Can't boot from CD...

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Can't boot from CD...
started by: sparX CG

Posted by sparX CG on Jan. 14 2006,18:03

Hi all...

Thanks for reading this...

So... I'm trying to get DSL running on this old Presario of mine. By old, I mean really old. It has a 200MHz Pentium processor and 64MB of RAM. Runs on Win95 at the moment.

I tried booting into DSL on it, but it refuses to boot to CD before HD.

I want to try out DSL on it because it's really bloated at the moment, constantly at almost full RAM usage. And explorer.exe crashes all the time. Actually it just crashed again.

So, is there any way I can get it to boot to CD? There's nothing I can change in the BIOS. Darn these prefabricated machines!

Posted by 300c_pilot on Jan. 14 2006,18:26

Need to search here for the boot floppy, your bios is to old. You can by upgraded bios but why when you can get a whole computer forless then 200.00.

Smooth flights

Posted by sparX CG on Jan. 14 2006,19:43

Thanks, I found it...

But now the Internet ain't working... It doesn't detect my network card.

Actually I do have a much better computer, but since that old Presario is so damn unstable, I was looking for a good linux distro so fix it up...

Posted by cbagger01 on Jan. 16 2006,05:37

What is the MFR and Model number for your Network Card?

If it is an old ISA card, the driver probably needs to be manually modprobed at bootup.

Posted by skaos on Jan. 16 2006,12:03

If it's a pci card, you may find some info with the following commands:
lspci
lspci -v
lspci -vv

Also, Compaq is pretty good at supporting old boxes, so you may be able to find a bios update that supports booting from CD drives.