Re: A laptop installation challenge

2009/10/31 AG <computing.account@googlemail.com>

On a previous thread, I had polled some advice on the best way to install Debian on an old laptop that lacked a CD drive. A number of suggestions were made and I eventually went with the idea of changing the pre-existing /boot/lilo.conf and adding a newly downloaded vmlinuz and init.gz Then I copied a netinst *.iso image onto a USB stick and booted.

All went well, and I was able to install a new Debian system. However, when I went to reboot into the system I received the "EBDA is big; kernel setup stack overlaps LILO second stage" message. Googling this message throws back a number of suggested solutions which break down into one of two choices - changing the lilo.conf file (difficult since I cannot get into the lilo.conf due to the system having been locked at boot up) and using a rescue CD (difficult because it has no CD drive to work with). I cannot ssh into the laptop because it hasn't booted and so I am left with a laptop that cannot boot, cannot use a CD disk to boot and which is fundamentally useless.

Can anyone suggest a way that I can get this thing to boot given the significant constraints described or has this now been reduced to a hunk of plastic for use as a doorstop?

Thanks for any ideas.

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