On 9/19/2010 6:21 AM, GT wrote:
> I've a little adapter that allowed me to plug 1 or 2 CompactFlash cards into
> an IDE channel. I also have an old motherboard, ram, CPU and gfx card. I
> have connected it all together and put DOS 6.22 on the CF card and the
> machine boots. So the CF card is capable of holding a boot record and
> booting an OS. If I try to install Ubuntu, or Win98, the DOS screen doesn't
> get past "Verifying DMI Pool Data...." and it won't boot.
>
> Its a 2GB CF card. Could this size be the problem? Its an Athlon 1800 with
> 0.75GB (512+256) ram and an AGP graphics Rad8500Gs card. All hardware is
> working fine.
>
> This is just an experiment - considering creating a NAS and print server
> from old parts. I've a silent cooler on the CPU and the graphics card is
> passive, so the machine is almost silent (PSU is only fan). If it works,
> then I'll stick a hard disk in there and have it auto-spin down after 10
> mins of no use = low power, quiet networked server.
>
> Any ideas on the failing boot?
>
>
You might want to give the unetbootin program a try. I have used it to
install Linux on different sized USB drives and it does support
installing to a hard drive should your CF show up as that rather than a
USB drive.
The freeware program can be located at
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
and I would suggest trying Puppy Linux as a test due to it's small
download size.
The program can download and install on the fly or it can use stored ISO
files you have local on your system somewhere.