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The "how to" of optical free notebooks. Ideas??

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  • The "how to" of optical free notebooks. Ideas??

    The Ibm X series.

    Lovely, arent they?

    But No Cd-rom drive.
    No diskette drive.

    And I need to install either Mandrake, Feodora or WinXP on it.

    And it would be preffereable, if I could wipe the (one) partition on it at get go.

    How?

    I can access it over the network. I have acces to an intranet ftp and a windows share.

    I have:
    The Mandrake 10.0 3cd set.
    The Feodora -ditto-
    A winXp Pro cd.

    Lots of tcp/ip cable.


    Suggestions (Or better Software!) welcome.


    ~~DukeP~~

  • #2
    I take it external drives (USB flash drives, USB/Firewire cdrom, ...) are out of the question ?

    What is currently installed ? (as you need to boot from *something*)

    Linux has networkinstallation (but IIRC, they require special boot floppies ).

    You can perhaps copy the CD of the OS you want to install to the local harddisk, mount it as a CDrom, and start the install procedure from there...


    Jörg
    pixar
    Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die tomorrow. (James Dean)

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    • #3
      Hey VJ.

      Well, Im leaning towards getting an external drive bay, just "get it over".

      Currently the machine runs a halfdead (but functioning) Win2k.

      Problem with mounting a cd image, is that I really want to format the harddrive.

      Argh..

      ~~DukeP~~

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      • #4
        What about removing the hard drive and connecting it to another PC/laptop with a USB caddy?

        You could create a small bootable partition that would allow you to do the install over a network.

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        • #5
          How about LoadLin?

          I'm not sure exactly what the bootstrap process will be, but this may be a good starting point.

          - Steve

          edit: oops - apparently only works with DOS / Win95 (/98/me). Sorry.

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          • #6
            Take the hard drive out, and use a small magnet to carefully arrange the bits correctly....

            Seriously though, unless you can get it to boot from the network and can figure how to install an OS from a network boot, I think you're forced to get an external drive (make sure you can boot from it!).

            Edit: Perhaps there's a Windows program which will modify your boot sector so you can boot from the network (a Windows installer for GRUB or PXELinux, perhaps?), but it would be soooooooo easy to screw up the machine.....

            Edit2: Scratch what I said about PXELinux, it's not what I thought it was. And there doesn't appear to be a way to install GRUB from Windows. Sorry....
            Last edited by Ribbit; 26 April 2004, 06:46.
            Blah blah blah nick blah blah confusion, blah blah blah blah frog.

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            • #7
              Thanks for all your ideas.

              What I need is a system that allows me to:
              1) be installable from a win2k client.
              2) boot and initialise some kind of network connection, be that ftp or otherwise.
              3) Survive "in ram" so the harddisc can be formatted.

              Ehm.
              I think I did all of this once using netbios. But thats a looooong time ago...

              ~~DukeP~~

              Comment


              • #8
                I would second Rob's suggestion.

                Format the hd in your pc and put the contents of a network boot disk on it, that should do it. A good one is here: http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/network/


                Rakido
                "Women don't want to hear a man's opinion, they just want to hear their opinion in a deeper voice."

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                • #9
                  Hey Rakido.
                  Will try!

                  Looks good.

                  ~~DukeP~~

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Don't forget a nice <a href="http://www.alcohol-soft.com" target ="_blank">virtual CD-ROM program</a> for afterwards for apps and games.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      This looks like an interesting product:
                      Iomega has today announced the availability of the new Iomega® Floppy Plus 7-in-1 Card Reader. Iomega’s new host-powered drive is ideal for photographers and mobile users, bundling a convenient 1.44 MB floppy drive with the seamless capability to read and write all of the most common flash media formats. The Iomega Floppy Plus 7-in-1 Card Reader is available now for $59.95 (U.S. suggested retail price).

                      (usb floppy + cardreader)

                      Not sure if it is bootable, nor what the quality of the device is, nor if the cardslots are accessible from DOS...


                      Jörg
                      pixar
                      Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die tomorrow. (James Dean)

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Its an interesting subject.

                        Turned out that there existet a hidden partition on the notebok, which had some booting tools and a preinstall of win2k.

                        Didnt have the time to mess with it bigtime, so just used the recovery funtions.

                        Worked like a charm.

                        NO clue if they can be updated to encompass win xp or linux.
                        :shrug:

                        ~~DukeP~~

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                        • #13
                          Yes, that is common on IBMs... (we have a T21 that has that very same pre-installed thingy). Downside is it uses harddiskspace... (I somehow thought you had cleared this hidden partition... :-)) As for updating it, I doubt it...
                          (I prefer the Toshiba approach: you get the CDs from which you can boot and get a Windows installation as if the laptop just came from the store).


                          Jörg
                          pixar
                          Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die tomorrow. (James Dean)

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            well you can always use one of these to transfer data/prep drive

                            Better to let one think you are a fool, than speak and prove it


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