Etherinst is made to:

1. Show the network card PCI ID. It is userful to determine the correct Etherboot ROM type.


2. Make partitions, format and install etherboot on the hard drive/IDE flash drive. When one is unable to burn BootROM or write Etherboot code to BIOS, he can insert old hard disk or cheap IDE Flash into PC and then run Etherboot directly from this media.

Download

1. Floppy image
2. Rawwrite for Windows, a tool to write a floppy image to a floppy disk.

HOWTO

1. Make the floppy

Unpack etherinst zip and write etherinst.img to the floppy using rawwrite program.

2. Determine network card PCI ID

Boot from the floppy, made on the previous step, and choose "Show PCI ID of network card" from menu.

3. Make partitions, format and install etherboot on the hard drive

!!! WARNING !!! Entire contents of the hard drive will be erased !!!

1. Determine the PCI ID of your networg card, as described before.
2. Go to rom-o-matic.net and obtain the ROM file for your card. You should choose the ROM output format: "LILO/GRUB/SYSLINUX loadable kernel format (.zlilo)"
3. Rename the ROM file to loader and write it to the floppy.
4. Boot from this floppy, choose "Prepare hard disk" from menu. Computer should reboot automatically to finish the hard disk preparation.
5. After reboot, choose "Install Etherboot" from menu.

That's all. Now you will have a single partition 1Mb size on the hard drive and Etherboot running directly (really, ir run via syslinux) from this partition. Configure BIOS to boot from the drive C: end enjoy the network boot.

Etherinst floppy is assembled by Andrey Kovalev. Mail to me all questions and wishes about this floppy.