boot disks? XP does a good enough job of starting itself, starting networking, and allowing resources to hook up to each other.

 

The only reason is for creating ghost images over the network. Manually slaving HDDs just to get a ghost image is painful to say the least. And once you've done it over the network - you'll never want to go back.

I'm going to play around with it some more tonight. If I figure it out, I'll post a follow-up. Thanks for reply.

 

That makes sense. Thanks.

I do almost all server support and our desktop support folks are the ones who have to fiddle with ghost images so I tend to not think very much about them.

Even for the desktop machines, we have 'My Documents' as a redirect from a large file server that is backed up regularly, the installed apps autoloading based on which AD groups the user belongs to, and the desktop 'owners' all know that if a major problem crops up, they will get a new load so anything personal should be kept in My Documents.

We do have a number of posters on here who do network admin for smaller networks and they might be very interested in specifics on how you operate. If you have time (and are so inclined) I'd love to see enough details that others could do the same sort of thing.

 

If you use Symantec Ghost, there is an option to create a Network Ready boot disk. Have you tried that?

Personally, I've used ghost with a large USB hard disk. You then need a boot disk that loads USB drivers - again an option within Ghost allows you to create a suitable boot disk, or finding DOS USB drivers on the internet isn't too difficult.

By the way, if you are booting from floppy, XP shouldn't be loading. What will load will be the OS on the floppy (e.g. DOS, Linux, Win9x). So the problem will not be at the computer where you are booting from floppy, but rather the computer you trying to connect to. I would look for reports of SP2 blocking the protocol ghost is using to connect to the remote PC. (I am assuming the boot disk is fairly standard. There is the possibility that the floppy redirects to an OS on the hard disk - but this is unlikely I think).

I think it is worth looking at some alternatives to Ghost. There are other apps out there that will create a disk image from within the operating system, and therefore, don't need a boot disk.

 

Well I installed XP and slowly added patches in between tests all the way to SP2. Everything worked great so it was not sp2. I was trying to ghost computer c to computer b or a. I was able to connect computer d (test) to c and e (test) just fine. I guess I didn't try to connect to c yesterday.

Anyway, I installed a second copy of XP on computer a to verify that it's not the nic being stubborn - which I highly doubt. Computer a and b have a lot of stuff on them and haven't been formatted in a while. I might just reinstall SP2 and see if that cleans things up.

The only other thing I can think of is AT&T GNC. I've since uninstalled it and the firewall that came with it. I am determined to nip this in the rear.

I've never tried Norton's boot disk but as you suggested the problem is not with the source computer ... it's the target.

 

Holy Cramoly I finally figured it out! After spending 3 days of tinkering and what-not, I finally stumbled upon the solution. I do not know why it worked because nothing really changed... but it did!


Solution:
Simply reset the password on the target PC even if you know it's correct.

I know for a fact the password was correct. But for whatever reason I had to set it again on both target computers. After I did that, everything worked like a champ.

Man I'm happy!

 

Thanks for posting back with what worked for you. Always great to see a 'problem solved' post.