Booting from USBs on old laptops, was Re: laptop installs
On Tue 27 Aug 2024 at 21:42:22 (-0400), Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> In the case of two of the three laptops I have here to play with, it's simply a matter of telling it to boot off the DVD drive and then inserting the appropriate disc and going on from there. In the case of this other one, things get a little weird.
>
> On powerup I see messages referring to PXE, which if I remember correctly involves booting off a network connection? There's "Media test failure, check cable" followed by "Exiting PXE ROM" and then I get "No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key.
>
> The thing is, this machine doesn't have a DVD drive. What it does have is a couple of USB ports (two different color connectors so I assume different speeds?). I am also assuming that simply putting an iso file on to a USB stick won't quite do it. No idea about how to implement anything to do with PXE, though I can probably safely assume that I have what I need on the LAN here.
>
> Any thoughts on how best to deal with this?
I assume your DVD drives are internal, so they're always present when
you boot up, and they're always selectable in the BIOS menus.
I have a laptop that only shows a USB stick as available in the menu
/if/ it's already plugged in before you turn on the power. If you
don't plug it in that early, you might be unaware that it could boot
from a USB stick at all: there's no mention of that in the specs, and
no hint in the extensive PhoenixBIOS documentation that you have to
expand the /Hard Drive/ item in the Boot menu to reveal the USB stick
under the actual hard drive. (You then have to promote the USB above
the hard drive in the two-item list.)
Cheers,
David.
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