الخميس، أغسطس ٢١، ٢٠٠٨

Boot from LAN...

Assalamo Alikom wa rahmato ALLAH...

Hi pals... long time no see :)

I've been encountering a serious problem with my laptop during the last week. Windows is no more behaving as normal; Taskbar loads in 30+ mins, any executable takes no less time, and any processing is nothing better!
This is incredible, I had to try booting from a Windows CD (Hopefully that fixes the problem)... on my HP Compaq nx9010 :|
But, the CD-ROM is malfunction and no bootable floppy, neither boot from USB is an available option.

I had to look for alternatives:
  1. Boot from LAN
  2. Extract the HDD, connect it to a PC and format-install Windows

The second option was hard enough such that I wasn't able to get my HDD out of the laptop, so I left the laptop alone so not to take any insane actions against :)!

The first option is my man! although it took me 3 nights to set the environment, as in the following steps (However, I've not finished installing Windows yet... still copying files!):

  1. Setup the PXE Server PC
    This server will contain all required files for the laptop to boot successfully

    Here's all about preparing the server: http://home.allegiance.tv/~joem298/
    OR you can just download and extract this ZIP anywhere, then run "tftpd32". This will start your PXE server.

    netw.imz: is the bootable floppy image, equiped with the network drivers. Non built-in drivers are available on www.nu2.nu/bootdisk, with many helpful info on how to install it.

  2. Start the laptop and select "Boot from LAN" option
    This will connect to the server through 1-to-1 connection cable (avoid routers for clean startup and especially any DHCP enabled one)

    Enable network driver.
    If driver auto-detection failed, then you might find it in the "Manual Selection" dialog (you'll be offered that option if auto-detection failed).

    Otherwise, you will need the help of "whatnic" command, this will show the adapter type and recommended drivers to download from www.nu2.nu/bootdisk
    You'll then need to modify the "netw.imz" to include the new drivers. AND make sure to select "Rebuild" option when restarting from the new bootable (rather than "Auto" or "Manual"); this will rebuild the drivers on the bootable disk, and reflect your changes.

  3. Having a Windows CD shared on the PC, and network driver enabled on the laptop, now you can access the shared folder and install windows

    Using "msnet" command on a well set laptop (victim), this will ask to map a drive to your shared folder. Make sure to use the server PC name NOT the IP address when specifying the shared folder path on your server.

    DONE! now run the windows installer or whatever you wanna do with your powerfull DOS!
Thanks ;) ... I hope the windows installer will speedup In-Shaa-ALLAH :)
Assalamo Alikom wa rahmato ALLAH

هناك ٥ تعليقات:

Mohammad Fouad يقول...

Great .. that was helpful ..
i am sure i am going to use it on someone's machine soon :D
--
question .. the bootable disk .. goes where ?
or it will be the image that the victim uses to boot on lan ?

Mohammed ElMorsy يقول...

Fouad, Hi man...
The bootable disk image (imz file) is on the server pc
(you'll find it beside the tftp.exe, and referenced by the "default" file -inside the "cfg" folder-)

Assalamo alikom wa rahmato ALLAH...

غير معرف يقول...

Why can't u boot from a USB device?
I guess it's an option...pressing F11 while starting ur machine will make it available.
but u have to make the USB device bootable for windows.

غير معرف يقول...

this may help:
http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm

Mohammed ElMorsy يقول...

My BIOS didn't support booting from USB