Booting from Parallel Floppy on LS???

Saxcatz,

Thank you for using the Dell Community Forum.
You can use either of the following cables to connect the LS-120 to the system.
Part#.........Description:
103PE.........Data cable (connects Media Bay to system)
10NRN.........Cable, Data, External, Multi-Media, Portable

If I DO purchase a standard 3.5" floppy drive that is compatible with the LS, WILL I be able to boot when I from the floppy when I connect this drive to my parallel port.
YES

And what will I need to change in the bios to boot from this drive.
YES, you will need to change the boot option in the bios to boot from the floppy drive.
If you have an external cdrom drive specifically for this system, you can also boot from that drive.
The system does not support booting to USB devices.

If I purchase this cable, will my LS-120 drive be compatible with LS? And will I be able to boot from this drive?
YES, the LS-120 will work with the system and you should be able to boot from it.

Message Edited by DELL-Karell on 12-30-2003 09:23 AM

Karell, I have an LS120 and found some disks for it. It is really a shame that it is not bootable from the Parallel Port Cable, as except for that, it is a great, useful drive. I think this might have a great deal to do with the fact it was never very popular and led to it being discontinued.

Leduke,

You are correct, in order for the LS120 to work and be able to boot to it, you have to have the media bay cable, not the floppy parallel port cable.
Here is some information from the documenation page for this system.
Also, the different part numbers for the different cables.

Part#.........Description:
103PE.........Data cable (connects Media Bay to system)
10NRN.........Cable, Data, External, Multi-Media, Portable
R2487.........Floppy Drive Cable Assembly w/Techsheet (Floppy drive parallel port cable)
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External Media Bay
The external media Bay allows Latitude C-series removable storage devices to be used with the Latitude LS.
The bay accepts the floppy drive, Omaha Hard Drive, LS-120, CD-ROM, CD-RW or DVD-ROM, and attaches to the system via a special media bay cable (the same cable used for the Latitude CS).
The connector on the system is located on the back of the system.
The floppy drive can also be used via the optional parallel port cable, but none of the other devices will work with the floppy drive parallel port cable.

Boot
The boot menu allows the user to specify the boot sequence order.
There are four choices for booting:
Removable Devices - refers to the LS-120 or the FDD
Hard Disk - refers to the hard disk drive
ATAPI CD-ROM Drive - refers to either the CD-ROM or the DVD-ROM drive via the External Media Bay
Boot-to-LAN - when set as the primary boot method, the system will attempt to boot from a Local Area Network
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Well, I have a CPi-A, but my church has a CS R that I tend. The principle is the same though; you can not use the LS120 and a CDROM on the same laptop simultaneously, as you only have one bay/cable. A C/dock gives you another bay, but I have sometimes had weird results in OS Installs trying to use one.