Installing an OS on an laptop- Catch though

[illuminate]

A friend at church gave me an interesting computer challenge: Put an operating system on an old laptop of his.

I was just curious to see how you computer tech people would go about it.

I've got no clue, but, maybe i can get some ideas/help.


For for the catch -

At first glance, putting an operating system on a laptop doesn't sound hard....

Laptop is an older laptop. It does work.

How ever:

1. No cd-rom
2. No floppy drive
3. No usb ports
4. Network card is a pcmia card
5. Is so old that it doesn't support booting off of network
6. Hard drive is only 1380 some mb in size.


So tell me, what would your steps of action be?

[Joe Average]

1. Use the laptop to jam the door open.
2. Walk out the door with the owner in tow.
3. Go to a local computer retailer.
4. Buy a new laptop.

;)

Ok, ok, had to do it, the joke was just too easy. Anyway, I've had to do this specific thing hundreds of times over the years and realistically there is no one specific way that works every single time for every single laptop. The most basic rule here is you're going to have to pull the hard drive out of the laptop and attach it to a desktop in some way, shape, or form, period. There's just no getting around that step.

You didn't specify what the laptop is in terms of CPU/RAM, etc, nor did you specify which OS you intend to put on it. While the CPU/RAM issue is one thing, not knowing which OS you intend to use (Windows 95, 98, 98SE, 2000 - which would be pushing it - or something else) basically puts a damper on things. Gotta know which OS we're dealing with to offer useful suggestions and advice.

Sooo... get that info posted and we can move along...

[eeyrjmr]

1. No cd-rom
2. No floppy drive
3. No usb ports

dear god!


well if it is more for kicks as opose to "pls make machine werk"

1) pull out laptop HD
2) plug into another laptop/desktop
3) get Xubuntu and do a /really/ light install of linux
4) boot and win
5) try on original laptop - linux is very forgiving to moving between machines

[illuminate]

Ok, i sent my friend an email about the specs. So, i should know pretty soon.

And, which is the lightest version of linux? Kubuntu, edubuntu, or ubuntu?

\edit\

just got the email about the specs. Its a Pentium @ 90mhz

Ram, he isnt sure. But from where he saw, it is a max of 40mb

and any OS is ok

[eeyrjmr]

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

it is

[Jerome36]

With those specs you're definitely going to have to throw out a lot of operating systems. I'm sort of in the same boat as eeyrjmr, with suggesting DSL, or something very similar. Unless of course you have some Windows 3.1 disks laying around :)

[GushpinBob]

If you have a Win9x CD on hand you could always connect the hard drive of the laptop to your computer (you'll need an IDE adapter for sure: this (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119151) would be a good choice IMO). Format the drive as a bootable disk with a minimal form of MS-DOS on there, then create a directory like X:\INSTALL (where X is the laptop's drive letter). Then you can copy the contents of the WIN9X (WIN9X could be WIN95,WIN98 depending on the version) directory on the CD into the INSTALL directory of that drive. Reconnect the drive in the laptop and boot into DOS.Navigate to that INSTALL directory and run SETUP.EXE. From there on, you can install Windows

Be sure to have that Windows product key in handy ;). GL

EDIT: Hey if you have another laptop on hand that uses a 2.5 IDE interface for the hard drive (and can boot from a floppy or CD), just hook up that hard drive and format it with whatever tools you have. Hell, you could even install Windows 9X/ME on that laptop and send the hard drive back to the old one and reinstall all the drivers ( 9x/ Me was more resilient to major system changes over 2000/xp).

[illuminate]

ok. I think ill try 3.1. I know someone who has a old copy of it. and, i picked up one of thsoe ide things today. Ill let yall know how it works

[Joe Average]

Does this person realize just how ancient and relatively useless that machine truly is nowadays? I mean, I can find laptops like that in thrift stores for $10 in some places, they're just so unusable for most intents and purposes it doesn't seem like a practical way to spend time or even money trying to make it operational.

But, to each their own I suppose.

Good luck with it...

[illuminate]

Yeah, he does. It was just a fun challege that i want to do.

[GushpinBob]

Does this person realize just how ancient and relatively useless that machine truly is nowadays? I mean, I can find laptops like that in thrift stores for $10 in some places, they're just so unusable for most intents and purposes it doesn't seem like a practical way to spend time or even money trying to make it operational.

But, to each their own I suppose.

Good luck with it...

I wouldn't say that it's useless. Sure the thing is dog slow... err, I mean more than dog slow by today's standards, but if the user is only writing letters, emailing, or doing light internet browsing (no youtube, no flash, hell maybe no graphics or audio at all), that's all they'll ever need. I still see a handful of people with old machines just because they never felt obliged to replace them. Even my granddad uses a Dell with an Intel Celery @ 500MHz and 256MB of RAM (*cringe* with XP installed) and we don't hear any complaints from him.

Then there's the OP's case where he wants to get it running just for the hell of it. I would do the same if I found some old laptop like that :D and maybe see what OSes it can run, do some stress testing, then in the end, finally sell it off or give it a dedicated task (router, print server, old gaming machine) if it works or junk it if I stressed it to much :D.

[ambientZ]

For win2k, and possibly XP. You can pull the HD out and attach it to another PC. Format the HD as a FAT32 System Disk (dos bootable). Copy the files off the cd onto the hard drive. Put the hd back into the laptop, at the cmd prompt start the os install.

Or you could try going the linux route. 2k shouldn;t be that bad though. I run xp on an old p3-800 mhz laptop. But i have it loaded to the max with ram to make it usable.

[Azhar]

I say keep it and turn it into a firewall or something.

But if he absolutely insist on having it, you might want to buy a 2.5" drive enclosure from NewEgg (about $18 plus ship) and format the drive and making it a DOS boot drive (find something from bootdisk.com).. then throw in the install files (maybe WFW 3.11 or Win95se?) and put it back in the laptop and boot it up.

Or as some suggests, use a small Linux distro.

[Shambler]

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

it is

qft

[illuminate]

For win2k, and possibly XP. You can pull the HD out and attach it to another PC. Format the HD as a FAT32 System Disk (dos bootable). Copy the files off the cd onto the hard drive. Put the hd back into the laptop, at the cmd prompt start the os install.

Or you could try going the linux route. 2k shouldn;t be that bad though. I run xp on an old p3-800 mhz laptop. But i have it loaded to the max with ram to make it usable.

wouldnt the install of w2k be more then 1g? remember that the hard drive is only 1g.

Oh, and i decided on puppy linux.