Laptops :: Thinkpad 570 (No CD & No Floppy)



Hey guys!

I just got an IBM Thinkpad 570 today. Unfortunately the one I got didn't have an ultradock so I'm left with installing it directly to its hard drive. It's quite a challenge cause most ddistros seem to always assume that you have an optical drive or floppy. To make things worse I cannot boot to an external device via USB,Serial, or Parallel because the Thinkpad 570 does not support it. It only recognizes its's ultradock which I do not have...
I've been trying to solve this the whole day without any luck.

Here's how things are going....

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Problem:
How to install DSL on Thinkpad 570

Scenario:
IBM Thinkpad 570 - PII 333, 64 MB RAM, No Ultradock, No CD drive, No floppy drive.

Current Progress:
Here's what I did...

1. Removed the HDD from laptop and placed it into a 2.5 HDD enclosure.

2. Connected the HDD enclosure to my desktop pc to act as an external HDD.

3. Booted DSL as a Live CD.

4. Installed DSL to my external HDD using the path "sdb".

5. After sucessfully installing it, it asks whether I would install GRUB or LILO.

6. I choose GRUB and the installer asks me to reboot. (I never got to the part where I'm supposed to set my password)

7. After rebooting, I disconnect my external HDD.

8. I removed the HDD from the external enclosure and placed it back into the laptop.

Now here's the problem, when the laptop loads it says "Missing Operating System".

So I tried again but this time I installed DSL and chose LILO rather than GRUB.

I put the HDD back to the Thinkpad 570 and for a short while loads DSL but halts and says the ff...


kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k block-major-8, errno = 2
VFS: Cannot open root device "810" or 8:10
Please append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 8:10


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I am guessing something must be wrong with the boot loader. I have no idea how to work on this thing. This is my first try of DSL and haven't got much experience on linux.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I have faith in linux! I don't want to go back to a window... hehe
Heya plakard :o)
Tough problem you've got going there. I'm not a very experienced user, but I was wondering whether this might help you:
http://computing.net/linux/wwwboard/forum/27619.html
BTW, I think your way of asking the question is excellent - it's well put and good you've put the stuff you've already done. :o)

I'm asking because I don't know and I'm hoping someone with experience can fill us both in, but is there a way to have a /install a bootfloppy image in a small boot hard drive partition so that it fools the machine into thinking that the first little partition is a floppy drive?

Also, will your machine boot via network?

Anyway, I'm sure there's probably an easy way to fix the lilo conf to make it boot no sweat.
Thank you for your reply sarah,

I'm not a very experienced user either so that makes two of us! The link was a nice resource. Thanks for that!

By the way,here are my answers to your questions.

QUESTION 1
is there a way to have a /install a bootfloppy image in a small boot hard drive partition so that it fools the machine into thinking that the first little partition is a floppy drive?

ANSWER 1
I will try your suggestion of installing the boot floppy into a small partition of the HDD. But my current hypothesis suggest that I revise the boot loader of the boot floppy that I will install to the HDD. This is because a boot floppy will seek itself and would try to boat itself as a floppy! Nevertheless it's worth a try! I will let you know about the results.


QUESTION 2
Will your machine boot via network?

ANSWER 2
For your second question, yes my laptop boots on a network but its doesn't have an RJ-45 port in it. I tried using an ethernet PCMCIA card but it does not recognize the card on a network boot. Tough tough tough...

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Anyway I was getting desperate yesterday with installing DSL on my system. I tried installing DSL on my external HDD with every possible option I could do. Guess what! Lady luck took pity on me and it worked! I was able to install DSL on a NO optical, NO floppy, No external device boot using the "Install to USB-FDD" option! I didn't know it could be that simple!

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Here's how I did it...

1. Booted DSL as a Live CD.

2. Installed DSL to my external HDD using the path "Install to USB-FDD" option. (Apps>Tools>Install to USB Pen-drive>Install to USB-FDD)

3. Set-up will ask you for options, just fill it out according to your needs. (In my case it was "sdb, No ext3, Install from live CD")

4. Installation will finish.

5. Now, I removed the external HDD and plugged it in to my laptop.

6. Viola! DSL booted up as if it was on a USB Drive but faster!

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Right now, I'm trying other options of installing DSL on this type of system set-up. (No CD,floppy,usb and external devices) Hopefully, I could find many other ways...


NOTE: When installing DSL to an externall HDD using the "Install to USB-FDD" make sure you DO NOT have any other USB drives or External HDD connected to your PC. This is because the USB-DD installation will include other installed devices into its boot loader which will be an annoyance everytime you boot on your intended machine. DSL will prompt and look for these devices. So just remove those.
FYI, for anyone wanting/needing a quick and cheap way to connect a laptop drive to a desktop PC, you can get an adapter cable (IDE) for about $9 here:

Cables To Go

If you search around, you might be able to find one at a cheaper price.  Heck, if you know the pin outs, you can probably put one together yourself.

Cheers!
Thank you barkingowl

I was able to pass by that idea too.

Getting a 2.5 to 3.5 IDE converter is a good way to solve my problem!

Many thanks and I appreciate your reply.
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