[Tripredacus]

Does anyone know of any USB 2-3.0 to Gigabit Ethernet adapters that are capable of doing a PXE boot? I found this one on Dell's website:
http://accessories.u...19&sku=a6003700
But I talked to Startech tech support and they say that it doesn't support PXE, nor do they sell any that do.

Any suggestions?

I know that Argon sells one but it is only Fast Ethernet.

[RenCheill]

I don't know if you ever got a reply, but I will post this for anyone who may be looking for this answer. I have had good luck with StarTech USB21000S2. I use them to PXE boot the Dell UltraBooks for Imaging.

[jaclaz]

RenCheill, on 10 May 2013 - 01:44 PM, said:

I don't know if you ever got a reply, but I will post this for anyone who may be looking for this answer. I have had good luck with StarTech USB21000S2. I use them to PXE boot the Dell UltraBooks for Imaging.

Since that is seemingly the same model that Tripredacus originally linked to, what remains to know are the names of the "Startech tech support" guys that talked to Trip...

jaclaz

[Tripredacus]

I actually did test that device on various notebooks, desktops and tablets, and not one could see the USB NIC as a valid bootable device in the BIOS or boot menu.

[mchipser]

Tripredacus, on 13 May 2013 - 09:09 AM, said:

I actually did test that device on various notebooks, desktops and tablets, and not one could see the USB NIC as a valid bootable device in the BIOS or boot menu.

I haven't seen any that would allow it, and the BIOS would have to support it, more so than the USB NIC, I think..

I know you wanted to know about USB boot NICs.. Have you tried booting from a floppy / flash drive and pass the pxe stack to the usb device? I'm not even sure you would want to do this, but just an idea.

[jaclaz]

mchipser, on 14 May 2013 - 02:21 PM, said:

I haven't seen any that would allow it, and the BIOS would have to support it, more so than the USB NIC, I think..

I know you wanted to know about USB boot NICs.. Have you tried booting from a floppy / flash drive and pass the pxe stack to the usb device? I'm not even sure you would want to do this, but just an idea.

Just for the record, theoretically it would be possible, to have an "all in one" thingy, if you think at those 3G USB sticks they have a "modem" (please read as NIC) part and a CD part.
The CD part could be bootable and contain a PXE boot stack, but it would hardl ywork on *all* PC's let alone DELL's which have a consolidated tradition for having BIOS behave "strangely".

Let's wait until RenCheill comes back to try and understand if he can provide more details.

jaclaz