• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Installing linux on a laptop without a bootable CD drive

Smike

Master Poster
S
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
Messages
2,095
The title says it all really.

I have a dell latitude c400 laptop that I'd like to install some version of linux on (I'm open to suggestions, but I'd like teh l33t 3-D desktop 'n wiggly windows please).

The laptop doesn't have a CD or Floppy drive.

I do have a USB DVD drive, but it doesn't boot as the laptop doesn't support this.

The laptop currently has windows XP pro installed on it.

I have a second computer (desktop) with windows XP on it, and I can borrow a crossover cable.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to dual boot the laptop.

Anyone?
 
Slackware (which comes with KDE) has a boot manager program that comes with the installation disks. It may be able to recognize the USB DVD drive and allow you to boot from there. It doesn't rely on the BIOS of the computer, so, as far as I know, the laptop's inability to boot from that drive shouldn't be an issue. Even if you don't like Slackware, it could get you on your way.

I think there may also be a way to do a network boot, but I'd have to look into it.

Quick question: how do you boot the laptop if booting from the hard drive fails for some reason?
 
Do you have a floppy?

Oh, never mind you said not.

Do you have a flash drive? Many laptops can boot a flash drive. In any case you can make a small system floppy-sized that then can boot and load off a CD or the network.
 
Last edited:
Indeed. I'll be using that in future - previously I've just installed enough to be getting on with on another system then swapped hard drives :)
 
Okay, I've now succeeded, but in the process I managed to wipe windows, somewhat of a problem as I can't get my wireless card to work under ubuntu. Oh well.

For those who are interested, here's what I did:

First off, I followed this guide, which essentially worked. Unfortunately, I believed that it had got stuck at one point, and rebooted the laptop. BIG MISTAKE! This [rule8]ed up the MBR, so I couldn't boot at all.

Next, I fiddled with the instructions on this guide until I got it to boot to the point where it tried to mount a cd drive, when it managed to detect my USB DVD drive. This worked nicely, but took much fiddling.

Now, I've bought an adapter so I can connect the laptop drive to my PC, where I'll install windows onto it again, then follow the first guide again.
 
Smike said:
Okay, I've now succeeded, but in the process I managed to wipe windows, somewhat of a problem as I can't get my wireless card to work under ubuntu.
Click to expand...

If you haven't tried using ndiswrapper for your wireless, I'd give it a try. It's worked well for me on SuSE.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom