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Requirement:

Syslinux-2.10.zip from kernel.org (Here don’t booting a Linux kernel)

DHCP and TFTP Server software for windows (TFTPD32 Works well for this)

- Download tftpd32.273.zip from TFTPD Homepage

A DOS boot disk image (or a dos bootdisk that you wish to create an image from)

- A DOS boot disk with network support can be downloaded from NU2
Download ‘BFD full package v1.0.7.zip’ from NU2

- WinImage software for creating the boot disk image
Download winima61.exe from WinImage

Create image using Acronis.

Instructions:

1. Begin by downloading the software above into a temporary folder on the computer that will act as the PXE Server.

2. Create a folder on the server to use for hosting the necessary files. I created a folder on the C drive called tftpboot

3. Open Syslinux-2.10.zip with your favorite zip utility. We will need two files from the archive. Extract pxelinux.0 from the root directory of the zip file into your pxe folder (’c:\tftpboot’) Next, browse to the zip file’s subfolder memdisk and extract the file called ‘memdisk’ into your pxe folder.

4. Open tftpd32.273.zip and extract tftpd32.exe into your pxe folder.

5. The last file that you will need for your PXE server is a boot disk image. Insert a blank floppy disk into your PXE server. Unzip the contents of ‘BFD full package v1.0.7.zip’ into directory. Open a command prompt and browse to that folder. Run the command ‘bfd msnet’ in order to create the bootable floppy.

6. Run winima61.exe, install WinImage, and start the program. Click the ‘Disk’ menu and make sure that the drive containing your newly created NU2 bootdisk is selected. Next, from the disk menu select ‘Read Disk’. If you boot OS from network consider instruction number 5. Use the OS image what you create by acronis.This will take some time. If you need additional files on the bootdisk you can add them using this program now. If you want to use default bootdisk, select File –> Save. Set the file type to ‘Compressed Image file (*.imz)’ and save the image to your pxe folder.

7. Make a subdirectory in your pxe folder called ‘pxelinux.cfg’ (despite the ‘.cfg’ this is a folder, not a file)

8. In your pxelinux.cfg folder create a new text document and open it using notepad. Insert the following lines:

default boot

prompt 0

say booting…

label boot

kernel memdisk

append initrd=nameofimage.imz

9. Replace ‘nameofimage’ with the name of the bootdisk image file that you created.

10. Save the text document and rename it ‘default’. Do NOT use an extension like .txt. Windows hides the txt extension by default so if you may need to start Windows Explorer, click on Tools –> Folder options, select the view tab, and uncheck “Hide extensions for known file types.” Make sure the file is named ‘default’ and not ‘default.txt’.

11. Browse to your pxe server folder and start tftpd32.exe. The current directory should come up as your pxe server folder, but if it does not, change it to that folder. Click on the settings button. The base directory should be set to ‘.’ Make sure all of the boxes in the Global Settings are checked except for SNTP server. Leave all of the other settings at their defaults and click ok.

12. Click on the DHCP tab. PXE booting requires a special DHCP server that supplies the booting computer with the information it needs to get started and find the necessary files (on your pxe server). If you have a router or some other device on your network that is already acting as a DHCP server, you might consider disabling DHCP on that device. On the other hand, if you know the range of IP addresses that your current DHCP server is assigning, you can probably run both at the same time without too much problem. Just make sure that the two DHCP servers are not set to assign addresses in the same range. Since my router assigns IP addresses between 192.168.0.2 and 192.168.0.50.

13. The server setup is DONE!