Re: Detecting CDROM drive from FreeDOS boot floppy

"MasterBlaster" <Nobody's.Home@xxxxxxxx> writes:

"Allan Adler" wrote
I'm trying to run a Live Ubuntu CD
Which version, and who comes up with these release names????
Warty Warthog [snip]

I don't know.

I'll ask on a Linux group about his suggestion that one might be
able to do something with LILO (or GRUB) to "chain boot" (whatever that
means) from the CDROM.

I found a website that explains how to do it using syslinux, something
called smart boot manager and something else. I downloaded it and am
trying to make sense of it. It looks pretty cool, but I'm not well prepared
to understand it.

I guess you've already browsed through this site?
http://www.ubuntu.com/
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/
https://help.ubuntu.com/
https://help.ubuntu.com/5.10/
Ooooooo... flipping through those Ubuntu.com pages while writing this,
and found... https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/I386
If your BIOS does not support booting from a CD-ROM drive, you can use a
Smart Boot Manager http://linux.simple.be/tools/sbm floppy to boot the CD.

Thanks. It seems to be the same thing I downloaded but maybe in a form
that is easier for me to use. I've downloaded it and will dd it to a
floppy tomorrow.

In one of your earlier postings, you mentioned that you had looked up
information about the HP Pavilion hardware by looking at the HP website.
Exactly where did you find your information?

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?%20lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&product=57651&lang=en&docname=bph05426

Thanks.

Now that I've had more time to reflect on what I'm doing, I realize that
I can't simply put the Fedora 2 installation CD in the drive and boot it
by the methods we have agreed ought to work, even if I am certain about
the hardware and have backed up the system again. The reason is that I
know from experience that trying to install an upgrade of RedHat 7.1
can fail in a way that also irreparably destroys the resident
RedHat 7.1. That is what happened to the third PC I mentioned in
my earlier postings, the one presently running RedHat 6.3 without X:
I had tried to upgrade to RedHat 9.1, dropped the CD in the drive,
and as I proceeded with the installation, it trashed my Linux partitions
and THEN informed me that there were reasons why the hardware did not
support RedHat 9.1. When I tried to reinstall RedHat 7.1 from the
CD I had originally used to install it, it failed to find certain things
on the CD and couldn't complete the installation, so I couldn't restore
the machine to its former state; apparently the installation CD had become
damaged in the years that I had it. Fortunately, I still had a RedHat 6.3
installation CD and used that to install RedHat 6.3 without X. I'm
presently using it occasionally to try out stuff from the book Linux
Device Drivers, 2d ed, and not using the machine for anything else
since I don't want to have to worry about screwing anything else up
while experimenting with device drivers. The machine presently running
FREEDOS formerly had RedHat 7.1 on it but one day the system mysteriously
crashed and Linux became unbootable. Because of the damaged RedHat 7.1 CD,
I couldn't reinstall it, and for a while had RedHat 6.3 installed
on it. Then I decided I'd rather use the machine to experiment with
FREEDOS and that is the way it stands now. Someone told me that the
failure of RH 7.1 on that machine was probably due to a memory problem,
but I don't know any way to confirm that.

Anyway, before I try to upgrade the HP Pavilion to Fedora 2, I want to
make sure that I have at least RedHat 7.1 running on one of these two
machines and that I have tried out the backups of my HP Pavilion on
the alternative RedHat 7.1 or greater. That way, if I destroy the
system on my HP Pavilion, I know I not only have backups of my system
but can also use them. That will make the destruction of the HP Pavilion's
RH7.1 less of a crisis while I figure out how to fix it. Accordingly,
I've been searching the web for a website that has a RedHat installation
CD for RH 7.1 or better that I can download for free. On the other hand,
I already know that both the FREEDOS machine and the machine presently
running RH 6.3 will not support RH 9 (it failed on what is now the FREEDOS
machine, but didn't destroy the system in the process), so I shouldn't
download anything too much more advanced than RH 7.1 for this purpose.

On my own machines, I can only download over the phone lines at no more
than 56k/sec, which is too slow for downloading a CD image: it would take
so long that my ISP would time me out in the middle of the download. A
friend of mine is visiting me and has wi-fi on a PC running Windows XP.
Usually it is fast at downloading, but when I tried to download a
CD image of RedHat 7.3 from
ftp://mirror.umbc.edu/pub/umbc/umbc-redhat-1.1.iso
it would only download at a rate of about 38k/sec or so. Unfortunately,
Windows seems to shut down after being left alone for 15 minutes or so
and I don't know whether anything can be done about that. The
umbc website (http://www.umbc.edu/oit/sans/core/umbc-redhat/obsolete)
has a background of warnings not to use this because it is obsolete,
but I'm ignoring them. I'd be interested in knowing about a site that
can download faster.

Once I download it, I will burn it to a CD on the Windows system and
try it out on the FREEDOS machine or the RH 6.3 machine.

The machine I'm writing this from is another alternative, in principle:
it is also running RedHat 7.1 and is a Dell Latitude CsX. The reason I
don't really consider it an alternative which can support the backup
CD's from the HP Pavilion is that I once dropped its AC adaptor which
caused damage to the cord that goes from the rectangular box to the
laptop. Unfortunately, the damage is almost exactly at the place where
the cord enters the box. I asked on sci.electronics.misc and got some
encouraging answers, but was discouraged when someone pointed out that
if I try to repair it, the fluid in the box that keeps it from overheating
will leak out. I called Dell about replacing the AC adaptor and was told
by one agent that it would cost $60 to replace (plus S&H) and by another
agent that it would cost $80. I decided it probably wasn't worth it,
since there must be a used Dell Latitude CsX selling for less than that
or some kind of place that sells used parts that has one cheaply. However,
I don't actually know of a place that will do it. One person on
sci.electronics.misc in the UK offered to send me one if I would reimburse
him for S&H, but then changed his mind when he contemplated the issue
of exchanging dollars for Euros.

One reason I got the HP Pavilion was to provide an alternative to the
Dell Latitude CsX which had the extremely undesirable feature that it
could not be backed up: its CD drive was read-only. I struggled with
this problem for years, constantly worried that the machine would die
with all my information on it. I asked some friends who are pretty
knowledgeable for help but got nowhere. We also tried putting the machines
on a network, without success. Then I learned about flash drives last year.
It turned out that the Dell Latitude CsX has a USB port. I eventually
figured out how to mount the flash drive under Linux and was able to
back up the laptop in increments of 250 MB, which for a 4 GB drive didn't
take very long. Now I think flash drives are the best thing since sliced bread.
Since then, I've considered the Dell Latitude CsX expendable, particularly
in view of the damaged AC adaptor. But if I can replace the AC Adaptor
cheaply, the Dell Latitude can be the part of the solution for a change,
instead of the problem. The reason I'm able to use it now to log in is that
my friend has a different model Dell Latitude and its AC Adaptor works fine
with my machine, even if it might be screwing up the battery. When my friend
leaves, if I can't figure out how to get my own AC Adaptor into exactly
the unique shape in which it will conduct electricity, the machine
that presently runs FREEDOS can probably be called into service for that
purpose: I used to use it to dialup my ISP when I had RH 6.3 running on it.
The same probably applies to the HP Pavilion or the machine presently
running RH 6.3, but I don't know that for a fact because I haven't used
them for that with the operating systems they are running. Apart from that,
I don't want to put the HP Pavilion on the internet, since I don't want
to worry about it getting hacked into.
--
Ignorantly,
Allan Adler <ara@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
* Disclaimer: I am a guest and *not* a member of the MIT CSAIL. My actions and
* comments do not reflect in any way on MIT. Also, I am nowhere near Boston.
.

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