can you boot dsl from an external cdrom?

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: can you boot dsl from an external cdrom?
started by: libretto

Posted by libretto on Sep. 27 2004,23:00

Hi all,

Hope to get a newer laptop soon (IBM Thinkpad 240).

Just wondering if its possible to boot DSL or knoppix using an external PCMCIA CD-ROM drive?

Or will it be a case of shoving the HDD in my desktop machine?

Cheers in advance

Posted by cbagger01 on Sep. 28 2004,03:32

First order of business is to see if your pcmcia cdrom has a working linux driver.

If so, second order of business is to see how the device is reported to linux. If it appears as an IDE or SCSI device (hd?, sd?, or sdc?) then you can probably boot from it using a boot floppy + CDROM. I say this because it is unlikely that booting directly from your pcmcia drive will be supported by your laptop BIOS, but there is a remote possibility. You need to check your BIOS settings for external/pcmcia CD boot settings.

Finally, if neither are true you can probably do a poorman's install by copying the contents of the CD over to a "C:\" drive, especially the C:\knoppix folder. Then use a boot floppy and it will find the files on your hard drive and think that it is running from the cd and start up linux. You will need a MSDOS/Win95/Win98/ME FAT or FAT32 partition to do this.

Lastly, you could boot with a floppy-based linux like tom's root boot disk and then copy the files over to an EXT2 partition and then boot DSL with a DSL boot floppy.

Or, as you already mentioned, you can just yank out the HD and plug it into a different computer, install DSL and then put it back into the laptop.

Good Luck.