Posted: 9/25/2013 6:59:44 AM EDT
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Hey guys,
Need help with creating a script that forces a PC to boot from USB on reboot. The idea here is to stick in a USB drive, back up some files, and then when the PC is rebooted it will boot from the USB for imaging purposes. I'm not even sure this is possible without manual intervention (e.g. F12), but wanted to see if anyone had any ideas. These machines are 99% Dell, so I wouldn't be adverse to calling an OpenManage utility or something along those lines. TIA! |
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I've done this before.
Setup the system boot order to boot from the USB drive and then HD. You will need a script to write a boot sector to the USB drive when you want to boot from it and then erase the USB drive boot sector when you don't want to boot to it. Is this linux? |
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Quoted:
I've done this before. Setup the system boot order to boot from the USB drive and then HD. You will need a script to write a boot sector to the USB drive when you want to boot from it and then erase the USB drive boot sector when you don't want to boot to it. Is this linux? This will be on 300+ computers running Win Vista (I know, I know - didn't choose it), so I can't really change the boot order on all easily. Probably just easier to F12 at that point. This whole thing is for a system refresh (imaging PCs). Didn't know if there was a way I could automate it with a script. Sounds like I'll just have them go F12. |
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Special FW as in EFI/OpenEFI, which will always check for boot devices and let you do things to it without individual per-machine user intervention.
Special knowledge as in possibly a utility which is capable of writing new values to the firmware for your Dells. None of these can work without you first getting runtime access to the machine in order to set up a boot first from USB or at least check for USB device first option. If you can custom program your USB key/device, you might be able to make a multifunction device that presents itself as both a USB keyboard, which is programmed to send in the F12 or equivalent, giving you access to write the firmware without user intervention, and as the bootable USB key. No way to do it with a bone stock USB key that I know of. |
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Can't be done. The motherboard is choosing the boot device then the boot loader tells it what to do. By the time you get to the boot loader part, it's too late to switch. Find another way to start the process other than a USB drive. (If you are plugging a drive in, why the hell cant you change the boot order? You are sitting there right?) If it's an Active Directory domain you can do all sorts of shit including install software to do drive imaging. You might be able to inject a boot loader program (like LILO used to work) and swap around what drive gets booted from based on a script, but probably pretty hard to do it just from an event like plugging in a USB drive. "Deep Freeze" or something like that used to be the tool everyone used to restore to a certain condition on reboot.
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Quoted:
Can't be done. The motherboard is choosing the boot device then the boot loader tells it what to do. By the time you get to the boot loader part, it's too late to switch. Find another way to start the process other than a USB drive. (If you are plugging a drive in, why the hell cant you change the boot order? You are sitting there right?) If it's an Active Directory domain you can do all sorts of shit including install software to do drive imaging. You might be able to inject a boot loader program (like LILO used to work) and swap around what drive gets booted from based on a script, but probably pretty hard to do it just from an event like plugging in a USB drive. "Deep Freeze" or something like that used to be the tool everyone used to restore to a certain condition on reboot. Yeah, again, that's exactly what I thought. Thanks. |
| While not quite what you're looking for, have you considered pxe boot to network? Other than that, tools such as Altiris Deployment use a special boot partition installed on the workstation's drive. It will boot to the pre-boot environment, listen for a request, then reboot to Windows if a request isn't present. |
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PXE Boot would be the preferred method. Dell makes a utility that will change BIOS settings, used to be called Dell Client Configuration Utility. It could be scripted very easily. I used it to make PCs not try to boot to USB. ETA: Now know as Client Configuration Toolkit. |