In our last episode, we watched as the treacherous self-reaming WindowsME install was doublereamed forever, thanks to a buddy helping me remove the hard drive, install it into an outboard USB drive enclosure and waste the stricken laptop drive via the host desktop, then install the little-used ReiserFS Linux filesystem so as to fool a future Windows installer into actually transferring ALL the files, formatting situation and so forth.
But the laptop then refused not only to boot from CD but even to show the BIOS panel upon F1 invocation. Some time after discovering this, I got another minute to do some research and return to the issue; the (stock) Dell in question allows access to BIOS not with the usual tricks but with the combination Control/ALT/Enter right after power-up from cold. Now able to see the settings, I find that the boot sequence choices are either Floppy or Hard Disk. NOTHING ELSE. This means that any CD-based install would be possible using one of two methods known to me.
1) Get a special connector cable and an outboard (or dock-based) floppy drive and also locate the relevant boot floppy image (maybe at bootdisk.com or something) and create a boot floppy, then boot the machine that way, then run the install CD of your choice from the disk already inserted in the existing CD drive.
1b) A variant of the above would be to insert a dock floppy drive in the bay normally occupied by the (in this case toasted) battery while running off of the (in this case borrowed) AC adapter.
2) Go to a service center and get them to do a variant of the above.
2b) I could see if I could borrow a dock floppy drive that would fit, if the IT shop at my building has one.
All this (allowing only booting from floppy, although there is no floppy drive included) is a crude but effective way to raise the bar of those trying to get around login/password combos (security) or install from non-purchased media (rip a pirate copy of Windows). However, it slows the process of repairing a garbled, virused or whateverd OS. At least for the general pubic.
That wasn't a typo.
Things to consider:
Update the bios to one that includes CD boot?
Consider the upcoming problem of finding an old Dell Win98 CD (the TWO donors who gave me Dell PCs recently lost BOTH their install cd's - Ebay probably has 100,000 people trying to get rid of theirs for $5 (buyer beware)?
Consider a Linux install until then (maybe after adding RAM)?
Find the time to do some of this... Onward thru the fog.
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Note: the easiest way to improve all this (although involving money) would be to purchase from some parts house the Dell dock floppy drive that fits this Latitude laptop (it's probably rather cheap). That would render the current BIOS no problem and as long as a power supply was purchased, give one the ability to install any system at any time in the future, in the manner described above. Assuming this strategy, the buy list would include
recommended:
Dock Floppy
Power Supply
Used Dell System Reinstall/Win98 CD
optional:
New Battery
More RAM
Norton Internet Security Pro 2005
downloads:
AdAware SE, SpyBot Search & Destroy, DSOstop2 (if needed on Win98), Spyware Blaster 3.4
all Microsoft OS updates for 98
update all player programs like Real, etc.
update all non-MS browsers/clients like Mozilla, Opera, Netscape, Firefox, Thunderbird, Eudora, etc.
