My laptop is a Dell Latitude C810. I'm wanting to boot from a SLAX distro without a HD inserted. When I remove the HD and boot the laptop, it can't see the CDROM.
Generated by: BIOS Wizard 2.10
BIOS Manufacturer : Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A12 licensed to Dell
BIOS ID : Unknown
BIOS Date : 03/03/03
BIOS OEM Signon :
BIOS ROM Size : 512K
Chipset : Intel Solano 815/EM rev 4
Super I/O Chip : Known super I/O chip is not found
Any ideas?
BTW, I'm pretty sure the BIOS ID is "A12" but this is the way it was detected.
CDROM not recognized when HD removed; Dell Latitude C810
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edwin
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It can see the CD but not boot from it probably. You have to make sure the CD is also one of the options for a bootable device (should be set as such in the bios).
edwin/evasive
Do not assume anything
System error, strike any user to continue...
Do not assume anything
System error, strike any user to continue...
Thanks for your response, edwin.
That's what I orginally thought might be the case, but when I go into the BIOS setup it says that no CD-ROM is installed. I changed the boot order anyway, since it is still available without the drives, but that didn't fix it. It even comes up with a "No Optical Drive Detected" warning right after the "No Hard Disk Detected" warning and then tries to boot from the floppy.
That's what I orginally thought might be the case, but when I go into the BIOS setup it says that no CD-ROM is installed. I changed the boot order anyway, since it is still available without the drives, but that didn't fix it. It even comes up with a "No Optical Drive Detected" warning right after the "No Hard Disk Detected" warning and then tries to boot from the floppy.
This is normal on these notebooks. The built-in CD-ROM is connected to the same IDE channel as internal HDD.
Patched and tested BIOSes are at http://wims.rainbow-software.org
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
Going off Rainbow's latest feedback, maybe the problem is that the CDROM cannot function as a slave without the HDD present as the master.
Maybe when you remove the HDD, if there is a drive detection option in the laptop BIOS, run this. The CDROM may still function without the HDD present but may detect differently.
Out of curiousity, why do you want to remove the HDD when booting from the CDROM? You should still be able to boot from the CDROM with the HDD present providing the boot order in the BIOS is set to allow to do so.
Maybe when you remove the HDD, if there is a drive detection option in the laptop BIOS, run this. The CDROM may still function without the HDD present but may detect differently.
Out of curiousity, why do you want to remove the HDD when booting from the CDROM? You should still be able to boot from the CDROM with the HDD present providing the boot order in the BIOS is set to allow to do so.
Normally it wouldn't be an issue, but in our application we need to be able to run with absolutely no working nonvolatile storage in the system. Basically, we want the system to lose all previous data when shutdown.
One thing I was thinking is that we could physically disable the hard drive. Like removing the motor from the hard drive or removing the heads. Of course, I suppose we could just go "dumpster diving" for already broken drives.
I was just hoping that someone here may have already modified a Dell BIOS to fix this problem or knew how I could do it. The BIOS is very old tech (circa 1988 PheonixBIOS) according to the copyright in the BIOS setup (1985-1988 Pheonix Technologies; 1988-2003 Dell). The only BIOS editing tools I've found for PheonixBIOS are too new to load the BIOS. The latest demo recognizes it as a PheonixBIOS but then complains about a missing table and stops loading it.
Thanks for responding guys. Any more ideas?
One thing I was thinking is that we could physically disable the hard drive. Like removing the motor from the hard drive or removing the heads. Of course, I suppose we could just go "dumpster diving" for already broken drives.
I was just hoping that someone here may have already modified a Dell BIOS to fix this problem or knew how I could do it. The BIOS is very old tech (circa 1988 PheonixBIOS) according to the copyright in the BIOS setup (1985-1988 Pheonix Technologies; 1988-2003 Dell). The only BIOS editing tools I've found for PheonixBIOS are too new to load the BIOS. The latest demo recognizes it as a PheonixBIOS but then complains about a missing table and stops loading it.
Thanks for responding guys. Any more ideas?
Check if the CD-ROM drive has jumpers - maybe it's possible to configure it as master.
Patched and tested BIOSes are at http://wims.rainbow-software.org
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
Rainbow and edwin, thanks for the suggestions.
I found no jumpers at all in the laptop anywhere. Good ideas though.
As far as read-only for the HD, if it's possible to do it in hardware without jumpers, then that is what I would want to do. Software wouldn't be good enough as that could be too easily undone.
Once again, thanks for the suggestions, most of which I couldn't have come up with on my own.
I found no jumpers at all in the laptop anywhere. Good ideas though.
As far as read-only for the HD, if it's possible to do it in hardware without jumpers, then that is what I would want to do. Software wouldn't be good enough as that could be too easily undone.
Once again, thanks for the suggestions, most of which I couldn't have come up with on my own.
