Re: A laptop installation challenge

[AG <computing.account@googlemail.com>]

Tim Tebbit wrote:

AG wrote:

  

Then I copied a netinst *.iso image onto a USB stick and
booted.
    

Thanks for any ideas.
    

Does this mean you can boot from USB? If that's the case a simple
debootstrap install from knoppix would be fairly quick and easy.

http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/apds03.html.en


  

Thanks guys for your ideas.

In no order of priority, the responses to your suggestions:

(1) I tried removing the HD but cannot get to it (there are three screws that are threaded) and I don't really want to break open the plastic casing.

(2) Yes, it does have a floppy drive but I have no other machine that can write to floppies, so don't know how I could transfer any floppy boot-image to a floppy

(3) The laptop's BIOS is too old to allow booting from a USB (only allows HD, CD or floppy).  It requires something to boot first before it can mount additional files such a USB stick.

This is currently seeming like an impossible challenge, but I am reluctant to give up because the machine itself is pretty decent albeit a few years' old and without a CD drive.

Any other ideas?