We had a beauty of a problem this week that I thought I would share with the rest of the world.
It began simple enough: set up a training room with eight systems that will hit the network and have sound cards / speakers for the CBTs.
We pulled10 older P-166 Gateway boxes that had been in storage in another locale and ordered the sound card / speakers. We also ordered new Intel-based NICs, because the older system have 3COM NICs and we have a robust history of incompatibility with our Cisco net gear at this location.
All the new gear came in, It was Monday morning, so we installed it, pulled out an old Ghost image for that class machine, ghosted it, and proceeded to watch the systems completely fail. No problem, we half expected that due to the age of the image, so we pulled out a Win 95 CD and did a fresh install. Allthe hardware identified itself and we got ready to declare victory. Pulled a CD that had the next-to-current version of novell Client and installed it, and proceeded to bang on the network door.