Compaq Corp. provides a bootable "Smart Start" OS installation CD with
every Proliant 5000 (many people are using these as
Netware/IntranetWare or NT file/print/app/web servers). I'm not sure
how they do it, I believe its a function of the BIOS that "knows" about the
CD as a bootable media (probably searches A:, C:, D: etc. for boot files) if
nothing is in A: and the hard disk isn't partioned/formatted yet it boots
from the CD and steps you through installing the rest of the drivers (hard
drive/NIC/etc.) and the OS you purchased! It's cool and I think they've
been doing it for awhile.
Brian Stone
bstone @
KnowledgeSoft .
com
>>> Gene Lee <genel @
inforamp .
net> 12/31/96 04:00pm >>>
On Tuesday, December 31, 1996 2:41 PM, Mark
Johnson[SMTP:mark @
hercules .
reno .
nv .
us] wrote:
>I have not set one up yet(Planned for July), but I believe you can have
>a totally CDROM machine, at least using Novell or NT. Bootable CDROMs
>and all data on CDROM so you would not have any writable media.
>
>Can anyone confirm of deny my thoughts?
Slackware Linux has a useable filesystem on CD-ROM, however the boot
partition still has to be HD or Floppy. One thing that puzzles me about
bootable media is if you have a bootable CD, how does it install the
drivers for itself to read from the CD to actually start reading the boot
sector (which supposedly is on the CD). Kind of a Catch-22. Forgive me,
but
I'm no PC guru...
--
Gene Lee
genel @
inforamp .
net
genelee @
vnet .
ibm .
com
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