I just got an old Sony Vaio SR27K (tiny little laptop). It doesn't have a CD-rom or floppy but I figured I could use and external cd rom or floppy but, I can't get it to boot from anything USB

I have a USB enclosure to plug into my PC so I'd like to transfer the files to the "external" HD and then put the hard drive in the laptop to boot it up.

Is this possible?

Its a P3 with 128MB of RAM so I'm looking at using DSL or Puppy Linux.

Thanks for any help or a link to someone who has done it.

BTW, what file system should I use when formatting? I can do this from Windows or Kubuntu.

Not all systems are capable of booting from USB. Here is a link and a way to find out if your system will boot from USB. http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/09...compatibility/

Formatting, don't use windows. Linux uses different file systems. In fact, if you install Kubuntu, there is a partitioning and formatting tool in the installer. So do it when you install. I don't think the latest version of Kubuntu will boot in 128Mb of ram. Check the requirements first.

You might want to look into Knoppix, it works well on older systems and has tools installed for formatting and partitioning. It can also be installed to the HD if you want. It will run on 128 Mb system. I have used it on an old Compaq Presario 1245.

I don't think I made myself clear- I can't boot the Sony to any media other than a hard drive. The hard drive in the sony doesn't have an OS on it. I want to take the hard drive out of the sony, attach it to another PC with an OS and install linux to the hard drive to be used in the sony. Once done with formatting and moving linux files to the hard drive I will remove it from the PC, put it back in the laptop on the ATA controller and boot to the hard drive.

What I need to know is if this is possible. I know about Knoppix and kubuntu and the other distros but this laptop wont boot to their installation media so I need a work around to get linux on the HD and boot to it. That means the formatting, partitioning, installing the distro and the boot manager. While the Hard drive is attached to the PC with a 2.5 usb hard drive enclosure.

thanks in advance for the suggestions.

Have you looked in the BIOS to see if you can point it to other media? CD-rom or floppy? Or even the USB? If you have a USB port, installing an OS to a USB pen drive would get you booted, if your BIOS will support booting from USB.

I understand the method you are considering. It is not easy, unless the other system has identical hardware. When you install most distros, they do hardware detection during the install phase. They modify the boot scripts on the new system so the system can load the correct ( windows term ) drivers. So if you put the HD in another system, and then move the drive, you will have a lot of wrong drivers installed. It would take some fixing. You would probably have to start from the command line and edit files, unless both systems have the same video hardware. I'm not saying this is not possible, just difficult.

I have seen some information on how to load a machine without any os. One way is to boot from diskette, and install from a server. I know you don't have a floppy, or CD-rom, so I'm guessing the next best bet is the USB adapter.

the BIOS has 3 options, I've tried them in every order, with a usb floppy drive and with my external (SONY) CD-ROM. The external usb CD ROM spins up when I turn on the laptop but then all I get is the message "Operating System not found"

I wish I could just copy the files off of DSL, puppy, boot stick onto the HD and have it configure the hardware as it boots.

Check your cd in a computer that you know will boot from cd to see if it will work, if the cd spins when you boot to the external it sounds like it might work.

My BIOS choices are:
1. [ATAPI CD-ROM Drive]
2. [Diskette Drive]
3. [Hard Drive]
Sony's expectation for external drives was a PCMCIA adapter. I don't have this adapter, so I've been using USB. The guy I bought it from says he got it to boot from a USB "Kangaroo" CDROM drive but he can't find it to sell it to me.

At this point I think the spinning of the CD is from the powering on of the USB port.

It is possible to install linux on a hard drive on a different PC.
Make sure your USB enclosure is made for a 2.5" notebook drive. Notebook drives use a different connector then the desktop hard drive.

Here are some ideas.
http://marc.herbert.free.fr/linux/win2linstall.html

It's possible to do what you want. I've done it with Slackware on a Thinkpad 240X. It was somewhat accidental. I received the 240X without a hard drive and when I plugged in my 20Gig hard drive from my 600X it booted. I had to stay in shell until I reconfigured Xorg for the different video card and resolution. I would think if you installed a basic system you could net install the rest from there. Alternately you could make a partition on the hard drive that contains your linux install and install it from that partition.

YES you can install linux to the hard drive on another computer BUT you will need an adapter to plug your
laptop hard drive into your desktop (note tack the windoz drive out of the desktop during the install )

DO NOT!!! what ever you do DO NOT!!!
configure it to boot into X until the hard drive is back in the laptop and you have configured X
once you can run X with the startx command you can configure it to boot into X

not only can you install it in another computer you can copy a linux installation from another computer
if you do this you will need to edit /etc/fstab to match the laptop and /etc/initab to boot into the CLI
to copy linux you copy the directories from "/" HDD a to HDD b with "cp -p -r with out copying /proc or the mount point of
HDD b (if you have it do not copy /sys)
once all the files have been copied chroot to HDD b edit /etc/lilo.conf then run "lilo -M /dev/hdb"
read the man pages for cp , fstab , lilo and lilo.conf BEFORE you start


slackware 12.1 will work on this computer IF you have the hard drive space for it 3.5Gigs for an every thing install
and the slackware installer is quite happy allowing you to set it up so it boots to the CLI
you will be much better off with a main streem distro than with a distro like DSL