Yes, it is possible to boot from a floppy - I haven't done it in a long
time, but it is possible. The Mac automatically looks at the floppy disk
drive, if there is no system on the hard disk drive and no CD with a
system on it. Does the floppy drive mechanism spin [You should be able
to hear it spin] during start up? Does an icon of a floppy disk with an
X in the middle come on the screen? If so, you might check to make sure
that you have everything you need on the boot floppy, the floppy icon
with an X in it means there is no bootable system available to start the
computer.
If you boot from the floppy, it probably won't have the Ethernet drivers
for your PCMCIA card on it, so I doubt you would be able to do a network
install. A bootable floppy may, or may not, have the correct drivers for
whatever CD-ROM drive you would use to to install Linux, if you decide
not to do a network install. You might be able to add the drivers for
both devices to your bootable floppy, if there is enough space on the
disk and they are compatible with the system software on the floppy.
I would get a CD - internal or external - and boot the machine from the
Linux CD that way, (if the Linux CD will do that)...
Apple is very jealous of its ROMs, they can't be accessed or hacked as
easily as the ones on a PC. You wouldn't need to change the BIOS to
check the floppy disk drive during start up, it already does that.
Can you boot from the
Pedro Perez wrote:
Hello
I have just bought a used powerbook 5300 and I know almost nothing
about Macs, although I like them. The computer works fine, has a
working floppy drive and an ethernet card (Xircom CEM56-100). I would
like to install Linux on it. I might try a network instalation but I
have to boot from the floppy first (I don't have a CD drive).
I built a bootable floppy but the computer doesn't try to boot from it
when I use it. Is there any possibility that I could change the boot
order? Is it possible to access the BIOS? Is it possible to boot from
the floppy?
Thank you,
Pedro
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