Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Trouble with swappable drives.

by SolidStClair Aug 24, 2004 12:11PM PDT

I am running an old Dell Latitude which has swappable floppy and cd-rom drives (only one can be in at once). I used a Windows 98 bootdisk to format my hard drive, hoping to install Suse 9.1. But the problem is, since the cd-rom drive is not in when the floppy bootdisk is running, the driver for it cannot be installed. Because of this, I cannot install the copy of Suse I downloaded, which is on a CD. What can I do to eventually install Suse, or at this point any operating system, Linux or Windows, on this computer. (Note: I do not have a copy of Windows 98, the bootdisk was downloaded from the web)

Discussion is locked

2 Posts
- Collapse + Expand Details
- Collapse -
Re: Trouble with swappable drives.
by AussiePete Aug 24, 2004 3:03PM PDT

try this site - inparticular this web page:-

http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/cdrom/

If i understand what you have said correctly, basically all you need to do is make a boot cd - but if you have a swoppable floppy/cdrom drives then the above site may come in handy for other situations u maybe faced with in the future.
hope this help - need any help let me know
Peter

- Collapse -
Re: Trouble with swappable drives.
by Yew Aug 24, 2004 9:17PM PDT

Had a similar problem with an old IBM laptop. I'm assuming that the system can't boot from the CD-ROM or else you wouldn't be posting here.

The best option for you would be to do a network install of SuSE if you can. Great thing about Linux, is there's a method of installation for just about every situation. Most distributions let you either use the ISOs located on a LAN fileshare somewhere or just download the packages off of some server on the Internet. Needless to say, you'll want to have broadband to attempt this.

A second option is to buy/rent an external CD-ROM. Preferably something that plugs into a USB port, but I've seen some that connect to the parallel port. Then you can have the floppy in the system to boot from, and still have a CD-ROM drive. Getting Linux to use a parallel port drive may be a bit tricky however.

The only other option I can come up with is removing the HDD from the laptop, sticking it in an external enclosure, and installing Linux on it from another system. Linux is device independent in its design, so you don't need to worry about it detecting the hardware of the other system and that causing problems with the laptop. The only potential source of problems is with the video chipset, but that can be fixed later.

Back to Computer Help forum

CNET Forums

Operating Systems
Software
Electronics & Gadgets
Hardware
Tablets & Mobile Devices
General Help
Brand Forums
Roadshow Autos
Off Topic

Other Forums

Forum Info