[Etherboot-users] Dos as a PreOS?

[Alexander H. <mai...@gm...>]

Hello!

Is it possible to load a DOS/FreeDOS floppy image with etherboot to do a 
few things (e.g. scan for viruses, copy a hard disk image from the 
network to the local disk) and continue booting from the local hard disk 
or from the network *without* a reboot?

Here is another reason why I want to use Dos as a PreOS:
I would like FreeDOS to start a fancy mouse-driven menu, so the user can 
choose between several boot options (start another etherboot (this time 
the .com version but with a modified VCI) or boot from the local hard disk).

3com developed a promising utility (pboot.exe) which is part of the 
driver disk for my NICs and it is also available for download at their 
web page ( ftp://ftp.3com.com/pub/nic/3c90x/util430.exe ) but I would 
prefer a combination of free tools because I think there are some 
licence issues (but I am not sure).
I will test that utility this week but I have to use their Windows boot 
image creator (also part of the driver disk) and I would like to avoid 
that (because it makes it difficult to automate things).

So here are my thoughts:
- create a DOS nbi image
- boot it & do a few PreOS things or start a fancy menu (mentioned above)
- free all memory and boot something else (another version of etherboot 
or local hard disk) *without* a reboot

So my question is:
Is there a way to combine rmrd.com and the .com version of etherboot so 
I can free the memory occupied by the virtual floppy and boot etherboot 
without using comspec (when I do not want to boot DOS or when there is 
no harddisk at all)?

Cheers
Alex