I have an HP Netserver that started life with a CD reader that allowed setup for booting.

Now it has a DVD-Rom installed, and bootable CDs work as expected. But it will not even attenpt to boot from a DVD.

On this system, I would like to be able to boot both the F11 (and F12) installation DVDs as well as the WXP installation DVD. I will be using the system for testing some installation proceedures and docs.

I have heard of Grub4Dos and it would seem that this might do the job by setting up a bootable DOS diskette and creating the correct control files.

If so, could someone explain just what files need to be setup and what the contents need to be for each environment.

TIA,
Martyn

Hi Martyn,

A few things to try:

Please check the server is running the latest bios/firmware, does the dvd drive work yet ?
Try another dvd drive
Is a network install an option ? .. might be easier than floppy
Is a cd install an option ?

cheers,

kbp

I guess, that a floppy disk with "Smart Boot Manager"
will do the trick :
http://linux.simple.be/tools/sbm

Will boot DVD rom's on older computers,
I used it for that purpose on Pentium II machines.

Can also be installed to MBR and boot almost anything.
( sbminst ).
.....

I tried SBM just now.

It lets me boot the hard drives, the same floppy, and even a bootable CD (F11 network CD). But it will not boot a bootable DVD. When I try, it gives me an error with the code 0xAA That same DVD does boot on other systems.

The drive is a DVD-Rom, and it will read from DVDs once a system is running.

It must be just a function of the BIOS not handling it and once that is replaced by an OS, it then works.

Thanks for the help,
Martyn