Can't install Gentoo on old computer

nuno · n00b Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 22 Location: Portugal

Hello,

I've tried to boot the gentoo cd in my old pc, but I couldn't, since the BIOS doesn't support booting from the CD and the Smart Boot Manager also doesn't recognise my CD drive (very old HP cd-writer, slave IDE1).

Are there any other possibilities to boot from the CD?

Thanks,
Nuno

jkt · Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 12:48 pm Post subject:

no need to boot from CD, just find some bootable floppies (slacware ones should be good), boot your computer from them, mount gentoo CD and follow handbook. BIOS update should be also helpfull.

btw, how old is your computer?

hepta_sean · Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 12:54 pm Post subject:

As jkt, I think to boot from floppy should be a solution.
tomsrtbt should have everything you need until the chroot in the installation. fdisk, mke2fs, mount and chroot are there, according to the FAQ.

clar77 · Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 7:43 pm Post subject:

toms' won't work, the kernel is too old. Slackware is the way to go here.
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hepta_sean · Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 7:52 pm Post subject:

mrjackson2k · n00b Joined: 10 Aug 2003 Posts: 38

i have a disk at home that allows you to boot from a cdrom that doesnt support booting, it loads something from the floppy then boots the cd, i'll have to dig it up and get the name of it tonight
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clar77 · Posted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 11:54 pm Post subject:

mrjackson2k · n00b Joined: 10 Aug 2003 Posts: 38

try using Smart Boot Manager
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nuno · n00b Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 22 Location: Portugal

The pc I have is a 166 Mhz pc.

The problem is that it has a hp cd-writer 7200i (very very old...)

It only reads 650 MBs cds and I couldn't buy one. They now only sell 700 or 800 MBs CD-Rs....

But I could buy the last 650 MBs CD-RW in th shop

But smart boot manager could't boot it... It can boot other CD-Rs but it didn't boot the cd-rw.

That CD-RW boots in my new pc (Pentium 4).

Which options do I have? Can I boot from network? and how can I do it? (if smart boot manager allows it?) Is there any floppy OS I can use?

Thanks,
Nuno

nuno · n00b Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 22 Location: Portugal

Can anybody help me, please??

How can I boot my pc throught the network in order to install Gentoo??

xef · Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2004 10:17 am Post subject:

nuno · n00b Joined: 15 Jun 2004 Posts: 22 Location: Portugal

The problem is that I have windows (w/ cygwin) in the other pc.

Can I compile and run the TFTP server on cygwin? and can I compile grub in cygwin? And how???

or another option, would be to boot Knoppix in this pc, try to run the TFTP server and compile grub, etc.....

Any ideas?

jkt · Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2004 1:45 pm Post subject:

as I already wrote, you can use some of the Slackware's boot floppies, ie. boot from floppy, mount your cdrom, setup partitions (this step could be also performed in another computer), chroot,... just follow the gentoo handbook

linux_weenie · Guru Joined: 25 Jun 2003 Posts: 365

yeah but he said his CDROM drive can only read 650MB CDs. nuno you might try to check for a firmware upgrade on that CDROM or look for a new one, they're only like 15-20 bucks

-Will
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jkt · Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2004 2:03 pm Post subject:

he also said he has another computer. what about LAN? ;-)

screwloose · Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2004 2:55 pm Post subject:

A firmware flash would probably work, my old 7200i had no problem with 700mb disks.
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xef · Posted: Mon Jun 21, 2004 8:49 am Post subject:

You can boot from a flopy, maby the slackware floppy to create the partitions and transfer the stage from the lan.

You can also connect the hard drive to the other computer to install the stage and grub