Can I use a Usb cd to Install on an Old Machine?

agee220 · 07-24-2004, 07:49 AM

I have an old Dell whose bios won't recognize a cdrom drive. I also have a usb cdrom drive. Is there a way to get the usb recognized as a boot drive? Would one of the one floppy recovery programs allow me to do this?
I tried Smart Boot Master, but it didn't see the usb drive. Thanks for any help. Nyah Levi

jens · 07-24-2004, 09:10 AM

I take your bios settings are all correct.

If it's just for installation you could use a boot floppy to either boot the cd or do an ftp install.

As for the usb cdrom, you need an OS to acces it.
I geuss you could use one of those floppy distros, but this could be very complicated.

Once you have a working OS, you could use this howto to make the usb cdrom work.
http://tuxmobil.org/linux_usb_cd.html
(it worked for me)