On Fri, 2004-01-02 at 19:04, Peter Teuben wrote:
On 2 Jan 2004, Emiliano Brunettti wrote:
> Hi everybody,
>
> after testing FC1 on my desktop, i would like to install it also on my
> laptop. However, there is a problem (not strictly related to FC1, but i
> hope somebody can help).
>
> I cannot boot from floppy disk, since i probably lost my external floppy
> disk :(
>
> Can't boot from pcmcia cd-rom, and bios doesn't allow boot from usb
> device.
>
> Is there a way to boot from hard drive and perform a normal fc1 install?
> I think there should be a way, perhaps create a boot kernel image with
> pcmcia support and boot normally from hard drive, but i need some hints
> to do it.
>
> Can somebody help, please? And, please, forgive me if this is a trivial
> question.
>
> Thanks a lot
>
If you really have *no* other boot device left, but the hard drive,
there is nothing left but using the hard drive!
It would not be impossible to think of a procedure with virtual hardware
(like bochs) to start off a linux, modify the bootsector to boot to an
install partition, which then starts reading media from the hard drive. But
that presumes an older version of linux already on it (perhaps bochs runs on
windows too...). Certainly not something for the faint of heart.
Well, this is not a problem. I already have a linux system up and
running on that laptop - sorry about that, i forgot to write this in my
previous email. What i want to do is a fresh new install, but i realized
i have no other boot devices but my hdd.
So, i'm afraid your only solution left after that is to take the
drive out,
and hook it up via an external HD adaptor to another laptop or deskstop.
Perform the install on it, and make sure it will write a lilo or grub that
will be consistent with the configuration in the laptop. I've actually done
this on occasion, so it does work. THe 3.5<->5.25 IDE adapters can be
mailordered for well under $10, i think i found mine for $3.50 or so. A
google search should get you there. Otherwise, if you have the hardware, some
firewire or usb2 housings may work, but they are more expensive ($50-100).
Well, i don't know whether this could work. I mean, my only boot device
is a legacy floppy disk (that i lost!) and that laptop can't boot either
from PCMCIA or USB. I also tried to get a bios upgrade in order to boot
from usb device, but couldn't find. So i thought of a new entry in grub
with some sort of specific 'install' kernel image to be able to boot and
fire up PCMCIA cd-rom or hdd and the installer program.
But i don't know if this can be done. Any ideas?
Thanks a lot for your answer.
E.