On 12/20/2009 9:07 PM, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
Vass put forth on 12/20/2009 8:06 PM:DynaBook SS 3480.Hello. You may try install basic system from USB Flash device. IIt will be easier.I believe his laptop BIOS is too old to support booting from a USB device. It's a Japanese or Asian market only model, and I don't read Japanese. All I could discern from the Toshiba website is that this model was released somewhere around year 2000, making the technology inside 9 years old, almost 10. I didn't do much with laptops at that time. Did any/many/most laptops support USB boot devices 10 years ago? My limited experience then says "no".
If OP can boot from CD, the only problem is if the installer loses track of the CD, which has happened to me. On first boot, the installer loads from CD, then during boot, the CD changes locations, thanks to something, maybe a udev quirk. After that, installation is difficult. If the installer recognizes a NIC, then I suggest a netinstall, or business card install.
If not, then adding another CD drive might help. Borrow a USB drive and burn a second CD set, then try inserting discs in both drives. Or booting off of the USB drive.
The same is true about LAN adapters. Get a USB LAN NIC, and see if the installer recognizes it.
IF the laptop doesn't have a built-in USB port, there exist PCMCIA USB and LAN ports. Try those.
Some Linux drivers can be loaded from a removable drive, such as a floppy, the same way as with Windows. Thus, the fix would be locating the driver and putting it on a floppy (or CD). The installer gives the user an opportunity to load kernel modules, this is what you need. Find a module from a trustworthy source, and make it available to the installer.
Mark Allums