Patent ID: 7917614

Claim:
A method for booting a client computer over a data network using a server, the method comprising: activating a first network interface card on the client computer; using the first network interface card to establish a connection between the client computer and the server; downloading into the client computer from the server, before initiating a booting process, a network bootstrap file, wherein the network bootstrap file enables dynamic switching between network interface cards of the client computer; initiating, by execution of the network bootstrap file on the client computer, a booting process of the client computer over the network using the server via the first network interface card; monitoring, by the network bootstrap file executing on the client computer, the booting process of the client computer; and in response to detecting, by the network bootstrap file executing on the client computer, a failure of the first network interface card on the client computer, automatically activating a second network interface card on the client computer to continue the booting process of the client computer, wherein a failure of the first network card is detected by predicting whether the first network card is going to fail based on historical data of nor executions of boot processes on the client computer stored in a repository.