Hi Folks,
A little while ago I bought a second-hand laptop (Advent 8117).
It came with Windows Vista Home Premium on its 120GB hard drive.
I've put aside doing anything with it for a while, since I wanted
to replace the HDD with a larger one, and then install Linux
on virgin territory!
I've now bought a new 500GB HDD, have just installed that in the
laptop, and intend to get round to installing Linux in due course.
However, I first wanted to see how the thing behaved by running
Linux off a live CD.
So, after switching on, I got the message "Press F2 for BIOS setup"
(or words to that effect). So I did that, and promptly got the
message "Operating system not found".
That makes me think that the BIOS setup routines must have been
stored in some hidden partition on the original HDD, since I've
been able to go into the BIOS when that was still installed.
If that's the case, then it leaves me wondering what to do about
BIOS config after I've installed Linux. Or, perhaps, whether
there's a problem at all.
If it was just checking for existence of an OS on the hard drive
before letting me into the BIOS, then perhaps when Linux is on
it will find an OS and let me in.
Or, if the BIOS config stuff really is on the original HDD,
and it needs to be able to access that before entering BIOS
setup, then I'd be stuck because that wouldn't be on the new HDD.
And no obvious way of getting it onto the new HDD.
I do also have another Advent 8117 which still has the original
Win Vista on it (I run Linux on that using VirtualBox), so maybe
if I knew where to look I could pull the BIOS config stuff off.
But then there'd be a question of how to get it onto the new HDD!
So a number of questions!
I'd be very grateful for any comments or suggestions from any
experts on this sort of thing.
By the way: after booting from a live Knoppix DVD, it seemed
to run very happily indeed. (Except that I'm no great fan of
KDE ... )
With thanks,
Ted.
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E-Mail: (Ted Harding) <Ted.Harding(a)manchester.ac.uk>
Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861
Date: 12-Apr-10 Time: 20:30:10
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