Installation problems

Hi guys. I have a computer that is not able to connect to the internet and cannot boot from the CD drive. The computer is a win 98 laptop, Right now the operating system is extremely unstable so I was hoping to get Linux on it. Is there any way to get any linux distro on a non internet non CD bootable laptop?

 

Only thing I can think of is to take the HDD out and put it into another computer, then boot from CD to install on that machine, then once the install is done put it back in the busted comp.

 

Is there no way to put the ISO image on the hard drive and boot from there?

 

Not that I know of, booting from the hard drive would automatically go to Windows.

 

ought to be floppy bootable at least? try googling "linux boot floppy" or something like that.

 

You would probably have to get slackware to be able to boot from a floppy though. And if you have to take the hard drive out, you'll have to get a converter to use it in a desktop.

Did you check the bios to make sure you couldn't boot from it? Usually in Win 98 machines, they're able to boot from cd's.

 

it was actually a win 95 upgraded to win 98, does that have any affect on the bios?

 

To run the ISO in Windows... what you can do is emulate a virtual optical drive in Windows and mount (ie insert) the "disc" that is your ISO. This is where you mimic, using software, a piece of hardware. However, instead of using a real optical drive or CD, you're just creating virtual ones. You do this with a simple and free program called Daemon Tools that allows you to do this.

I've done this with a Vista RC1 ISO and it was a total success, I'm just not sure about Linux b/c its a live CD. Their autoplay menu may not allow you the option of installing it. Good luck anyways.

 

One option is ZipSlack http://www.slackware.com/zipslack/, which would be easy to "install", if you call unzipping an archive installing. You've got Win9x, and therefore DOS, you can unzip ZipSlack onto your C: DOS partition, and then setup loadlin to boot into Linux. Advantages are that there is no need to repartition the drive, or boot off CD or floppy, Disadvantages include the use of the UMSDOS fs, and installing of Slackware packages like X Windows after the install.

BTW I like the challenge of installing linux on old laptops, but I've had a complete brain fade on how I got Debian onto my HP Omnibook 800CT (which has an external SCSI non-booting cdrom drive). When the various distros still had boot floppies it was easier, but very few support that option today.