Use GRUB/GRUB2 to PXE boot OS image
Asked this in stackoverflow but they recommended I post this here:
Here is the situation I am in:
I currently have a Windows drive that boots XP. The BIOS does not support PXE booting so this is out of the question. Therefore, I was thinking I could install a customized GRUB bootloader on it instead such that it will have the option to PXE boot an image from a DHCP server connected to it and have the option to load Windows as it normally does (two items in menu). The catch is it may need to be automated (meaning no keyboard), so is there any way to run a script pre-boot during GRUB loading that determines if DHCP / TFTP servers are running and attempt to PXE boot an image from the network (and if not, say timeout of 10 seconds, regularly boot from Windows drive)?
If this is not possible, what are some other options / suggestions? I was reading up on grub4dos as well but I'm not sure that is what I need. FWIW, I'm free to do whatever I want to the drive. I'd really appreciate some help on this as I'm not sure where to start. Thanks!
Solution 1:
- go to rom-o-matic.net and get an iso for gPXE
- burn it to a CD or a flash drive
- set the bios boot sequence to try the cdrom/flash first, then HDD
this will try to PXE boot, and if that fails, bios should switch you to the next boot device, where you'll have Windows