Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

jakobcornelis · Last edited by jakobcornelis on Sat 17 Nov 2012, 22:18; edited 1 time in total

I am trying to install Wary 5.3 to an older laptop, which now has Windows on its single partition. It has no functioning cd drive, so I am trying to boot with a flash drive. The BIOS is appropriately set so that first boot is a flash drive (FDD). When I try to boot, it says: "Searching for Boot Record from USB FDD ... OK" ...then, nothing (flashing cursor).

I know the bootable flash drive is good - it works perfectly on my other computer.

Does this behaviour ring any bells with anyone?

By the way, I have an external cd drive on this laptop. It is identified as a CD drive on Windows, but although second boot option is for CD, the BIOS does not seem to acknowledge the live CD for Wary 5.3 as a bootable device.

Jake

rcrsn51 · Posted: Sat 28 Apr 2012, 12:19 Post subject:

jakobcornelis · Posted: Sat 28 Apr 2012, 13:07 Post subject:

Thanks, rscrsn51, I was afraid of that. This BIOS has only three boot options, USB FDD, CDROM, and HDD. So live CD/USB is not an option. I will try and do a frugal install out of Windows.

Thanks, Jake

jakobcornelis · Posted: Sat 28 Apr 2012, 18:31 Post subject:

I decided to try something else first: In creating a usb-drive boot stick, BootFlash lets you configure it in SuperFloppy mode (FDD), which is specifically one of the three boot options my laptop BIOS offers. Imagine my delight when it started to boot Wary 5.3. But not past the first two lines. Then it said: "Searching for Puppy files .........pausing ... puppy_wary_5.3.sfs not found. Dropping out to initial-ramdisk console." Followed by a # prompt

This file was copied to the stick from the live CDI, according to the on-screen message, but I can not check whether the sfs file is in fact on the usb drive - there is no icon for it; that could be because it is a Superfloppy(?).

In any case, what is an initial-ramdisk console, and what do I do with it, to make this boot routine get on with it?

Jake

Karl Godt · Joined: 20 Jun 2010 Posts: 2736 Location: Kiel,Germany

jakobcornelis · Posted: Sat 28 Apr 2012, 19:37 Post subject:

That's all way over my head. Thanks anyway, Karl.

Back to Plan A, I guess.

Jake

Lazy JW · Joined: 21 Dec 2011 Posts: 70

Since you can boot from a USB FDD, try downloading the PLOP Bootmanager, install it on a floppy, and install PLOP from the floppy. PLOP will then allow you to boot from the USB stick, and will also allow you to boot Windoze.
Joe

jakobcornelis · Posted: Sun 29 Apr 2012, 17:19 Post subject:

Success. Thanks to PLoP. This is a neat little program. Here's what I did: I made a usb flash boot drive - a normal one, that is HDD. I copied the PLoP files to a stick. I booted the laptop to its Windows OS., inserted the PLoP stick, and used one of the Windows install files on it to install PLoP to the hard drive. I then rebooted, and low and behold, was presented with a menu offering the choice between Windows and PLoP boot manager. I then inserted the wary 5.3 flash drive and chose PLoP boot-up. This resulted in wary 5.3 running in memory. I am now intending a frugal install of wary (and hopefully removal of Windows).

I don't think I could have accomplished this without this handy PLoP tool. So, thanks to Joe for the suggestion, and to rcrsn51 and Karl for their contributions.

Jake

Semme · Joined: 07 Aug 2011 Posts: 2121 Location: World_Hub

Hey Jake- glad to see it <wink> worked out.

Lazy JW · Joined: 21 Dec 2011 Posts: 70

Jake, you are most welcome. That's the first thing I have had to offer anyone on Linux Very Happy

Mostly I am just reading and absorbing.
Joe

mahaju · Posted: Sun 29 Apr 2012, 22:48 Post subject:

Interesting post
I had found out about PLOP boot manager long ago nut never had any real need for using it
My first impression about it was, if there is a computer with no USB boot and no CD drive, this program cannot be used, as my first experiment with it was by making a PLOP bootable CD and I used to think that if I need a PLOP bootable CD anyway to boot off an OS on a USB stick, why not put the OS directly on the CD
I never really thought about installing it on the hard drive and making the USB ports of an old computer bootable
Few years ago my friend at a computer repair shop was really annoyed when he found out that a P4 computer with Windows XP someone had brought in for repair did not accept any CD drives nor had the feature to boot from the USB
Now I know how to overcome this situation

One last thought
Doing something like this was much easier with XP computers as it was much easier to edit the XP boot.ini to point to a different bootloader
That way we can be sure that we do not destroy our XP boot system
But now with later windows like Vista and 7 that doesn't seem to be the case
If we try to install a different bootloader we completely destroy the Windows boot system and need the Windows repair disk to restore it

Monsie · Joined: 01 Dec 2011 Posts: 470 Location: Kamloops BC Canada

glene77is · Joined: 17 Aug 2010 Posts: 108 Location: Memphis, TN, USA

Interesting thread ! Very Happy

My M$-XP "Boot.ini" does not point to any bootloader.
So,
I renamed "ntldr" to "wxldr.sys" .
I renamed "grldr" to "ntldr" .
M$-XP reads the fake bootloader and runs "menu.lst" OK. Cool

From "Menu.lst" I can re-boot into XP or Linux.