Red Hat linux 9 installation with a cd/ floppy shared slot
 

i have succesfully created a boot floopy wiht which to load the mini linux to install form the cd. but when i restart my computer with the floppy drive in the computer cannot find the cd drive so does not load its driver, so when i am prompted for the local CDROM i take the floppy drive out and insert the cd rom drive it does not work (because the driver hasnt loaded), although i know that it is inserted properly becuase it has power and immediately starts the cd turning. but when i click ok to load from cdrom it says unable to find any devices of the type needed for this installation type.Would ytu like to manually select your driver or use a driver disk?
then when i put in the driver disk (MS DOS CD ROM EXTENSIONS WITH DEVICE DRIVERS) (this disk allows me to install the driver for my cdrom drive in ms dos after i have formatted the hard drive) i have tried copying all of the files from the floppy onto the hard drive and then resarting to see if the syslinus loads but it does not. (as then i could loadform the hard drive and have the cdrom drive in the slot so that the computer loads the driver

i know i have made this very long winded but i am a new linux user after using windows 98 so any feedback would be much appreaciated.

Thank you

try booting straight from the CD. the RH CDs are bootable and will install from CD1.

sorry, but that is the best i can offer. you are trying this on a laptop no?

i have tried putting the cd in and nothing happen
yes i am doing it on a laptop

thank you for the reply though :) but i will try it again

i have tried putting the cd in and nothing happen
yes i am doing it on a laptop

thank you for the reply though :) but i will try it again

You might have to enable boot from cd-rom in your bios.

re boot from cd
 

the choices in bios are:
FDD(which i presume is floppy disk drive)->built in HDD
OR
built in HDD->FDD
OR
FDD->second HDD
OR
Second HDD->FDD

my second harddrive is my cdrom i think as when i boot and go inot bios with the cdrom not in the second hdd does not appear, but when i boot and go to bios with the cdrom in it says second hdd and secondary IDE (170H/IRQ15)

but when i do put it to boot first from the secondary hard drive it still does not load cd
i think......
hang on lets see
nope........... just loads driver and then MS DOS
HELP!
purlease
:newbie:

this is not probably going to help but when u r copying the files from the floppy I take it u r using ms dos command to copy a to c I really don`t know anyway round your problem if u can`t have a floppy drive and your bios won`t boot from a cd drive. Do u have a desktop computer so u can network using windoze and install linux on a partition on your laptop depending on the size of your hdd. Otherwise if u want to experiment u can pick up a cheap desktop for about £30 or less that u can put linux on and network.

Thanks
 

I just want to say thanks to all of you guys here at linux questions and to say how helpfull you have all been

thanks you guys you rock!:cool:
:newbie:

resolved
 

well finally i have resolved the problem: a BIOS upgrade which allows me to boot from the cd drive!!!! i cant believe i only just thought of it but thought i would post it just incase anyone else had the same problem and needs the solution.
Thank you
kAT
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