Problems creating an msdos Samba Boot disk

[Dan Mandell]

Last year we made up a Dos disk that connects to our Samba server, to
permit us to download (using "ghost") a disk image to our Dell Optiplexes. 
We can seem to get last year's boot disks to load; specifically, netbind 
complains that it can't bind, hardware failure.  This year's Dells come
with 3Com 3C905b PCI Etherlink cards...last year's model had the 3C905
version.

I don't as much as I should about the protocols used in Dos and am at a
loss where to start. The boot disk appears to be loading NDIS LanManager
stuff, starting with 
   LH net initialize
   netbind.com
   LH umb.com
   LH tcptsr.exe
   LH tinyrfc.exe
   LH nmtsr.exe
   emsbfr.exe
   LH net logon ....

If anyone currently doing this can tell me anything about this process
I might be able to ask DELL or 3Com about possible card changes.

Thanks,
Dan