Installation witout built-in DVD and floppy drive.....

[Bazeman]

Hello Guys,

I am stuck with a little problem 

I received 5 dell optiplex computers F.o.c. and want to experiment a little bit with these baby's. The problem I have is that there are no dvd or floppydrives built in these machines. The thing that makes it even more complicated is that there is no option in the bios too boot from an USB DVD drive. The only thing I can boot from is a flashdrive. I have an external LG DVD drive but it is not detected by the bios.

I would highly apreciate if someone could tell me how to install LinuxMCE on these machines....

[Zaerc]

Get an internal DVD drive and hook it up.

[Bazeman]

Well that's the problem.....

These optiplex machines need special "laptop" like drives. You can't just hook in a normal DVD drive, otherwise I had done this in the first place.... Also I have searched allready for a drive, but the only ones I could find need to be ordered in china. This would take way to long and I don't want to spend the money. I have a perfectly nice external USB DVD LG drive, which would be useable when linuxMCE installed.
Only real problem is that I can't boot from it to install it.....   

[nite_man]

Strange. Did you check BIOS settings? I used external USB optical to install LinuxMCE on the Supermicro server without any problems.

[Bazeman]

I have tried all options in the bios, but it just won't boot from a external USB DVD drive. It does not have anything to do with the linuxMCE disc, also WinXP discs or vista won't boot.

So nobody of the real computer geeks have a solution for me?? I just need to know how to make a bootable Linux usb stick which recognizes the DVD drive, and install linuxMCE with the correct command line from the terminal window(which I also need to know)

I allready tried many things, so I'm not wine-ing without allready trying every option in my book.....   

[tschak909]

dude,

just get a DVD drive, any internal DVD drive, connect it on the motherboard, connect power
and hang it off the side if you have to. no need to mount it.

-Thom

[Bazeman]

Guys, if you want to try to help someone with a reply, please read the previous comments before writing something......

I can't connect a normal IDE or Sata drive to this computer, it's a Dell optiplex sx260 which needs a special dvd drive comparable with a laptop. So no standard IDE or SATA ports are available on the motherbord.

So only option I have is this: Make a bootable Linux USB stick with kubuntu 0710 or any useable distribution. My question is how???
Then, if I can boot from USB stick, how do I install the LinuxMCE Cd's? or DVD? with the command line option...

[tschak909]

I apologise. I missed that.

If you feel like an adventure...

We definitely want to make some better options for install in the future...But maybe this will work:

you can try to install it inside virtualbox, then make a tarball of the whole system, load a memory stick copy of linux, format, then unpack the tarball, write the boot loader, and reboot.

-Thom

[merkur2k]

I would assume that the motherboard has a laptop style 44 pin ide connector then? if so, you can get adapter boards to hook laptop drives to normal ide connectors, i assume this would work in reverse too. On that same note, maybe a normal laptop dvd drive would work as well. As another option, you may be able to pull the hard drive out, install it in a desktop system temporarily, and then do the install.
You may also be able to find guides online for doing a network install of kubuntu, which would give you a way to do the cd install. This starts to get pretty technical though, and requires setting up a server with some very specific software packages. It will certainly involve lots of command line work.

[Zaerc]

Guys, if you want to try to help someone with a reply, please read the previous comments before writing something......

I can't connect a normal IDE or Sata drive to this computer, it's a Dell optiplex sx260 which needs a special dvd drive comparable with a laptop. So no standard IDE or SATA ports are available on the motherbord.

So only option I have is this: Make a bootable Linux USB stick with kubuntu 0710 or any useable distribution. My question is how???
Then, if I can boot from USB stick, how do I install the LinuxMCE Cd's? or DVD? with the command line option...

And maybe you could have mentioned "no standard IDE or SATA ports are available on the motherbord" right away.   

Anyway, here is are a few descriptions on how to make bootable USB flash drives:
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/09/28/usb-ubuntu-710-gutsy-gibbon-install/
http://www.debuntu.org/how-to-install-ubuntu-linux-on-usb-bar

It should be pretty much the same procedure for Kubuntu.  After installing Kubuntu 7.10 to the real harddrive you should be able to use the CD installer as descibed in our wiki.

[Bazeman]

Thanks for your latest reply's guys 

I will certainly try the options mentioned this weekend. I will let you all know how things have worked out later.

[GasVe]

Hi:
   Have you tried updating checking/updating the bios, this was taken from dell support web site:
The following changes have been made to the A02 BIOS to create A03:

1. Fix to the modbay IDE support during device swapping.
2. Alter USB code to allow faster USB device configuration and detection,
disable USB floppy boot if DISKETTE A: is set to "Not Installed",
and better support Bonzai, and other Non-DELL USB disk devices.
3. Updated support for newer Processors.
Etc, Etc

http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&releaseid=R61498&SystemID=PLX_PNT_P4_SX260&servicetag=&os=WW1&osl=en&deviceid=162&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=3&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=3&libid=1&fileid=77854

Hope this helps

GasVe