PXE Boot or Pre-Boot Targus UDS GbE Support

April 02, 19 - Posted in: Tech Talk

Some laptop OEMs have added DisplayLink network boot support (PXE) to their PC BIOS image. However, if DisplayLink network boot support has not been added, it is still possible to network boot the PC via the docking station’s Ethernet port.

Please see below for two alternate methods.

Method 1 - iPXE

Use an iPXE image and boot the PC from a USB flash drive (thumb drive).

Information on downloading and building iPXE.

To build for a legacy BIOS:

make bin-x86_64-efi/ncm.usb

To build for a UEFI BIOS:

make bin-x86_64-efi/ncm.usb

The DisplayLink Ethernet driver will also need to be slipstreamed into the OS image. The required Ethernet driver file dlcdcncm.inf can be found in the .INF file here.

Method 2 – WinPE

You can use WinPE to load the DisplayLink Ethernet driver package, then proceed to boot from the network boot image server. You will require WinPE, a script to load the DisplayLink Ethernet driver package, and a DisplayLink Ethernet driver package, all to be loaded on an external USB flash drive (Thumb drive), and the computer set to boot from USB.

Both the dlcdcncm.inf and dlcdcncm.cat files will need to be packaged using Packaging software. The .CAT file must be included to avoid issues with Windows Driver signing.

The required Ethernet driver files dlcdcncm.inf and can be found in the .INF file here.

Note:
The DisplayLink software is not supported and cannot be installed into WinPE, but the Ethernet driver can be installed using WinPE.

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