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Problems With old PC
A Friend recently gave me this old beat up box. It's an old packard bell. Intel SX processor. It's running Phoenix BIOS A486 Version 1.01.E BIOS. But the thing is i can't figure out how to get an OS onto it , because it will not boot to a cd. I've tried to configure it to boot from a cd through the bios , but it seems like the bios is too old and it doesnt have any option to configure boot-up options. It does boot from a floppy though. I mean i can boot to DOS everytime i want to use it but i was hoping i could get it to boot from a CD so i could install linux on it or something. Can anyone help me on what changes i need to make to the system or anything i might be able to do so i can boot from a cd. Thanks
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You could use a Windows 98 boot disk because it can boot with a generic CD driver. I believe you could read most linux distro install CD's with it. I have not tried this method but am fairly sure it would work.
-NeuTron
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Yeah, Try using a WIN 98 Startup Disk. Make sure the CD is in the CD drive.
Once you get to a prompt type setup.exe. That should get it going for you.
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This is what I would do I would open up the case take out the harddrive that is in the pack bell and put it into another computer that does boot from a cd and once Linux was installed on the harddrive put it back in the packard bell. I believe it will work because linux remounts device's when it boots up and as far as windows goes I would do what NeuTron and cheyenne said.
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try this: go to another win98 comd create a startup disk. then on the old comp run scandisk from the floppy to check if the drive has any errors in it. Then run fdisk to erase everything thats in there so that you can make a clean install. Then put the CD in the drive, select the drive and run setup.exe from the MS-Dos. Let me know how it goes and if u have any other questions.
edit: oops must have missed the linux part lol. sorry about that. well if u install win98 in it, it could make it easer to install linux :)
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Make sure you have enough ram to even run a OS
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The only way you will be able to do it is with a boot disk as peeps have already said. You can use a win95 or 98 boot floppy. I no nothing of nix so cant help you there. Windows is easy though.
Just get hold of a boot disk and boot to it. Then, at the prompt type fdisk. Then delete any partitions. Follow the instructions to do this.
Then create a partition using all available space and set it to active.
Then type format c: /s , let it do the format then reboot to the floppy and when the option to boot with cd rom support comes up select it.
Then watch to see what drive letter the driver loads for and type X:/setup. (Where X is the letter of your drive). Then follwow the instructions to install.
You can boot to the floppy with cd rom support to begin with and then type setupfrom your cd drive but i have found that this can lead to miss reads on some older pc,s
Anyway i hope this is of some help.
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linux comes with an image for a boot floppy and one for a root floppy. With these you can start the install from a cd. just read the docs in the DOS folder for instructions on making them on a windows machine.