Boot the diskless system with out any config.sys/autoexec.bat files. Try running the boot program for your Ethernet adapter.
My Ethernet adapter is running in WD8013 16bit mode so I run nb8390.com
C:> cd \netboot C:> nb8390 Boot from Network (Y/N) ? Y BOOTP/TFTP/NFS bootstrap loader ESC for menu Searching for adapter.. WD8013EBT base 0x0300, memory 0x000D8000, addr 00:40:01:43:26:66 Searching for server...
At this point, my diskless system is trying to find a machine to act as a boot server. Make note of the addr line above, you will need this number later. Reset the diskless system and modify your config.sys and autoexec.bat files to do these steps automatically for you. Perhaps in a menu. If you had to run nb3c509.com instead of nb8390.com the output is the same as above. If you got “No adapter found” at the Searching for adapter... message, verify that you did indeed set the compile time defines in the Makefile correctly.