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33220
May 24th, 2005 05:00
HELP! Latitude LS H400ST / PP01S multi-problems!
Greetings,
I collect computers for a charity in our local city, and we
were recently donated a DELL Laptop (the SETUP screen says
it's a LS H400ST, but the case says PP01S. Take yer pick).
Here are the difficulties:
1) There is no floppy or CD on it, no operating system at
all, and all i get when it boots is some MBA thingy.
2) The USB can't be set as the boot device, so there's no
way to jump a thumb-drive just to get an OS loaded in, nor
to just connect a USB External CDrom drive to get an OS in.
3) I was told to up date the BIOS, as a newer BIOS might
have added "Boot From USB Device", but i checked the setup
screen, and it says the BIOS is X33, yet the only BIOSes i
found online for the LS series is the A09 and earlier. The
site doesn't even show a BIOS revision of X33! [STUMPED!]
Here are my questions, and i pray someone here can figure
something out:
o Can the laptop be made to boot off the USB somehow as it
is? I have gone through the setup screens and can find
nothing to get me to that point.
o Will updating the BIOS to one of the ones online help? I
am concerned that i can't even find mention of this X33
BIOS version as a prior (or current?) issue.
o Can i install an external USB drive to get an OS online?
o How can i boot to LAN without an OS if that is the only
option in the boot priority that's "valid" with the
current state of the unit?
[CONFUZZLED AND A HALF]
Please rsvp if you can help.
God bless,
KINJIRU
I collect computers for a charity in our local city, and we
were recently donated a DELL Laptop (the SETUP screen says
it's a LS H400ST, but the case says PP01S. Take yer pick).
Here are the difficulties:
1) There is no floppy or CD on it, no operating system at
all, and all i get when it boots is some MBA thingy.
2) The USB can't be set as the boot device, so there's no
way to jump a thumb-drive just to get an OS loaded in, nor
to just connect a USB External CDrom drive to get an OS in.
3) I was told to up date the BIOS, as a newer BIOS might
have added "Boot From USB Device", but i checked the setup
screen, and it says the BIOS is X33, yet the only BIOSes i
found online for the LS series is the A09 and earlier. The
site doesn't even show a BIOS revision of X33! [STUMPED!]
Here are my questions, and i pray someone here can figure
something out:
o Can the laptop be made to boot off the USB somehow as it
is? I have gone through the setup screens and can find
nothing to get me to that point.
o Will updating the BIOS to one of the ones online help? I
am concerned that i can't even find mention of this X33
BIOS version as a prior (or current?) issue.
o Can i install an external USB drive to get an OS online?
o How can i boot to LAN without an OS if that is the only
option in the boot priority that's "valid" with the
current state of the unit?
[CONFUZZLED AND A HALF]
Please rsvp if you can help.
God bless,
KINJIRU
No Events found!
AussieChris
4.2K Posts
0
May 24th, 2005 21:00
Hi,
You cant boot from USB, the Bios sounds like a " test " Bios. The CD or floppy are latitude " C " series. You need a cable p / n 10NRN for the CD, this is to connect to an IDE port. The floppy will connect to that port, or with a different cable will work on the printer port. this way you can use both.
Regards Chris
KINJIRU
2 Posts
0
May 28th, 2005 02:00
Thanks for the reply. I've purchased an external DELL
floppy cable and a Latitude floppy drive so i can at least
get to DOS level applications, but i still need to get a
"formal" operating system on this thing before it can be
redonated. I have an external USB hard drive, but as the
only thing i can access is DOS i need DOS USB drivers (and
that's becoming a sort of Black Magic it seems. Nobody
knows how to get it working right). It's either that or get
Windows 2000 as a floppy-only installation, or locate a
easy to use LINUX distribution that has a low learning
curve and floppy installation. UGH! O: '(
Anyone else have some info that can be of use here?
indiakarl
1 Message
0
July 25th, 2010 00:00
i was just given one of these computers today. it has some problem on loading and i can only get it to boot up if i go into safe mode. i looking into putting linux on it and using it as a "typeing" computer. but no drives in the machine makes it difficult, and as you noted, booting off the floppy isn't an option.
but i had a thought, could we remove the hard drive, slip it into one of those usb hard drive external cases, plug it into another computer, format dell machines drive, , install linux and put it back in the dell and get it to work????????
just a thought. or you might be able to install win 98 again. but jeez, what a throw-back.
nice little computer size tho, wonder if it will work with a USB wifi to get online? probably headaches with drivers,
ubuntu.com has lots of installs - they point you to http://www.pendrivelinux.com/ where there is a universal pendrive installer and links to lots of distros. one of them has to work. i havn't tried it, but maybe you don't need to boot from the usb drive to get it to install??????