As someone pointed out on one of these lists, Toshiba somtomes makes CD
that cannot recognize a 2.88MB boot image (which most Linux CD use.)
On Tuesday 30 July 2002 20:34, wchast@utilpart.com wrote:
> See my previous reply to R P's note, that was all the
> problem was as he pointed out, the boot disk was the
> quick fix.
>
> FYI folks, the Toshiba Portege 7010 seems to make a
> fine LINUX box, once I got around the boot, it sucked
> up everything, and only got a complaint on the audio
> drivers (seems I get that on all Toshiba boxes) which
> is of no import as the device is going to be used as
> a black box file server for sales demos.
>
> The sales person will arrive on site with a case with
> two PC's in it, one of them will have the field and
> dispatch pieces (I wanted to have them on separate
> machines, but that puts us to 3 machines and until we
> get things on a PDA we will just share the field and
> dispatch side on one machine for demo reasons, makes
> it easier to show anyhow when you are using a projector
> all you do is switch from dispatch to field screens)
> By way the field and dispatch machines are windows and
> the file server is UNIX or in this case LINUX.
>
> The previous demo system was two laptops (field and
> dispatch) and a Tadpole (that was a $10K nightmare just
> looking for some place to mess up, one did it to me
> over in Germany, there are a bazillion fans in that
> little box and if one stops turning the box halts or
> will not boot, in this case one way deep down inside
> this little bugger of a nightmare had quit turning due
> to a bit of packing material having settled between
> the blade and the fan case, and to make things worse
> the error code is not even remotelly "human readable"
> it was just a number, anyhow when we finally found out
> what it was we had to tear the thing apart, guess what
> you need special tools to get inside, there, getting
> to see why we want to move this whole thing to laptops?
> Anyhow, we and our german reps and one of our guys
> over here (I called him about 2 am) with his reading
> some obscure code list we figured out it was a fan
> then the german guys started going through auto tool
> bags (thank God for german cars and their tool bags
> that come as part of the car kit) anyhow we found
> something that worked well enough to turn something
> down deep in side this turkey and get it open, found
> the silly bit of crap that had the whole thing stopped
> I took a dentist tooth pick out of my tools and pulled
> the trash from between the fan case and blade, we put
> it all back together ( all of the safeties had to be
> closed or it would not boot) and fired it up.
>
> By this time people have realized that the Tadpole
> was NOT a good field piece for rapid recovery from
> a mess like this. Finally we are getting rid of the
> things and getting down to real world working systems.
> Hey do not laugh that little system with the server
> running on the little laptop could be a dispatch system
> for a mom and pop operation... Now to get the field
> and dispatch sides moved to LINUX...
>
> By way one neat thing about that Portege 7010, is that
> all we do is plug power into it and connect it with
> the lan that links it to the other machines we do not
> even open it up, just turn it on wait until disk activity
> stops and then access it from over the LAN. So you have
> this flat thing about the size of a note pad setting
> somewhere with two wires coming out of it, soon with
> wireless LAN that will be reduced to power only (batteries
> are shot, but big deal, I can build a big gel battery
> that will power the thing for hours on end if so needed)
>
>
> Comments below...
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ben Ostrowsky [mailto:ostrowb@tblc.org]
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 09:18 AM
> > To: SLUG
> > Subject: Re: [SLUG] Will not boot from CD
> >
> > > Any ideas beyond doing the install with a boot disk?
> >
> > No, but in the spirit of your flight instructor, let me
> > clarify and you
> > tell me if I'm accurate:
>
> Will do, I learned a LONG time ago that there are no dumb
> questions...
>
> > Bootable Windows CD in drive, cold boot. Result: boots from CD.
>
> Yep....
>
> > Bootable Red Hat CD in drive, cold boot. Result: boots from
> > hard drive.
>
> Correct....
>
> > Have you tried other bootable Linux CDs just to see whether
> > they'll boot
> > on your laptop? Debian, Mandrake, etc. I'd especially recommend
> > LNX-BBC[1], since it's designed to be used in dire circumstances.
>
> I have a SuSE and a Mandrake around here also something else and
> they all have the same problem... I have to do the same thing with
> them all, create a bootable FD...
>
> > What OS does the laptop currently use?
>
> That one had Win2k on it, but got the same thing with any OS,
> in fact Even with LINUX on the HD... It was as R P said, the
> Tosh Bios can not see a bootable 2.88 MB floppy image, so you
> have to do the 1.44 fd and boot it from there, then things
> proceeded well, too well, it was scary how well they went...
>
> > Perhaps some newer MS OS has an
> > unfortunate issue with booting Linux install CDs, so sorry,
> > no idea how that happened? (Anything's possible...)
>
> I would love to put this one to MS feet, but they were
> just innocent bystanders until I got LINUX booted then
> they were kind of like those poor people over in the
> Ukraine at that airshow, one whack of that LINUX CD and
> the MS bits were gone.
>
> Y'all enjoy and thanks again for the info... By way even
> if it does not hit the target, a lot of times info does
> explain other issues, or make me think about something,
> so if there are no dumb questions there are NO dumb answers,
> they may not always be the right one for that particular
> scenario, but believe me I have learned more from the added
> info than you can know.
>
>
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