Laptops :: Yet another archeological challenge...

If you installed CF as hdc then your grub entry would be looking at the wrong non-existent drive when relocated into laptop as hda. That is why, I always install CF/IDE adapter as hda in host white box. The bios sees the boot loader but cannot find hdc to continue.

Thanks for the confirmation. So your recommendation is to redo the entire install with the CF as hda ? No way to salvage the current installation by modifying a GRUB conf file on the CF ?...

No. You should be able to mount it in another box and then drill down to /mnt/hd??/boot/grub/menu.lst
Then edit appropriately for hda1 or hda2 however you have it installed.

Ah, thanks for the confirmation ! I'll try that out as soon as I can snatch a ride on the schoolboy's laptop :-)

original here.