The driver crisis

3


I have an old laptop on which I tried to install Windows XP. It asked me for a serial so I entered one posted online, then it told me I needed to activate that copy of windows, so I said maybe later, as long as I am offline I have time. The PC didn't have any drivers including CD/DVD driver or ethernet driver. So later I re-opened the PC and it told me that I needed to activate the windows now (in the log-in screen). When I click activate later it won't even let me log-in, when I choose to activate now, it takes me to a window where it asks me how I want to activate (through the internet: for which I have no driver or through the phone: of which I doubt it will work since MS doesn't support XP anymore). So I decided to install Linux instead openSUSE from a DVD, but the bloody thing won't boot from CD/DVD driver, because there isn't any, and I can't go install one inside windows. What's to be done?? If anyone has a clue or hint I'd very much appreciate it and gladly try it out.

Aelgawad

Posted 2013-11-17T19:54:41.973

Reputation: 139

2as mvp says using unetbootin to make a bootable USB is the simplest answer. As I use openSuSE extensively, I know it has the drivers for almost everything built-in. However, it is likely that either your DVD (or made incorrectly) is bad or your laptop only has a CD drive and not a DVD drive. Having no idea what your laptop is besides dell you could also have a 64 bit DVD of openSUSE and a 32 bit CPU and that would also fail. In that case nothing but booting from USB can help. That mean USB stick or external DVD reader. – cybernard – 2013-11-17T21:20:55.447

If it won't boot from USB, use PXE boot. Unless it doesn't have a PXE enabled ethernet controller. There are lots of guides on-line. – Tog – 2013-11-18T08:01:26.687

Answers

1

If you are willing to install Linux on your old hardware and your existing CD/DVD does not work, you have few options:

  • Make sure you burn your image into CD-R or DVD-R as single session, not to CD-RW or DVD-RW - old computers often have trouble booting from rewritable media or from media with multiple sessions recorded.
  • Buy or borrow external modern USB CD/DVD drive and use it as boot source. You can find one online under $10 shipped. You may have better luck booting from it compared to old drive.
  • Use tool like unetbootin to create bootable USB stick from your favorite Linux distro ISO image. Typically, old computers have less trouble booting from USB stick compared from old CD/ROM. However, to make it work you will have to figure out a way to boot your computer from USB stick.

mvp

Posted 2013-11-17T19:54:41.973

Reputation: 3 705

It Worked, Thank You. I took out the original DVD drive and hooked in an external one. I got to install it but it is running extremely slow, am I missing any drivers or something like that? – Aelgawad – 2013-11-21T09:14:27.260

Glad to help! It could work slow due to many reasons. In my experience, most common cause is generic video driver. If you have nvidia video chip, make sure to install/enable nvidia drivers. Also it could be slow if you have less than 512MB RAM or if hard drive is about to fail - be sure to check HDD health using smartctl -a /dev/sda. If you can find site of original PC manufacturer, check if you can update this computer BIOS - it may help. – mvp – 2013-11-21T09:23:46.843

It's a DELL Inspiron 1300. The official site offers drivers for windows XP (no linux support). Will I be able to download and install them all the same? I installed openSUSE on that same machine before at a time when it had XP running fine with all drivers intact, and openSUSE ran with no problems. – Aelgawad – 2013-12-01T21:10:51.183

Asked: 2013-11-17T19:54:41.973

Viewed: 101 times

Active: 2013-11-19T05:54:09.273