Unable to install FC6 to laptop

stepic · 12-22-2006, 05:38 AM

Hi

I wanted to install FC6 to my Dell 650 MHz laptop.
But unfortunately couldn't because:
- I have only PCMCIA CD-ROM from which I cannot boot (old laptop)
- I didn't find any install boot disk for this fedora release
- FC3 has an boot install disk which works even with FC5 but doesn't work with FC6

If anybody know any method please share with me.

Thank you!

Simon Bridge · 12-22-2006, 05:43 AM

If the laptop is old enough to have a floppy drive, you can use a boot floppy which will transfer the process to the cdrom drive for you.

If it has a nic, you can do a net install.

You could upgrade the bios to support booting from cdrom (longshot).

stepic · 12-22-2006, 06:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Simon Bridge

If the laptop is old enough to have a floppy drive, you can use a boot floppy which will transfer the process to the cdrom drive for you.

If it has a nic, you can do a net install.

You could upgrade the bios to support booting from cdrom (longshot).

Unfortunately I don't know how to transfer the process to the CDROM, laptop has no any network card so net install is not available, and finally I have done the BIOS upgrade but didn't give me this option to boot from CD-ROM

Can you please let me know how could I do that to start the install process and transfer it to the CD-ROM?

Thank you very much.

Simon Bridge · 12-22-2006, 06:39 AM

So you have a floppy drive - neato! Have a look at the following artical.
http://www.samspublishing.com/articl...&seqNum=2&rl=1

You are interested in one of the non-CD or network options. Interestingly, you don't actually need a floppy to boot to the CD installer:

Quote:

Booting to an Install from DOS

As previously mentioned, you can use a DOS utility such as LOADLIN (or BOOTLIN) to either directly boot to an install from the CD-ROM or to load the install kernel.

See the dosutils directory on the first Fedora Core CD-ROM, and read the README file under the dosutils directory for an overview of the DOS utilities. The directory contains a one-line DOS batch file (.bat file) that can help boot to an install:

loadlin autoboot\vmlinuz initrd=autoboot\initrd.img

In this example, the LOADLIN command will boot the install kernel residing under the dosutils/autoboot directory, and then load the installation software to launch an install.

... so use a dos terminal to run the batchfile.