I have a Toshiba Tecra S1 laptop (1.7GHz Pentium M, 512MB, 60GB HDD) which now has a faulty CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive. The software is convinced that the CD drive is functioning but it never spins up. I suspect that either the disc motor or the laser has failed. I have obtained a replacement DVD writer which fits the drive bay and it works, but only with Linux. The bios doesn't recognise it and neither does Windows XP (SP2). I believe it will probably work with SP3 but I haven't tried that yet. The main problem is that I have lost my main software install and repair option. I can't boot up with CD or DVD although I can boot up from a USB floppy drive. As far as I can tell from the bios settings my boot options are USB floppy, CD-rom (internal), HDD (internal) or network.

I have considered buying an exact replacement drive from Toshiba but the price of £160 seems excessive in the circumstances and I would still be stuck with a drive which can only write CDs and isn't good for reading many DVDs, including factory pressed versions. I could buy a new laptop but then there's the work of installing software and configuring it to do the same job as the Tecra. I may be able to buy a second-hand drive or even a complete Tecra S1 (hopefully with a working CD drive) but it seems a less than satisfactory option.

What I would like to do is to boot up a minimal OS (probably Linux) from a floppy disc in order to load drivers for the DVD drive and then hand over the boot / install process to the CD/DVD or possibly USB flash drive or HDD. I believe that this is technically possible, but it may be well beyond my level of expertise.

Any suggestions please?

The install CD is set up to boot into Linux and then run the installer as an application. You could try running the installer on the Linux already installed on your hard drive. Boot into Linux, mount the CD, and see if you can find the installer. If you find it then run the installer as an application and see if you can install that way.

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Steve Stites

Apologies for the delay in my response. I got a link for a BIOS update (2.20 to 2.50) on another forum and I wanted to try it out. It made no detectable difference.
Your comment sparked a few ideas. In circumstances like these I often find it helpful to start with the very basic concepts and then add the details. As I see it running any computer application has the same essential requirements.

1. Boot loader
2. Operating system
3. Media drivers
4. Application

Sometimes they may be combined into a single module and sometimes they can be separated in time as well as function. What I would really like is to find a way to run a different operating system in the position of item 4.

In the meantime I think I can work out a series of start-up strategies for useful applications roughly along the lines you describe. It's a reasonable assumption that the hard drive is always accessible, so I could create a special partition (/boot?) containing selected kernels and other software which can be started by GRUB or some other boot loader. I need one key system which can be used to set up the others, maybe PMagic or GParted or Puppy, and a failsafe way to start it, probably a GRUB floppy.

I also plan to investigate SYSLINUX / ISOLINUX. It looks like there may also be a solution somewhere in there.

Just an update on my progress.

I have ordered 2 additional replacement DVD writers (different models) which might solve the problem. I have also ordered a new, larger hard drive and I am making useful progress in understanding the floppy boot process. I managed to create a Grub floppy which can boot up my existing operating systems in the same way as the hard drive Grub installation and then I got PMagic to boot from the floppy. The PMagic boot process crashed before it finished, but it's progress.

Unfortunately the other work I really should be doing is distracting me from my investigations, so further progress will be slow.