Booting from a CD-ROM with no BIOS boot support - Smart Boot Manager from a floppy/harddisk

Well... My old IBM ThinkPad 760LD is a wonderfuil machine, but has no CD-ROM boot support. That can be fixed!

With the Ubuntu live (and install :-) CD you will find a small file called sbm.bin.

use this command on the terminal (under linux) to copy the image to a floppy:

type:

cd /media/cdromdrive/install

where /media/cdromdrive is the mount point of your CD-ROM drive

and then type:

cp ./sbm.bin ~/smb.bin

Now swap your CD drive with your floppy drive. Go to your home directory by typing:

cd ~

and make a floppy image with SBM (this may require a reboot) by typing:

dd if=sbm.bin of=/dev/fd0

Of course this will erase anything you have on your floppy.

Now swap your CD drive with your floppy drive and start the IBM and right after the boot you will see the Smart Boot Manager Interface. Choose to install SBM in the Harddisk drive and then shutdown.

Now replace your floppuy drive with your CD-ROM drive again and the Smart Boot Manager starts again, but now from your Harddisk!!

Make the utility rescan the boot devices and then you will see the CD-ROM drive listed.

Choose to boot from it and voila... The install starts! :-)

You should, of course, use the alternate CD for the install :-)

Cheers!