| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| jema |
Anyone near Swindon with a USB floppy drive?I'm trying to get my old Sony Vaio's BIOS upgraded, and need to boot from floppy, but i'm not paying £50 or whatever for something I will use once
So if anyone has one and is fairly local, i'd appreciate the quick loan of one. |
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| Jonnyboy |
I can post you one on monday, I also have a USB Cd drive. | ||
| jema |
Thanks for the offer, I may take you up on it in a few days, I have requested this on another board and freecycle, and so may get a more local opportunity. |
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| jema |
Some one has also tipped me off on:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Brand-New-BLACK-External-USB-1-44MB-Floppy-Disk-Drive_W0QQitemZ5243224900QQcategoryZ169QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Which is a lot lot cheaper than I had seen. They are £30+ in Comet. I still have a downsizers objection though to buying new, something I want to use once. |
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| dougal |
If it'll boot from a usb *floppy* - then what's to stop it booting from a usb *flash* drive? Umm, or any external (usb) drive?
Worth a try? |
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| jema |
I had the same thought myself earlier. Given the potential for mistakes in the BIOS are to produce very expensive paperweights  I did a brief web search. I did not find anyone apparently doing this... and whilst I know logically that when a boot has actually occured, then the ball game is the same as if booting from a floppy. I am still reluctant to break new ground here.
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| dougal |
Its your call entirely.
But have you seen this article, specifically mentioning XP, BIOS upgrades and booting from flash not floppy? http://searchwinsystems.techtarget.com/tip/1,289483,sid68_gci1112731,00.html?bucket=ETA Note that one could extract the boot sector info, and create the "flash floppy" on a machine with a conventional (non-usb) floppy A: drive... It could be your round... 
EDIT: Google-ing "boot floppy" flash will bring you loads of other ways of putting boot sectors onto a flash (pen stick thumb) drive (or even creating a boot cd that thinks its a floppy  ) - it doesn't seem as though its a 'bleeding edge' process. Others have been in the same situation, lacking a usb floppy drive, before...
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| jema |
Thanks for that  I had come across effectively those instructions, but they were no where near as clear.
Now all I need is the USB memory device. |
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| dougal |
 
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| jema |
The money we end up spending trying to save
I used: http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/hpcpqdt/us/download/20306.html in the end to create a bootable USB flash drive, and it didn't 
Well more to the point it didn't on the target system, probably means the target system needs a BIOS update
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| dougal |
At a glance that seems to specify that the utility is specific to HP flash drives and HP pc's...
And although it says it is a "format utility", I can't spot *any* claim whatsoever on that page that it makes the device *bootable*. 
The one I linked to was entirely *general*, and involved transferring working boot sectors from a floppy to the flash drive, using a conventional XP pc to create the 'flash floppy'. Is that a problem? EDIT: the MKBT utility for copying boot sectors etc will seemingly run on anything since Win95 (presumably r2) and is not even XP specific. So any conventional pc with usb... And of course you need to install whatever DOS stuff on there (after you've wiped it and given it boot sectors) to make it do anything, command.com for a start, I'd guess... BTW here's someone's advice on how it can be done using just FDISK (twice) and FORMAT... http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~shaher/Bootable_USB.html |
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| jema |
The HP one does make it bootable. I know it boots! jst not on the target system. I tried the first way, it did not boot, and I found some comments on the net about it not being 100% reliable and recommending the HP way. I did not actually test the fiurst method in the new notebook which does boot from the usb drive. |
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| dougal |
If you have a general "bootable flash" that will boot a generic system but NOT your Sony laptop, something in the Sony is being non-standard. *If* the Sony *can* boot from usb, it *ought* to boot from a general 'flash floppy' - if it *can't* boot from a general 'flash floppy', it might even need a Sony-specific usb floppy
If its any comfort, I remember Apple posting online updated modem drivers for the original iMac. They seemed to expect people who couldn't get online to discover the existance of the update, and then download it...
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| jema |
Would not be that surprised, have not had a lot of luck looking for what boot options a VAIO PCG-721C has
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| dougal |
Surely "Sony Notebook Setup" "Power On Device Sequence" allows you to
"Select the order of drives and devices from which you want to load the operating system. You can specify the hard drive inserted into the docking station as well as other drives inserted into your computer." From the last sentance of which I'd guess that it might not present you with options that were not currently available... so mount the 'flash floppy' before going to the utility... If you were unsure of what all it might boot off, how were you telling it to boot from usb? |
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| jema |
My Acer Notebook sees the USN device as another hard drive. The Sony does not, so I put "Removable Devices" at the top of the boot list. No sign in the BIOS of it seeing the device though. It is probably simply too old. |
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| dougal |
Aaargh! Maybe this alternative deserves consideration? http://www.bootdisk.com/txtfiles/flashcd.txt |
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| jema |
That is also on the list for consideration. But guess what? i am out of blanks at the second
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| jema |
My BIOS is now upgraded, thanks to the quick load of a USB floppy via freecycle.
The drive showed up as a removable device. |
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| dougal |
Ta-Ra !!
(BTW, will it *now* boot from the usb 'flash floppy'? ) |
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| jema |
dunno, I'm now stuck at the next hurdle. What I had done was make the vaio dual boot, it has a "working" Me installation  and a w2k installation, but that installation left it without network/sound or video drivers, so w2k will only run in 800x600 16 color mode
Being without a network driver, also left it somewhat stuffed for updates. Anyhow i installed a wireless network card, getting it back on the net, then via windows update I got the w2k up to date and it found a network driver. But no luck on video. I was hoping following the BIOS update. A download called "Sony Notebook setup" for w2k on my model would solve things... it did not. Now about to try "Sony Shared Libraries".... |
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| jema |
That failed dismally, but an XP video driver worked SO may just get somewhere with this
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| jema |
Life's a bitch....
Got it all working by using XP drivers, so at least have a notebook I can use properly now. But what i really wanted it for, the vodafone 3g card seems to make things sieze horribly and destructively
Have not found answers on the net yet, but did find
and the USB memory stick still won't boot. |