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Old 05-24-2009, 05:50 PM   #16
jamescondron
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You're missing my point- how do you know? its not seen it? What exactly is it saying and where
 
Old 05-24-2009, 08:05 PM   #17
irishbitte
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It's pretty simple. In order to install anything, you must be able to boot something. Your computer obviously will not handle a usb boot.

This means getting an external cd drive or external floppy. I recommend the cd drive. even borrow one!
 
Old 05-25-2009, 12:16 PM   #18
sjampoo
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Get the HDD out again, format the drive to have a primary partition in either NTFS or EXT3 format. Label this partition bootable.
Put it back in, if the pc still won't recognize it, thats it then. find yourself another (smaller/supported) hdd and start all over.

I assume, when the pc recognizes a disk, it should be possible to 'fill' it with a minimum windows or linux installation, then slot the disk into the laptop, and it could boot,. have network, and from there get a linux running that's build to your needs.
 
Old 05-25-2009, 02:11 PM   #19
roy_lt_69
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Do you have option to use PXE?

Also if you can connect to the web try zipslack:
ftp://slackware.cs.utah.edu/pub/slac...11.0/zipslack/

I dunno if it is/will be updated anymore tho!
I have heard of people using it to build up a proper Linux environment!
But it is Slackware which is not newby friendly!
 
Old 05-26-2009, 02:14 AM   #20
sjampoo
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P.S.: Try this:

Get the HDD out, put it in your cradle and:
- partition the drive to have a primairy disk of about 1 gb
- set is as 'active'/'boot'
- format it as FAT32 with 'copy systemfiles'

in the old days, with MS DOS 5.0 floppydisks you could transfer 'system' with the command "sys a: c:" (where a: = floppy, c: = harddrive)
Nowadays ( with Win98, W2k and XP (even with vista?) ) you can 'check the box' at 'copy systemfiles'

If the hdd is set active, but there's nothing on the disk ( no system, no nothing, just formatted) the pc will still generate an error at boottime, stating something that could be interpreted as 'there's no disk to boot from' might be something like:

- Drive not ready - System Halted
or:
- Disk boot failure - Insert system disk and press Enter
or:
- Boot Failure: System Halted

All of these messages could mean the pc recognized the disk, but couldn't 'do' anything with it.
 
Old 05-26-2009, 09:45 AM   #21
shpenat
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Hey guys did you watch his video? He actually have two problems, not one.

Franz422: your first problem is with hardware. Your laptops BIOS does not detect your HDD (Primary hard disk drive 0 not found during POST, Modular bay: Not Installed in SETUP). So you need to solve this first before trying to install anything. This has nothing to do with whatever partitions or filesystems you have on that disk.

Check whether you have all cables properly connected. Whether you have your HDD correctly jumpered (Master/Single). If all this seems fine, check whether your motherboard in laptop supports that kind of HDD (though 40GB seems reasonably small to me).

Problem getting Linux installed into this machine we can solve later.
 
Old 05-26-2009, 10:20 AM   #22
shpenat
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I checked little bit your laptop specification. Dell latitude cp m166st (hope I read it correctly) was suppose to have 1.6GB HDD expandable to 2.7GB So I am not quite sure it can handle 40GB HDD. If you have possibility try smaller one.
 
Old 05-26-2009, 04:55 PM   #23
soleilarw
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Do you have the jumpers settings changed? Maybe try another hard disk as well, maybe the hard disk itself has a hardware problem.

Linux Archive

Last edited by soleilarw; 06-18-2009 at 04:14 AM.
 
Old 05-26-2009, 07:14 PM   #24
jefro
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"64Mb ram"

You need more ram. You might get a minimal disto like ZipSlack to work.

Basically you need a bootable device. If you don't have pxe on network then you will need either a cd/floppy or see if anyone remembers how to get pcmcia to boot.

If no boot then above stated you can remove the drive and install an OS on a remote system and return and repair.

Last edited by jefro; 05-26-2009 at 07:15 PM.
 
Old 05-27-2009, 10:11 AM   #25
fraz422
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http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/IBM-DTNA-22160...3%3A1|294%3A50

SO if i buy this hard drive my laptop will recognize this hard drive allowing me to boot a basic Linux from it ?
 
Old 05-27-2009, 11:23 AM   #26
shpenat
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Most probably yes. But before going to any harsh action and spending your money check whether there in no problem anywhere else. Most notably the jumper setting. You wrote that your HDD worked in your pc so I assume it is not damaged. How were you testing it? Again I am asking about jumper settings. Check also whether you have HDD detection set to auto in SETUP.
 
  


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