lap top maintainence

hello all just a small question it may be somewhat silly but here it goes.
I have been given a toshiba tecra 8000. I have limited expereence with lap top nuances and I want to clear the drives and reinstall everything to my preferred comfigs the Q is do I just format and boot to a cd that has dos and how do i make sure that I can boot to the cd with out a floppy drive.

The other Q is the battery seems to be dead but the system doesn't even show it installed. Is this normal or should it show the battery as not charged? Does anyone now of any programs that will help with battery maintence (charge level, warnig to baterry end) I've googled for one but didn't see anything that seemed right

thanks for any suggestions

semper fi

Hey all

The Command fdisk/s Usally works for me...

Cheers

When I need to pooch a previous install of something (anything) I usually grab a DOS disk and have delpart.exe, the delete partition tool. Great thing to have!

As for the battery, it should pick up the fact that it is there, even if dead. It could be a contact issue. Check to see if the contacts to where the battery connect are clean and still there. You might need to get it serviced if the connection point doesn't work. As a simple laptop it might be ok. If you intend to do more with it, I dunno if it will be that productive. Did the person who give it to you say anything about the battery?

/edit

Notebook, laptop Battery FAQ. I found this. Might be of help or at least, some good advice on various topics. :)

thanks for the replys

but part of my problem is i don't have a floppy drive for this system and i was wondering if it is possible to boot from a cd after I wipe the system

thanks for the links MS

Only if the laptop BIOS supports CD Boot. Check to see if the CD can be made as the 1st device to check to boot from. If it can, then the answer should be yes for CD book. If the answer is no, then unfortunately not (do this before the wipe out).

Out of curiousity, if there is no floppy, how do you intend on wiping out what's there? And what do you intend on installing in it's place?

I am planning to format the drive from the dos promt providing that i can boot from the cd. and partition the drive so that i can install 200 and linux. followed of course by my firewall and nortons system works. why? Am i over looking something?

http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/t...ListType=Model

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why? Am i over looking something?

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No. Just curious but double check the bios to ensure that you can boot from CDRom.

I am pretty sure that it will boot from the CD-rom drive b/c most post 200 mhz systems do. But if it doesn't and you need any help go here --> http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/