Howto format a hard drive with dsl on itForum: User Feedback Topic: Howto format a hard drive with dsl on it started by: john wayne Posted by john wayne on Dec. 19 2006,11:31
Having used dsl i thought i should try other distro`s, unfortunately after wiping windows from the hard drive & installing dsl the computer will not read or boot from any of the magazine cd`s.Can anyone suggest a solution, this is my first installation of any operating system.So am extremely green on this subject. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks in advance John Wayne Posted by skaos on Dec. 19 2006,15:05
You could boot with the DSL cd and run the following command: dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdaThis will wipe the entire disk (it assumes that hda is your disk). I don't know if it will allow reading and booting other cd's. If it doesn't, then you could check boot sequence in the bios. Posted by john wayne on Dec. 19 2006,15:13
Many thanks Skaos this worked a treat. have a new problem.Have re-partitioned disk but even after changing bios cd`s are still not being read so cannot load a new operating system. This is the same with all magazine distro`s i have(4 in all) any help please. Posted by Jhereg on Dec. 21 2006,00:51
It sounds like you have never used the bios before?when you exit the BIOS, there are usually two ways you can do it. The first is with esc. This does NOT save any changes you may have made. The second way is usually F10, but may be different. This was DOES save the changes and is the way you want to use. Just to confirm, when you say 'changing bios,' you do mean changing the boot order so that cd is first? Posted by john wayne on Dec. 21 2006,10:43
Good morning Jhereg,yes i do mean changing the boot order to CD. Mineis a 5 year old laptop with an AMD K6 333mhz chip with 96 mb of ram.The procedure is slightly different to what you describe (as follows), F2 this takes you into bios, main menu to change boot sequence,exit and OK changes to save to bios chip.The disk i am trying to boot from is from Linux User & developer ubuntu 6.10.Have tried your suggestion with no results. Thanks for the input john wayne Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Dec. 21 2006,14:22
How did you install DSL?Can you boot off a DSL livecd? If so, which version? Posted by Jhereg on Dec. 21 2006,21:42
when you start your PC, is your CDROM drive still recognized? it is possible that your cdrom drive has died altogether.
Posted by john wayne on Dec. 22 2006,15:02
I booted from a live CD which was downloaded and burnt by myself.I think it was the latest version.I can also partition my hard drive with the DSL disk but this also has no effect on installing ubuntu from the magazine disk onto the hard drive. Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Dec. 22 2006,15:08
Do you know which filename you used?I'm actually looking for if you're using syslinux or isolinux as the bootloader. It could be possible you are using syslinux while your magazine cd's are using something different. If you don't know which one, paste out the contents of your cd here, and you can see which one is being used. Posted by spock on Dec. 23 2006,01:00
This is by far not enough for Ubuntu ! You will be wasting your time trying to install that on an old laptop. Posted by john wayne on Dec. 23 2006,07:15
Good morning thehatsrule,this is in the boot section of my CD, boot.cat - boot.msg - f2 - f3 - german.kbd - isolinux.bin - isolinux.clg - linux 24 - logo 16 - minit24.gz. I don`t quite see how this has any bearing on the problem as DSL is no longer on my laptop. many thanks for the help so far john wayne Posted by john wayne on Dec. 23 2006,07:19
Good morning spock,This will not be the final computer this is only for a trial & to gain experience while I decide which distro to stick with. I am on a steep learning curve as I have no experience with any other OS apart from windows,but am hoping to learn. many thanks for the help john wayne |