Solved! Trying to convert Asus NB to thin client

[GaryManis]

Hi. I have an old Asus S1300 (P-III 640 MB RAM) Notebook with a dead HD. I would like to convert the system into a thin client diskless terminal. The BIOS supports booting to network and booting to USB floppy. I have a PXE server setup and I have successfully booted a different system using it. However, the Asus won't. I checked the Realtek site and found updated firmware for the onboard NIC's boot ROM, but no instructions on how to install it. It came with rtflash.exe, which I tried using and it seemed to be updating the flash ROM, but it still doesn't work and the start-up screen looks exactly like the original boot ROM. I don't think the original boot ROM supports PXE or RPL, but the updated firmware supports both. I suspect the boot ROM was not updated.

I also tried creating a bootable CF PC card with a PXE boot image on it, but the system apparently wont' boot from CF. I also created a bootable USB thumb drive with PXES loaded on it. It won't boot from that either. I don't really want to invest in a new HD for this old system and I really could use a thin client terminal to access my Linux servers. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[GaryManis]

Update. I solved my own problem. I used the CF card and a CF to IDE adapter to replace the HD. Loaded gPXE USB image onto CF via USB multi-card reader. System now boots from my PXE server. Sweet.