netflx3 driver won't load on 1850R booting DOS, loads when booted to win2k svr

[Linda Ruiz]

I have an old 1850R that I am trying to ghost, so we have created a DOS boot disk using the Netflx3.dos driver and appropriate protocol.ini. I can boot the server fine in Windows 2000 and access the network without incident. When I boot using the DOS boot disk, I get a message similar to cpq???? found = 0. We tested the same DOS boot disk in another 1850R and it worked. Any ideas? Suggested softpaqs? (my search results returned 1700+ which I am still swimming through).
Thanks,
Linda :)

[Claude Boileau]

Hi Linda

check out this link for nic drivers:
http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/networking/nics/index.html

regards

[Linda Ruiz]

Hi Claude,

That link you provided is where I got the netflx3.dos driver I used to build the DOS boot disk. Although that driver worked on another 1850R, it did not work on the one I need it to work on.

Are there any firmware updates for the embedded Netelligent 10/100 Embedded UTP/AUI NIC?
Thanks,
Linda :)

[Linda Ruiz]

Fixed it. This was a recycled server and the department that had turned it in had a habit of disabling the Embedded NIC in the System Configuration. Once I re-enabled the NIC and saved my changes the DOS boot disk worked.

I guess Windows 2000 server can enable Compaq NICs as required on a temporary basis.

- Linda

[Nathan Fisk]

Would anyone be willing to send me the image/files of that boot disk? We're trying to do the same thing, and can't get the damn thing to work! Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Nathan Fisk

[Linda Ruiz]

My coworker built it for me from the info at this site:
Bart's Network Boot Disk
http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/network/

He built the modboot disk (replace network with modboot in link above) with networking support as shown in the link above. It's a bit confusing at first, but if you download the auto-created one and see how that works you'll get the hang of it. Lots of reading.

Hint, you put the cabs for the network drivers you need in a:\lib\ndis then boot from that floppy and tell it to save your Profile, at the Save Profile option choose Manual or Prompt and it will rebuild the file it uses to pick which NICs to display.

The NETFLEX3 cab he has on his site works for the embedded NC3163 NICs. The B57 cab works for the Broadcom NC7781 NICs. We put our dos version of GHOST on the server we setup our Modboot disk to attach to. So we can ghost up to the network and not have to carry around two floppies (one to boot and one for ghost).

We found the drivers for the Allied Telesyn 2700FX from the vendor site, and then used Bart's makeCab utility to create the cab - after we edited/created the files necessary. If you find yourself having to create a cabfile like that, it helps to open up a few cabs from his site using winzip or similar and looking that the names of the files (ndis.pci, ndis.txt) and their contents to see what is required.

What we haven't figured out yet is how to get both CD and network support in the same boot - not enough room on the a 1.44MB floppy. We're looking into a bootable CD built from the files from bart's site and mod'ing to become CD-MODBOOT.

[Linda Ruiz]

Thanks to all for your assistance. The solution was to check that the onboard NIC was enabled in the system config area.