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View Full Version : [SOLVED] Trying to install UNR with no CD, floppy boot only



jrobinson5
March 17th, 2010, 07:07 AM
Hello,
I'm trying to install Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10 on a Compaq Evo N200. The problem is that it doesn't have a CD drive on board, and it only supports booting from USB floppy drives- not USB flash or CD drives. I have access to a flash drive, floppy drive and CD drive, all USB externals. I've tried a couple different floppy boot loaders with little success. I understand that it also supports network boot, so this might be an option. What is the easiest way to get UNR running on this laptop?
James

benmoran
March 17th, 2010, 09:00 AM
I don't have any links handy, but i'm pretty sure it's possible to use a floppy boot disk to enable booting from your USB stick.

Maybe someone else can chime in with a link.

jrobinson5
March 17th, 2010, 03:52 PM
That would be great.

jrobinson5
March 18th, 2010, 09:02 PM
I got it working! But not in the way that you might think...
I had another laptop sitting around (a Compaq Evo n610c) that had very little in common with the target laptop. However it did have a CD drive and it used the same hard drive interface (2.5 inch PATA) as the n200. So I inserted the hard drive from the n200 into the n610c and installed Xubuntu on it. Then I swapped it back into the n200. The first time I tried to boot it I got a file system error, so I ran fsck and then pressed Ctrl-D to make it boot. Surprisingly everything ended up working out perfectly- I didn't even have to reconfigure Xorg. I ended up choosing Xubuntu over UNR due to the target laptop's low specs (700mhz, 128mb ram- soon to be upgraded to the maximum of 192mb).
Cheers!
James

tom4jean
March 18th, 2010, 11:15 PM
I just want to say in admiration that was genius!:D