Hello everyone,
my question in a nutshell is this,
is there a utility or something that would allow me to boot a PC from USB, dump all hard drives to empty and load a simple linux distro (any) to first HDD on the system fast.
my company is closing, we have a number of PCs here that are old (over 6-8 old) that run win7, XP, Vista, and even DOS, FIY the one with DOS are not overly old just had to run DOS in order to control special machinery that do not otherwise, they need a direct access to COM ports and LPT ports, and no emulations would work.
all of this PCs need to be wiped clean of proprietary software before sale/donation.
I know I can use DBAN or similar but want to know if I can flash an OS on them so they are usable. just to be nice. but I need to do this fast. like BOOT -> flash -> reboot- > next PC .
I only have one USB stick here so no multiple PCs at once.
Free option is preferred...
thanks. Vl
[EDIT] = OK I guess I can close this thread as solved.
I played with FOG server last week and is seems a good option for me to work with.
O build out a FOG server VM on my Hyper-V workstation, played with is for a bit and once I decided it would work I migrate it to one of my secondary Hyper-V servers, it has more resources in terms of RAM and space.
I managed to add a DBAN CD to the PXE menu so I can boot a PC from PXE and wipe the drives over network, making it easier to do several PCs at once, compared to usb booting each and everyone, one at a time.
I also build out a Linux Mint 18 VM in OEM mode and imaged it to the FOG server.
now I can deploy the thing over PXE boot option to any PC I need to, over the network.
again no need to USB/CD boot and install.
my question in a nutshell is this,
is there a utility or something that would allow me to boot a PC from USB, dump all hard drives to empty and load a simple linux distro (any) to first HDD on the system fast.
my company is closing, we have a number of PCs here that are old (over 6-8 old) that run win7, XP, Vista, and even DOS, FIY the one with DOS are not overly old just had to run DOS in order to control special machinery that do not otherwise, they need a direct access to COM ports and LPT ports, and no emulations would work.
all of this PCs need to be wiped clean of proprietary software before sale/donation.
I know I can use DBAN or similar but want to know if I can flash an OS on them so they are usable. just to be nice. but I need to do this fast. like BOOT -> flash -> reboot- > next PC .
I only have one USB stick here so no multiple PCs at once.
Free option is preferred...
thanks. Vl
[EDIT] = OK I guess I can close this thread as solved.
I played with FOG server last week and is seems a good option for me to work with.
O build out a FOG server VM on my Hyper-V workstation, played with is for a bit and once I decided it would work I migrate it to one of my secondary Hyper-V servers, it has more resources in terms of RAM and space.
I managed to add a DBAN CD to the PXE menu so I can boot a PC from PXE and wipe the drives over network, making it easier to do several PCs at once, compared to usb booting each and everyone, one at a time.
I also build out a Linux Mint 18 VM in OEM mode and imaged it to the FOG server.
now I can deploy the thing over PXE boot option to any PC I need to, over the network.
again no need to USB/CD boot and install.
Last edited:
