Can I Do This

[nightsider]

i was wondering if i can have a pc running without the hardisk and spunge the os of a networked PC

[gunak87]

I think you might be able to do that with certain versions of linux, not 100% sure, though. You could always use Knoppix Linux and just run the OS stright from the CD drive.

[nightsider]

the problame is that i need to run win xp and i dont ave the cash to go gout and get a bigger hard disk can you tell me if it would work and if not wher i can download that linux distro and manual

[gunak87]

There was another thread very much like this one. I don't think you can install, or run XP over a network.

 

Here's the link to the knoppix website.

[nightsider]

thanx

[aaronamd]

you need to have either a windows server 2003 machine sending the boot image to the other machine or have a linux server do the exact same thing then if your motherboard supports it you enable boot from lan and PXE and then the windows or linux server will server up a kernel for the network machine to boot off of, what your looking into is called a PXE boot server, some members here have them for diskless folding farms.

[godmode117]

try googling "diskless windows" without the quotes, it gave me a bunch of results

[nightsider]

thank you

[Nemo]

If you're not running a server version of Windows then you will need to get a DHCP and TFTP server to run on your Windows box. A free version can be found at Weird Solutions. Once you have that set up, you will need to get a Linux distro that can be 'served' to the other PC. The PC without the OS will have to support PXE booting. As others have mentioned, search for diskless setups. One place to start is Diskless Folding Farm to read how one person set up a diskless folding farm using a Windows server.