Tecra TE2100? Oh, this is 4-th generation after my retiree
)
I used to have Thinkpads
My first was TP 380 but I sold (overseas) it in 1 year with good profit. Then I got TP i1452 with Celeron366, 64Mb ram and 4Gb hdd. This one served me up to 2008! I believe I upgraded memory to 256Mb and I'm sure I ran XP on it with full Office2003, adobe CS and bunch of other soft. Unfortunately I lost it (also overseas) so my first profit has returned to God
This TP 560E wasn't mine as I wrote but I remember what money did it costs when I was buying TP 380. While looking inside it's just amazing how much money they did that time on such a primitive aggregate...
I mostly work with desktops and they are mine: I used to buy only first one then I opened it and then I only buy parts so for the same money I have 3 times better hardware
Well in details I did the following:
Assuming I already pulled hdd, plug it in desktop machine, zeroed everything (and mbr) with zap63 (just in case) and dd (I used PartedMagic), partitioned and formated ext2 and swap partitions. First partition for win98 I formated with "format c: /s" using old win95 CD (it appear as A:\>), copied win98SE installation files to a folder on c:, replug to laptop boot to dos prompt and installed win98. Having win98 I got access to network and then transferred files from another laptop with crossover cable. Since another laptop got working wireless I finally setup networking to connect with regular cat5 cable to network and access the second laptop filled with files.
Then I did:
1. Copied (from grub4dos) grub.exe and menu.lst to C:\
2. Edited C:\config.sys (empty by default) to look like this:
Code: Select all
[menu]
menuitem=WINDOWS, Windows98
menuitem=GRUB, Puppy Linux
menudefault=WINDOWS,10
menucolor=7,0
[GRUB]
install=grub.exe
[WINDOWS]
3. Copied vmlinuz and initrd.gz to /boot (or /boot/try when tried various versions)
4. Copied both pup_xxxx.sfs and zdrv_xxx.sfs to root C:\
(here as I wrote I tried to place pup_xxxx.sfs also to /boot/try together with vmlinuz and initrd.gz)
5. Edited menu.lst to look like this:
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color white/dark-gray yellow/black
timeout=5
default=0
title Puppy Linux 217 full install on hda2
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 PMEDIA=idehd
boot
title Puppy Linux 217 frugal on hda1
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 PMEIDA=idehd PDEV1=hda1 psubdir=boot
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/initrd.gz
boot
title Puppy Linux CurrentTry frugal on hda1
kernel (hd0,0)/boot/try/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 PMEIDA=atahd PDEV1=hda1 psubdir=boot/try
initrd (hd0,0)/boot/try/initrd.gz
boot
title Default Windows
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
boot
For "tries" I tried pmedia=idehd and atahd - no difference noted.
This menu.lst I corrected also in e3 during boot because notepad.exe placed too many extra dots/periods, I just deleted them.
That's it about frugal install.
To make full install on hdd I booted frugal install and ran universal installer pointing to hda2(ext2).
When asked about grub I chose
a) "update" when installing 214x and then picked the line to edit C:\menu.lst
b) "install" (no "update" option in 2.17.1) when installing 2.17.1 (2.17 didn't boot) to install it on mbr
so I do have now grub1 installed on mbr and it's files in (hd0,1)/boot/grub (including its menu.lst).
I should mention here that during grub setup the installer made a backup of windows mbr that is handy. Windows was detected correctly so I only edited timeout (30 sec to 5) and "DOS" by default to "Window98".
No booting problem with 2.14xT10 and 2.17.1 installations.
When I just started playing with Puppy I did perhaps what you wrote:
I installed Wary5.3 (full install on ext2) to that hdd and replugged it to the laptop. The result was as expected: no boot because hardware is quite different. So I wiped everything with exemption of /boot/grub/*
That time knowing nothing about grub4dos I just tried to make my hdd bootable by grub (without windoze) to install then puppy from hdd (from files copied to hdd).
I'm guessing that Puppy live CD always boots to ram so I don't understand "pfix=ram".
The idea to boot having only barebond kernel and initial ram disk is good but diring booting kernel is looking for (and cannot find) pup_xxxx.sfs files, that were available. Would kernel behavior change if there are no such files at all? A assume that the function to find pup_xxx.fsf file and stop if not found is in the kernel and something else should be added to kernel line before boot. Something like "nosfs"
Again: grub's job is to boot kernel then it's done. If grub cannot find something is sends "Error 15: not found" in plain white on black.
What I see on screen is "extracting/unlzmaing...ok,
booting kernel... installing drivers to access hdd (green OK) and then suddenly infamous "not found" in red. It's not grub. It's either kernel or more likely the installer.
Some tweaky switches could exist to ride a kernel or/and the installer but I don't know them as I don't know where kernel or installer is looking for .sfs files. In howtos I was told that they must be in root (frugal install) and the universal installer (full install)
is asking for the files location. Perhaps Puppy version also matters.
I could try with syslinux mbr.bin but since it's "big deal" (I also can loose win98+office97+other soft) I'd like to ask what actually the advantage is of using syslinux's mbr.bin since as I know the syslinux is used to boot usb not hdd?
PS. I just tried pulp_003 again with all 3 files in c:\boot\try
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..uncompressing Linux ... OK
Booting kernel.
Loading kernel drivers needed to access disk drives... done (green)
Searching for Puppy files in computer disk drives... pup_412.sfs not found. Dropping to initial-ramdisk console...(red)
/bin/sh: can't access tty: job control turned off
#
Indeed there is no such file but pup_412pulp.sfs instead. Let's try to rename... no luck. Let's try to move renamed file to root...no luck. Let's try to rename the file back in root...no luck. That's it.
Nonetheless I have 2.17.1 frugal and full install and they work great except networking. As I wrote the issue is incredibly weird at least I've never seen that ever. Perhaps it somehow connected with damn old bios. Probably I'll buy the battery for $30 (with no beer for a month
)