Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

On Wed, 28 Jul 2004, James Miller wrote:

> On Wed, 28 Jul 2004, Sindi Keesan wrote:
> 
> > Not really BL related but we were given a pentium 100MHz 24MB RAM, Toshiba
> > Satellite  420CDT 1996 with external floppy drive and internal CD-ROM
> > drive (boots only from floppy or HD - is there some way to run a linux
> > bootable CD-ROM anyway?).  1.2G hard drive.
> 
> Smart Boot Manager installed in the mbr could well get it booting from CD.
> I've only run across one machine thus far where it didn't work.  It gives
> a boot menu when you start the machine that should show the CD as an item
> you can select to boot from.  Great little program.


http://btmgr.sourceforge.net
Precompiled for linux (41K with glibc, 132K static) or DOS (size unknown, 
also needs cwsdpmi, provided).  Source code for other systems.

Install this to the first track of the first hard drive, primary 
partition, it says, then boot from floppy, hard drive, or CD-ROM drive 
including most PCMCIA.  
  
I don't know if this will work since our problem is in accessing the hard 
drive.  Can we set the computer to boot to floppy drive first and install 
sbm to a DOS boot floppy instead?  It takes up about 40K on the first 
track of a hard drive.


> Sounds to me like your HD problems could be due to erroneous parameters
> entered for it in the BIOS.  Did you check that?  It's one possibility
> anyway.

We can check but I bet we already tried that.  This age computer 
recognizes the hard drive automatically and it is the original Toshiba 
drive.  Another drive had problems too.  Can't hurt to try again.

 > 
> > I cannot copy fs.img from another computer via ethernet because the
> > computer has no ethernet port (and I dont' have a PCMCIA ethernet card).
> > I already proved repeatedly that fs.img won't copy properly via parallel
> > port (llpro or plip).  Have not tried slip on it.
> 
> I'd say try slip.  You can also use a modem as a sort of network
> connection (direct connection to another machine).  I've seen descriptions
> for doing this, and I think Steven has described it at some point too, but
> have not tried it myself.

I have copied via nullmodem cable and Kermit, DOS files only.  I will 
probably try the install from fd to hd route on this computer, if it will 
work on a half-DOS computer (install a boot manager that lets me choose 
DOS or linux) or let me use loadlin.