Booting DSL

uncholowapo · 04-09-2008, 01:34 PM

How do I boot DSL from a USB thumb drive on an old computer that has the HDD wiped out and only the BIOS is on it?

Here are the specs:
Premio PC
Intel Celeron 500MHz
1GB RAM
Unknown about the video card
Originally ran windows xp

MS3FGX · 04-09-2008, 08:53 PM

A computer that old probably can't boot to USB. I know none from that era that I have ever worked on had the capability, at least.

knudfl · 04-10-2008, 09:59 AM

Should be possible with 'Smart Boot Manager'
There is an image for floppy, and an iso for cdrom.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/btmgr/
The usb could show up as e.g. "FD1"

MS3FGX · 04-10-2008, 01:31 PM

Smart Boot Manager only supports floppies and IDE devices (optical drives and HDDs), it doesn't support newer technologies like USB or SATA. It is basically limited by what DOS could support.

uncholowapo · 04-10-2008, 05:10 PM

Thats perfect I still have a floppy drive thanks!

EDIT: So do I download the i386 file or which one?

knudfl · 04-11-2008, 11:11 AM

Well, as MS3FGX tells usb is not supported, but if you are lucky it works.
Get sbootmgr.dsk here: http://www.filewatcher.com/m/sbootmg...10592.0.0.html
Use 'cat' or 'dd' command to copy the image to floppy.
And formatting with 'fdformat' is a good idea.
# fdformat /dev/fd0u1440
If I find a solution working on all computers, I will let you know.

knudfl · 04-12-2008, 04:32 AM

Googling: grub boot flash
and found this: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/11...endrive-linux/
(grub on a floppydisk)