Sunday, May 13, 2012

Installing a new OS on a Compaq Presario B1800 with a dead CDROM

I had to install Xubuntu for a Compaq Presario B1800 that had a broken CDROM drive, I first tried to get it to PXE boot an ISO, That did not work as there is only 512MB of ram in it.

The next thing I tried was to connect  a external DVD drive and then tried to boot it, The external drive was not being detected.

The way to rectify this problem is to enable Floppy Disk boot form the BIOS and give it higher priority than the HDD. I have no idea why this works but it does work.