Diskless Windows 7?

[NghtRppr]

Does anyone know how to install/boot Windows 7 without needing a local disk? I know it supports iSCSI but I've never done it before. I'm sure this would be useful to other people starting up a mining farm too.

[qed]

Win7PE is working great for me, but it is not very much user friendly.

[Sukrim]

Maybe read into PXE booting... it shouldn't have so much to do with the OS that is booted.

However due to licensing costs, I would suggest to go the Linux route. There are also more "freaks" in that commuinity, who might be of help. 

[dust]

Is there any reason to use Windows these days now that we know how to adjust memory clock and voltage on linux?

[gigabytecoin]

Does anyone know how to install/boot Windows 7 without needing a local disk? I know it supports iSCSI but I've never done it before. I'm sure this would be useful to other people starting up a mining farm too.

Not that I know of, tried it every which way.

[NghtRppr]

Win7PE is working great for me, but it is not very much user friendly.

I've used BartPE before so I understand the process. Are you successfully mining without a disk? Can you give me some more information and perhaps some links?

Thanks!

[shivansps]

In the past i have done something i call "Windows 7 PE S.O. para("for" in english) pendrivers), is a highly moded WinPE 3.0 with a lot of stuff i found in internet, now in in the process on modifing the PE to work as a "Miner PE".

I still have 2 problems to workaround...
1) OC... need to make some tool like MSI afterburner to install and then autoload the profiles (need to use only command line arguments)
2) Miners... so far i cant get ANY Python based miner to work, i just get an error on while trying to run the app, i bet is some kind of dependency the S.O. needs to run Python stuff... (RPC and Ufasoft miners seems to be working fine).

I was thinking about put it here to download once finish it, but i cant, its considered "illegal".

So far the size is +/- 700MB, so it easy fit on 1GB pendrives.

[Sukrim]

Yeah, since it's not allowed to publish such things using Windows, maybe a (modified + stripped down) linux-live stick with popular miners and current drivers might be nice to have? Someone already did/posted a little work on Ubuntu somewhere here...

[NghtRppr]

Yeah, since it's not allowed to publish such things using Windows, maybe a (modified + stripped down) linux-live stick with popular miners and current drivers might be nice to have? Someone already did/posted a little work on Ubuntu somewhere here...

All you have to do is require a valid Windows 7 install disk or .iso and you can distribute everything. That's how BartPE works.

[mrb]

This is how I do it: Diskless Windows 7 iSCSI boot from OpenSolaris 2009.06 ZFS Server

[shivansps]

you can easily do WinPE to boot from PXE, thats trivial, them you will need to make some program, server-side to control miners accounts, its not hard either.

Right now, my first "Miner PE" works on Pendrives, thats a especial "alpha" version, is so modified that i cant make a scritp (like BartPE) to auto-made one from user files, but i using it to figure out everything.

Once i finally finish it, i gona start to make a "cluster" version, that works from a server, on gona do it in some way that i just gona release extra non MS files needed and the scritps to make one. So it will be legal to distribuste in this way (after all, i just releasing scritps files and non MS stuff lol).

Give me some time, i sure i can get something good out of winpe.

But first i need to workaround the VB Distributable stuff for running miners lol

[NghtRppr]

I should have also specified that I don't want to use a CD-ROM either. For installation, that's fine but I'd like to boot Windows 7 over the network, without needing a CD-ROM or hard disk, at most a USB flash drive.

[shivansps]

i trying to put it operational... winpe gives troubles everywhere... still i managed to mount a very very rudementary "server" on my main pc, along with a tftpd32 (pxe server)... the idea is, to act as a "cluster"... lets see if i can sort out the remaining issues. (starting with a better way to do timing in batchs)





BTW, WinPE reboots itselft every 24hours :S

[Transisto]

Very interesting,

I was thinking on booting over iScsi,

People usually use a CF on an IDE adapter for booting low requirement OS

good luck with your project

[Nefario]

Funny, I read the title as "Dickless Windows 7?"   

[shivansps]

Its working now, i will be doing some basic testing next days.

Support for both MakePE3 (Modded to MinerPE), and standart Vista/Windows 7 installs.

Main problems remains, no support for Nvidia cards on MinerPE (some nvidia driver issues, OpenCL and Cuda shows up as installed, but it cant be used), reboot every 24 hours (its illegal to change this) and phoenix miner doest work at all (cant find kernel, for some reason).

So in working on the final issues with drivers, some improvements to the "monitor" of each client, testing everything, and i plan to add a email warning system, and if possible remote orders trought email too.
 But the email things are the last one ill will work on. Right now im trying to ensure that is fully operational. im just a beginner C programmer, so dont expect fancy things , most of the stuff is in batch files lol.

[shivansps]

So... a little update, everything is working for now, i finished the remote MinerPE control panel and monitor.



Now i working with MSI Afterburner to enable remote overcloking capability, it should be easy EXCEPT because it it gives me dll errors at startup and the program itselft dont load up until i hit ok, but its mostly working.

Next week when i get the another 2 HD5850 i gona do a full test, since i heard there is a 4 connections limit on WinPE...

I know is not a great thing, there is room for improvement everywhere, but its functional.