RE: Minimal system installation

From: Colin J. Raven (colin_at_kenmore.kozy-kabin.nl)
Date: 12/28/04

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    Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2004 01:01:01 +0100
To: Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com>

    On Dec 28, Ted Mittelstaedt launched this into the bitstream:

    >
    > Your just not going to be able to do this one as it is,
    > you need to boot into FreeBSD in order to write a FreeBSD
    > boot selector or boot loader on the hard disk.
    >
    > Borrow another laptop and temporairly move the hard drive from
    > the first laptop to the second, then load FreeBSD onto it
    > and move the disk back.
    >
    > Have you tried looking for a floppy for this laptop on
    > Ebay?
    >
    > In theory if you had a copy of Norton Ghost you could ghost
    > an image of the laptop hard disk running FreeBSD (obviously
    > you would need another identical working laptop) then
    > on your laptop you could dialup with a modem and download
    > a packet driver and try running it under win98 DOS using a
    > 3com 3c89 pcmcia card (which is one of the few pcmcia cards
    > that will run a packet driver without card services) then
    > running the ghost client, than pulling the image over the
    > network.
    >
    > Incidentally you probably can't get the pcmcia slot to work
    > because with a laptop that old, it's a 16 bit pcmcia card
    > slot, and all the pcmcia cards sold today are 32 bit cardbus
    > ones. That 3c589 3com pcmcia card is your friend. It's not
    > in production anymore but there's tons on Ebay.
    >
    > Ted
    >
    >> How about this one...a laptop with the CD inoperable and the floppy
    >> missing. The PCMCIA controller may/may_not be fried because no known
    >> PCMCIA network card will work, but owing to the vagaries of Win98 who
    >> knows for sure. All we know presently is that the serial port works.
    >> Disk is OK and it has 40MB of memory. Add to that the fact that for
    >> ridiculously sentimental reasons I am reluctant to part with the darn
    >> thing, so as a last ditch effort I'd sure like to put *some* BSD on it.
    >> The question is....how?

    Ted,
    Thanks for an enormously helpful response, greatly appreciated.
    I think I'll leave the laptop on it's shelf for another few weeks/months
    and go hunt up a 3C589 PCMCIA card, then try yanking the H/D and
    proceeding as you outlined above.
    Somewhat tangentially I have a suspicion that the PCMCIA controller may
    well be cooked because if memory serves, I had one of those cards back
    when which worked and then abruptly failed. Wondering if the card itself
    had fried I popped it into a recent laptop and it immediately passed
    packets...at least that's my recollection. Nonetheless despite that
    gloomy outlook I'll still give this a shot with another card of the
    heritage you described.
    Thanks for taking the time to explain the why's/how's on this, I have a
    clearer view of the upcoming task now.

    Warm Regards & Thanks,
    -Colin
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