Need Guidance with PXE Booting

[imported_Brutus1234]

I've been playing around with PXE booting following a guide I found in these forums but I've reached an impass and I'm hoping someone can help me.

I've got TFTP32 working.
I used the 3COM PXE utility noted in the guide here to create a PXE boot menu. I've taken 2 different bootable floppy images to create an IMA file that the PXE boot Menu points to.

My client computers ( two of them have the same behaviour )

1. They pickup an IP from the TFTP32 DHCP server
2. I see TFPT delivering the PXE Boot Menu, which comes up on both computers.
3. I select the bootable floppy.
4. I see a message "transfering image"
5. A 3COM title screen comes up, with a message below " Starting ...."

And that's it. Nothing more happens.

I really don't need this for anything. It's purely a learning experience. I thought I might boot up a linux bootable image, if I could get this to work but I'm completely stuck and I hate that, even if I don't need it.

Can anyone offer some guidance? Thanks.

 

[Emulex]

what kind of activity are you seeing with wireshark or the span port?

 

[imported_Brutus1234]

In Wireshark I see about 3000 lines related to TFTP

1679 207.007190 192.168.3.3 192.168.3.69 TFTP Read Request, File: mba.pxe\000, Transfer type: octet\000, tsize\000=0\000
followed by 10 lines, ending in this one
1703 207.269571 192.168.3.3 192.168.3.69 TFTP Acknowledgement, Block: 10

Then
1731 210.688907 192.168.3.3 192.168.3.69 TFTP Read Request, File: floppy.IMA\000, Transfer type: octet\000, blksize\000=1456\000
followed by 2889 lines like this
7532 214.049629 192.168.3.3 192.168.3.69 TFTP Acknowledgement, Block: 2889


It seems to be transferring the file. I'm wondering if my issue is with the bootable floppy image. I read somewhere that a WindowsXP bootable floppy would not work with PXE.
Do you know where I can get an image file that's known to work?

 

[imported_Brutus1234]

one more thing...
neither the laptop nor the desktop clients have a physical floppy installed.

I realized the desktop had a floppy enabled in the bios so I turned it off. Now it boots to an A> prompt and asks me to specify the command.com file.

Obviously without the command.com, I can't see the directory contents and there is no command.com in there to load.

 

[Emulex]

freedos?