Laptop without USB boot capability

[KGIII]

BIOS are dated June 2000 - yep, an oldie but a goldie

I don't think I've personally seen a BIOS without that option for a couple of decades. Maybe way back in the very early 2000s? Maybe?

 

[KGIII]

Also...

Did you try the CD method with the distro I suggested up-thread?

It's actually a pretty decent little distro that does a good job. For a while, I had it on bare metal. Right now, I only have it on virtual machines.

 

[bob466]

Unfortunately a 20 yr old Laptop would never run a modern Linux Distro.

Your Laptop (I had to look it up) runs a maximum of 256MB of Ram, great back in Windoze XP days but today wouldn't be enough to blow out a candle...time for a new one.

 

[wizardfromoz]

There is this, from Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-weight_Linux_distribution

... Bodhi, antiX or Puppy might be your best option, and the Pups will fit on a CD.

Cheers

Wizard

 

[jglen490]

It appears from the user guide for that model, that there are USB ports (2) on the back of the unit - very likely USB1. It also has PC Card capability, not bootable I'm sure, and has provisions for optional CD-RW or DVD-ROM, not sure if either is capable as a boot device. That makes for a rough customer, and it is 2 decades old.

Here's the link.

 

[Carosone]

This old Sony laptop has a very sharp hi res screen, but the BIOS is so old it doesn't have a boot from USB option. I have dongle that allows me to connect IDE drives via the USB port. I was hoping that Rufus would see the IDE drive as a USB device, but no. Is there a way to make this external drive bootable with Linux? I can see the current files on the drive and R/W to it and the Windows disk manager sees the drive and reports its partitions. Seems like this ought to be doable. On the other hand, I am definitely a NOOB when it comes to Linux.

 

[Carosone]

OK, i have 6 old sony 32b with the same problem! someone i resolved with another HD
preinstalled linux 19.3 and then replaced HD sony... the last chance; sametime dont work.. and must
try with other linux (Pippermint, Kali, etc) One sony 64b worked with USB! it's a problem SONY, DELL
Very closed, CIAO