An open question to the community on using Intel vPro for remotely diagnosing, repairing, or imaging a hard drive.

First some foundational items. Intel vPro supports Serial-over-LAN and IDE-Redirection. These two features allow for the following:

• Serial-over-LAN - Terminal session to view the client console from time of power-up until OS bootloader or GUI.

• IDE-Redirection - Ability to specify a different boot drive as recognized by the local system OR to define an ISO image to be loaded from the management server.

This raises some interesting questions and ideas:

• If the Intel vPro system has a diagnostic or recovery option at power up (e.g. F12) - would a Serial-over-LAN session allow "remote diagnostics"? An interesting twist here is the ability to see boot errors or prompts - and being able to respond to them remotely.

• If the Intel vPro system has a local recovery drive\partition - would IDE-Redirection allow a change of drive boot order? The short answer is yes. Interested to know if community members have tried this and have some feedback.

• If the local drive partition or file configuration is incorrect, would IDE-Redirection allow for remote repair? The short answer is yes. The follow-up question is what bootable ISO images are being used out there? For example - reinstall a system using WinPE or BartPE (about 150MB image), LinuxBoot ISO for diagnostic\imaging, or Recovery911 type image?

• If reimaging a group of systems, does IDE-Redirection replace or extend an existing PXE Server? The short answer is no. PXE Servers use multi-cast and provide some great configuration options. IDE-Redirection is unicast based or meant from re-directing the local system boot order. Followup question here - what has the community experienced? (anyone tried a bootable ISO to initiate a PXE\multi-cast OS load? The value is Intel vPro remote power functions ensure reliable power-on of the system)