I've noticed this question came up several times over the years, but no luck with a solution that works for my current situation. I posted last year about my IBM thinkpad. I cannot find that post, but it doesn't matter because I don't even have that laptop anymore. Anyways, I got a different one to play with. It's a Dell Latitude LS model netbook so it doesn't have a cd drive or a floppy drive. I only paid $5 for it so it did not come with the hdd, caddy, or connector either. It did have 256mb of ram. I figured it wouldn't be hard to get it up and running. I didn't know about the no boot from usb rule in these veterans of the computer world. I have a usb hard drive, an optical internal/external cd and dvd drive (with ide to usb cable), a 128mb usb flash stick, two separate 2gb mass storage devices (mp3 players), and a burned version of virtually every Linux os. I like Fedora 11 best so I went with that.
Unfortunately, I bought the eide hard drive without realizing it's useless without the hdd caddy to connect it. So I have a hdd loaded with Fedora that I cannot plug into the laptop. There is no update to allow this computer to boot from usb so I'm kind of stuck. Is there an alternative to getting Fedora, or anything else on this computer without that darn caddy? I read that you could boot over lan or a network, but I don't know the first thing about remote booting or booting from a different location. I have a desktop, but I don't know how to set it up as a server to allow me to boot the laptop. If I'm not making much sense, don't worry; I'm making less sense to myself.
Is there something I can do or am I going to have to break down and buy the caddy? If I just get the connector and not the caddy, would it still work, or should I be better safe than sorry and buy them both? Is there a cord I can plug into the back that the computer can boot from (like the media bay plug)or no?
Specs are as follows (what I know)

Dell Latitude LS m/op01s
500Mhz, 256mb ram, 1 pcmcia slot
1 usb 1.1, sound jacks,and media bay socket.
No drives at all.

Any extra information you need, feel free to let me know. Thanks in advance for answering my thread

I had one of these, The IDE HDD needed an extra little flat connector to plug into the laptop. I believe it's called an 'Interposer'. You will need the caddy, otherwise you couldn't pull it out again.
There's a big connector for an external drive. Floppy or CD-ROM, not both at once.
The USB is 1.0 & totally useless for anything other than a mouse & keyboard.

I fondly remember running Mandrake 9 on it.

If you ever get a stuff you need to make it boot. Forget about running Fedora or any modern fat distro. Go for the lightweight distros.

quote: "I fondly remember running Mandrake 9 on it.

If you ever get a stuff you need to make it boot. Forget about running Fedora or any modern fat distro. Go for the lightweight distros."

I have Mandriva and DSL, but the problem is getting anything to boot in an ancient boot environment. I believe I'm going to have to buy the caddy when I get paid tomorrow.