karlosantana 0 Report post Posted March 31, 2008 Well the topic says it all really, My pc is on a network (i made it go me!) everything goes to an ethernet hub a.k.a ethernet switch. On it I will be attaching a massive hard drive.My question is can I boot two separate computers off of one hard drive through ethernet? and if it is possible... how do I do it? they will be running on XP.Heres something that I think may help too... Different user accounts, so i can log in as lets say DUDE on one and SWEET on the other, and obviously off of the same hard drive.I think that I've explained it well enough, any questions, post!Thanks in advance Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Galahad 0 Report post Posted April 3, 2008 I'm not quite sure if this is possible, to operate a computer without a hard drive... There is an option boot from network in BIOS, but I have never tried it, so I can't vouch for it...What you are mentioning about user accounts, they are called roaming profiles in windows, and you will need a server computer, to which the others will connect to, and it will serve those profiles to a computer... I would recommend installing smaller hard drives in each conputer, and having a server with a giant hard drive, and you can use it as a storage... I really thing micro$oft didn't want you booting one windows on two computers, and thus, I don't think that's possible... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
karlosantana 0 Report post Posted April 4, 2008 Ok well that does help ta. Is it possible through linux then? cause i love ubuntu and openSUSE if there was a big hard drive and all the other pc's booted off it, wouldn't it boot off of that linux? Looking forward to your reply, I'm gonna give it a go and I will post the results.Thanks in advanceKarlos Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rvalkass 5 Report post Posted April 4, 2008 With Linux I think you can mount partitions across a network, but you could run into conflicts if two of you want to edit the same file, and other such things like that. What you seem to be getting close to is actually a client-server setup, often used in schools and businesses. Each computer boots from a central server, where user accounts are also stored. The user accounts can then be accessed from any computer configured to work with the server. Check out the following links for a bit more info if you want to go down this route:http://www.ltsp.org/https://www.linux.com/news/drbl-quick-and-easy-thin-client-server Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
karlosantana 0 Report post Posted April 5, 2008 Well rvalkass you've sorted it again, I bow down to your huge knowledge on things like this... AND! using that I've found a way to fiddle about with XP a bit...it CAN be done! When there's a will there's a way . Anyone attempting to do this, set all other accounts to guest capabilities, I made it so they(meaning sub users) can only get into their documents, this is also a great method of keeping viruses off of your PC (I hate those things) Anyway thanks again rvalkass Karlos Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
