Floppie to force CD to boot

I have an older Dell laptop which does not have boot from CD as a BIOS option. I want to install LINUX from a CD. How can I make this laptop boot from CD? Can I make a floppie which will direct the boot to the CD?

 

donj2 - not exactly.

You need a boot floppy that contains support for your CD. Then with the CD in the drive, boot from the floppy, change to the drive containing the CD, and run whatever startup/setup/install command is on the Linux CD.

Quite a few bootable floppy loads available Here. You'll just need to make sure the one you get can load the correct drivers to operate your CD drive. I seem to remember that there are several possible sets of drivers and some CDs require specific ones.

 

There is a micro code bios extender that will redirect the boot device from the floppy to another device. It runs as a bootable floppy.

I will try to find it and edit this post with the URL.

Edit - not exactly the same one I had used - but some of the same people helped develope it.

Smart BootManager - there is a DOS .exe on the download page and it will run from a floppy. - Not sure if it will do what you need but give it a try and report your results.

Thanks

 

donj2 you can download a premade bootdisk at bootdisk.com but I believe you'll need a boot & a root floppy for the distro of linux you are installing, then you'll have to go to the CD to start the install. I've always been lucky enough to boot off the cdrom so I have never had to do this but alot of other people have, so here are the links to 2 sites that will help you get your laptop up and running:

http://www.linuxquestions.org


http://www.tldp.org


hope this helps
Bubba169

 

Thanks for your replies. I will check these out. Good info.
Expect to be helpful. Thanks again, Don.