Getting DVD Drive To Boot

rkage

Sep 19 2005, 03:46 PM

I'm not 100% sure this is the right place to post this but here goes.

I'm trying to install Linux on my Toshiba Portege laptop. The CD is working fine because I tested it on another computer so that eliminates that problem. The DVD drive is part of the docking station but so is the Floppy Disk Drive so that problem is out to as the Floppy drive works.

I downloaded Smart Boot Manager and ran it at system boot up but the DVD drive wasn't available to boot up. So I have ran out of options as to what could be wrong. Any hints?

Slasher

Sep 19 2005, 05:11 PM

Tried doing it through your bios setup already?
Thats how I always do things, just set your dvd rom to primary, and it should work smoothly, just be sure to save changes and revert your hdd or whatever was set as the primary device after installing linux.

rkage

Sep 19 2005, 05:22 PM

Yeh I read that somewhere but couldnt work out how to get access to my BIOS.

Anyone know how I'd go about accessing my BIOS??

Slasher

Sep 19 2005, 06:43 PM

on most PC's you either hit the delete or F1 key while booting right after the memory count, if it doesnt work try different keys, like f8 or all the fx keys, if that still doesnt work, give me your computer motherboard specs and ill google it for you. ; )

Reaver

Sep 19 2005, 09:21 PM

Yes the most common boot key especially on the Phoenix BIOS systems is the del key (delete) and i would not venture past F1 or F2 as far as the Fx keys go and sometimes in laptops if you hit the esc key (escape) it gives you the list of all the media present at that particular start up to boot from, such as Hard Drive and Removable Media (which can be Floppy or DVD depending on the setup). F8 will only bring up the advanced menu on microsoft systems so im sure that wont be a BIOS key.

mastercomputers

Sep 20 2005, 05:41 AM

Actually the correct time to enter the BIOS/CMOS menu is after the 3 LEDs on the keyboard for NUM LOCK, CAPS and SCROLL LOCK light up and turn off, which shows that the keyboard is functional at that point.

If the key is unknown, the first key I would try is DEL, if that does not work, I would try ESC through to F12. (Basically just slide across all those buttons, as one is bound to be correct).

The only ones you won't get correctly are the combination ones, which I don't believe I've seen one in years, so they're probably becoming obsolete. Another sort, was the shunt/jumper method that would boot straight into the CMOS if it was closed, again I haven't seen these machines since the 386 PCs.

A lot of people don't realise that you don't need your CDROM drives to be detected, you can set those HDD settings as OFF instead of AUTO, the only drawback is it won't be seen when trying to boot from the CDROM drive, but if you have 2 or more CDROM devices and you know you only use 1 of those drives to boot from, then you don't need your startup to check the other drive for bootable media.

Cheers,

MC