HD DSL install on older laptop

Forum: HD Install
Topic: HD DSL install on older laptop
started by: guevara

Posted by guevara on June 25 2005,19:54

Hello everyone, I have an IBM thinkpad 760el which of course, doesn't boot from a CD drive. I have ordered a floppy drive off of ebay (because mine didn't come with one originally), which should arive in a few days. So, what I'm going to need is a boot floppy with will start booting from the floppy, but then will allow me to remove the floppy drive and replace it with my internal CD drive.

Is this even possible? Or should I start looking at other options?
(I also apologize for creating a new topic about this, as I've seen others that have similar problems, but I couldn't find one that had my exact problem)

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on June 26 2005,00:44

The 760 will boot from a cdrom.

Check your bios settings (start pressing Esc and F1 at boot, and you should get into them, I can't remember which key actually does it) and make sure the order is FDD, CDROM, HDD.

-J.P.

Posted by guevara on June 26 2005,04:39

I'm pretty sure it doesn't...
In the bios startup screen my options are:
FDD-1, HDD-1, Network, FDD-2, HDD-2, HDD-3, HDD-4, PCMCIA

Are you sure it's the 760el?

Posted by windmill on June 26 2005,07:11

Ran into this problem about a week ago on an old Toshiba laptop.

Luckily, I found < Smart Boot Manger > on the web. You can create a dos boot floppy, install SBM from the floppy (to the HD). After you reboot (with the CD attached) you may need to re-scan for drives, but you should be able to boot any CD without problem then.

HTH.

Posted by SaidinUnleashed on June 26 2005,14:33

or you can just get the SBM floppy image from < http://linux.simple.be/tools/sbm >

and you should be able to drag one of those out of the boot sequence and drag the cdrom icon into it. the icons should be below the little table with the boot order in it.