11yr old laptop

Forum: Hardware Talk
Topic: 11yr old laptop
started by: code_jammer

Posted by code_jammer on Jan. 17 2006,22:03

I've got this old laptop (Toshiba Satellite T2400CS) it only has a built-in floppy drive and a 60MHz processor and 20 MB Ram, it doze not support cd-rom boot through PCMCIA, how do i boot to the cd? i want to install DSL... NT 4.0 is just killing the 1GB hd. HELP!

Posted by code_jammer on Jan. 17 2006,23:27

my laptop has built-in scsi, i can hook-up a cd-rom though that if i have to.

Posted by code_jammer on Jan. 17 2006,23:39

dose anyone know of a floppy .img that i can use to boot dsl?

Posted by MethodOne on Jan. 18 2006,00:39

Try this:
< http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub....ppy.img >

Posted by code_jammer on Jan. 18 2006,01:07

Thanx MethodOne, but how do get the SCSI drivers loaded?

Posted by AwPhuch on Jan. 18 2006,01:42

Does that laptop have a pcmcia slot?

Perhaps using a pcmcia cdrom to install after you boot with a floppy

Either that or get a 2.5" to 3.5" harddrive adapter and install to the drive in "frugal" mode that way

I recommend at least a 128-256Meg swap with only 20Megs ram

The boot floppy will activate the pcmcia cdrom and it will read the cd from there

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by servermonk on Jan. 18 2006,04:25

I have this same problem with an old toughbook. I have no onboard cdrom but I do have a working pcmcia cdrom for it. The bootfloppy.img boots fine but does not activate the cdrom. I don't think the image can boot from pcmcia cdroms, or am I mising something?

Posted by AwPhuch on Jan. 18 2006,05:38

Well the last and final method is to pull the HD out of the machine..find you another machine (perhaps a tower) use a laptop to standard ide hd adapter, format/partition the drive, boot/install to drive..then put it back into the laptop of choice...yah a bit more work..but at least you "know" it will work

P.S. waaaaaahhhh...I want a toughbook!

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by code_jammer on Jan. 18 2006,23:43

i've only got the .sys driver files for PCMCIA CD-ROM..... is there a way to load the drivers from a windows 98 start-up disk, then whale haveing the drivers still loaded, boot from the dsl boot disk?

Posted by brianez21 on Jan. 19 2006,20:27

Try booing into DOS w/ the 98 startup disk, loading the .sys driver for CDROM, and use loadlin.exe (http://elserv.ffm.fgan.de/~lermen/) to start up DSL for the first time.
Once in DSL use the HD installer.

Posted by code_jammer on Jan. 20 2006,12:47

thanx people.... but how i configure the swap partition during install,, do i have to open-up terminal and fdisk the drive?....or is there a more geographical way to do it?

Posted by cbagger01 on Jan. 22 2006,15:41

You configure the swap partition by opening a terminal window and type (assumes first hard drive = hda):

sudo su
cfdisk /dev/hda

Then make your Linux swap partition. Say for example, it is the 2nd partition on the drive, or "hda2". After you save and exit cfdisk, type:

mkswap /dev/hda2

To format the swap partition. Then reboot and your swap will be automatically detected and used.

Posted by code_jammer on Jan. 28 2006,02:44

i keep geting an error in cfdisk it says "cannot open disk drive"

i went and got an 2.5 to 3.5 hd adpt. and installed dsl in my old desktop, and when put the hd back in my laptop, i boot up and, i get a error that says "kernel panic: VFS: Uable to mount root fs on 16:00"... i used "lilo" boot loader on MBR.

i low-level formated my drive and reinstalled dsl and get the same error... help!

.end

Posted by code_jammer on Jan. 28 2006,02:47

opps, forgot to log in

Posted by happyoldme on Jan. 28 2006,22:54

what about plain "fdisk"?

Posted by code_jammer on Jan. 28 2006,22:56

it gives me the same problem

Posted by GEEK_IN_BACK on Feb. 04 2006,16:00

doze dsl support dual_boot?

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lalalalalalalalalalalalalalalala

Posted by Ivan-NL on Feb. 05 2006,16:27

What i did... with no CD drive at all

DOS Fdisk a 60MB block for the dsl installer file, i assume you want to use floppy install. Leave the rest unpartitoned.
Boot with a network support bootdisk (i used < http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/network/ > ) and copy the knoppix file from another computer to the laptop as is said in the floppy install wiki. You need minirt24.gz in that location too or you won't get a working setup and need to start all over again.

OK when you have the knoppix file on the laptop, boot with the DSL boot floppy. skip to commandline and fdisk a swap partition (planned size - 60MB, 16MB minimum) and a work partition (the rest).
Reboot again with the DSL floppy
Start the install process... will take a while

When the thing is finished installed, remove the boot floppy, reboot.

Wait until the thing has started (takes ages... remember that your swap is set to an absurd small size compared to RAM) to the graphical interface

Open a console
Kill the 60MB FAT partition
disable swap if necessary
kill the swap
make new swap of all freespace
re-enable swap
At this point it will most likely complain...
reboot as soon as is possible

The next time it will run at reasonable speed, and you have a working HD installation

Posted by code_jammer on Aug. 11 2006,23:26

Quote (Ivan-NL @ Feb. 05 2006,11:27)

Quote

skip to commandline and fdisk a swap partition

uhh, how do i get to command line.... i let it boot off the floppy and it droped to shell... but it's limted, i can't do anything