Legacy laptop support: HD won't boot with no internal drives

[Prosthetic_mind]

I recently bought an Itronix XC 6250 pro, http://www.itronix.com/products/notebooks/xc6250pro.asp, an old military surplus laptop that I picked up cheap for taking notes on (I'm a poor college student right now), and I boot it up, and says that there's something wrong with the boot sector. It has no internal drives, but it does have a usb port, a serial port, a parallel port, several odd ports I assume are proprietary government stuff, and 2 pcmcia slots. I cannot make it boot off of my flash drive in usb (I didn't really expect it to, but it was worth a shot), and so I need a way to install a new OS, probably linux. Does anyone have any workable solutions on how I can boot another device? If it's any help, the bios seems to be called SystemSoft SCU, version 3.03, if that's any help.

[Erik]

It has (or at least accepts) an internal HD. Sounds to me like the BIOS is trying to boot into the HD which has been wiped. Does the BIOS have an option to change boot order?

[Prosthetic_mind]

yeah, the bios can, but the issue is that the bios only gives 3 options in the boot order - pc card, hard disk, and none. The current setting has pc card first, then HD

[Fruss Tray Ted]

The hard drive is either wiped or missing

From the government?

You need a new one. Someone probably already blew the original one to 'smithereens'...

[Prosthetic_mind]

that's not really the issue- I need to get to the point where I can test the hard drive. Right now I don't have the ability to open the case because of the weird screws. My focus is on getting it to boot off of another drive, but I don't know what will boot. In short, I need to know whether it's possible to boot off of pcmcia, or where I can find a serial/parallel floppy drive.

[PrntRhd]

Are the weird screws something like security torx?

[Paul Komski]

In short, I need to know whether it's possible to boot off of pcmcia.
It's possible to do a network install of some Linux distros if you can first load the card's drivers and then the drivers for a NIC-PCMCIA card from a floppy.

http://linuxgazette.net/issue61/ward.html

On some systems it was possible to boot from a PCMCIA CD-ROM, but I dont know where you would come across one and no guarantees that it would work anyway. SBM can sometimes boot PCMCIA CDROMs but would need to have been first installed to a floppy or the hard drive. PCMCIA floppies are described but I can't find any available.

However I note that in that notebook's specs (in the pdf file) there are options for both external floppy and cdrom drives. Presumably these are USB and if so that would seem the next logical step since there appears to be at least one USB port.

Since there is both an integrated wireless modem and an on-board NIC these would seem to give you other networking possibilities.

and says that there's something wrong with the boot sector
The exact message would be informative and is there a hard drive attached; the specs show one to be normally included - or was this second hand and not government surplus.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

It has no internal drives, but it does have a usb port
that's not really the issue- I need to get to the point where I can test the hard drive.

Were you ever able to boot to it?

You appear to be contradicting yourself? First you say there is probably no drive, and I agree with it, then you say my post is irrelevant because you then say that you need to test the drive, (which ISN'T THERE by all probability because the military most likely took it out). How do you know if you can't open it up? Does the POST screen show one? If so, what is it?

According to the manual they came with 6, 12 or 20 gig HDD's. Also the floppy or cd's are supposed to be externals so they are most likely usb drives like mine. It would most likely be able to boot to this. Also if it lists pc card as a bootable device, pcmcia is also another option. With it currently booting to pc card first, you may be getting that error because of that. Change it to HDD if you can.

The security screws come in many shapes and sizes. W-a-y too many to list just here (http://www.insight-security.com/fastenings.htm). Got pic?

Any way you look at it, a 'poor college student' or not, you need to beg, steal borrow or buy something. An external drive, pcmcia device, or security tools etc.

[Prosthetic_mind]

ok, first of all, the screws are hexagonal, and I don't have anything other than flathead or phillipshead screwdrivers here.
Secondly, in the bios it detects that the hard drive is "6009 mb".
Thirdly, the message that it throws up is "Hard disk boot sector invalid". Fourthly, changing the boot order doesn't seem to help.

as I said before, I couldn't get it to even look at my flash drive when I tried, but perhaps I'm going about it in the wrong way. Now that I think about it, I can't seem to feel the vibrations generally associated with the HD spinning, so it may be bad. The only option in the bios that has to do with USB is a checkmark box marked "USB cradle", which seems to do nothing in the POST or boot order. A friend had a usb cd drive, I can try it, but as I said before, I can't seem to get it to look at the USB drive.

Give me some time to set up my old webcam and I'll start putting up pictures.

edit: There is only 1 usb port, I'll be putting up pictures soon.

[Paul Komski]

It's probably a Star Head or Torx Screw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_10664).

It sounds as if the hard disk is being accessed but doesnt have a valid boot sector or active partition on it. Normal practice to initialise a hard drive is to fdisk and partition and format for a DOS based OS or simply boot to a Linux or NT-based OS such as WinXP and let the setup do all the initialisation.

It's all but impossible to boot to a flash memory drive on legacy hardware and very difficult even on modern systems that purport to support booting to a USB hard drive.

You are almost certainly going to need a boot floppy or CD to make progress though it is possible to prepare a bootable DOS partition on the hard drive if it is taken out of the laptop and accessed from a desktop using an appropriate adapter or cable.

[Prosthetic_mind]

here's a crappy picture of the bios screen,
http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/337/picture1yv9.th.jpg (http://img79.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture1yv9.jpg)

here's a picture of the rear of the laptop with the ports closed-
http://img79.imageshack.us/img79/8817/picture2if2.th.jpg (http://img79.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture2if2.jpg)

the next two pictures are what's under the covers,

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/60/picture3lb7.th.jpg (http://img96.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture3lb7.jpg)

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/9728/picture4lr7.th.jpg (http://img408.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture4lr7.jpg)

and the last one is a picture of the screw type-

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/2816/picture5vr5.th.jpg (http://img408.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture5vr5.jpg)

is there anywhere on the net I can still find a serial floppy drive or something that I can use to get to the point where I can format the hard drive without removing it?

[Paul Komski]

Theres a PCMCIA floppy currently on eBAY at http://cgi.ebay.com/PCMCIA-FLOPPY-DRIVE-Compaq-Series-2833-External-PICS_W0QQitemZ220101130293QQihZ012QQcategoryZ31566 QQcmdZViewItem

USB Floppy (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16821152004)

USB CD Drives (http://www.superwarehouse.com/USB_CD-RW_Drives/c3/2670) and you can also buy enclosures and put your own CD Drive inside them.

PS It might be an idea to check with Itronix on specifically what external floppies and CDROMs they recommend.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Thanks. I know you can do better than this because you did not say anything about an apology for blurriness. Try again. Just what tool do you expect us to acquire at Sears.com to enable you to dissect your frog?

http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/2816/picture5vr5.th.jpg

Perhaps your frog would be interested in the hairy legs of my Damsel in distress (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/M99ER/2004_0801Image0015wowavatar.jpg)

[PrntRhd]

The screws appear to be Torx, but the blurry pic does not show for certain, even magnified to 658%.

[Prosthetic_mind]

sorry, my webcam sucks

edit: it seems to be torx

[PrntRhd]

A torx looks like the diagram here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Torx_head.png
A "security torx looks like a torx but has a raised button in the center of the pattern.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torx

Also look at the diagram on the right side of the second linked page for other types of heads.

[Prosthetic_mind]

look, I don't want to say I don't appreciate your help, but there's nothing that you can do that will magically take apart my laptop. I plan to take care of that myself. What I need help with (I don't know if I've made this clear) is what I can go out and buy (for less than $50) to boot off of, so I can format the Hard drive. I don't care about the screwdriver needed to take it apart, my dad has over 400 different ones at home, one of them will fit. In conclusion- what I need to know is what it can boot off of, thank you for your help, but the screwdriver I need is outside the scope of information that is useful to me at the moment. Also, my webcam is old and has very poor video quality, because I'm too cheap and poor to buy an actual camera, or know somone who brought one to college with them. Sorry.

[Paul Komski]

What I need help with (I don't know if I've made this clear) is what I can go out and buy (for less than $50) to boot off ofPerhaps I didn't make myself clear but there is a likelihood you could use one of the three devices (one PCMCIA and two USB) that I have already linked-to. The CDROM enclosure would allow you to temporarily borrow a CDROM to keep your costs down. It is not clear if you would be able to boot from these but an email to Itronix could confirm that.

An alternative is to access the drive from another PC and setup a small bootable DOS partition on it and also add the Operating System setup files for the OS you want to install so that you can boot to DOS and then run setup - all from the hard drive. You can certainly do that with Windows but its not something I've done with Linux; and which distro were you hoping to install.
It is possible to do from an existing Windows installation (http://marc.herbert.free.fr/linux/win2linstall.html) - but you would first need to get that running from DOS.

Finally found a link to a discontinued PCMCIA CDROM at http://laptopsforless.stores.yahoo.net/unexcdromdri2.html but they are not always bootable (and this specific one has been disconinued in any case) - even when accessed using SBM (in my sig) installed first to the hard drive or onto a USB floppy. Ebay might be your best chance for one of these but note that this particular one states it is not a bootable device.

[Prosthetic_mind]

Thank you. I have left a message with Itronix's tech support because their online support is weird, and we'll see if they get back to me. I have a friend with an external cd drive, and I'm going to see if I can get that to boot. Odds are I'll be needing to buy an external cd drive anyway. If that doesn't work, I'll have to check if we have any serial floppy drives at home when I next go, if that doesn't work, then I'll try out the pcmcia stuff. If that fails, it looks like I'm going to be stuck preinstalling dos, and using that foothold to install some form of windows.

[Prosthetic_mind]

ok, external cd drive doesn't work, supporting my theory that the bios doesn't even look at the usb port. I guess I'll see if I can get a decent price on a pcmcia one.

[Paul Komski]

supporting my theory that the bios doesn't even look at the usb portLegacy systems may not even boot ATAPI CD-Drives let alone USB ones. The best chance would be with a USB or PCMCIA floppy.

[Prosthetic_mind]

ok, thanks for that tidbit. I think I have a few serial floppy drives at home, and I'm pretty sure that should work, if I still have any.

[Prosthetic_mind]

ok, went home over the weekend- we have no serial 3 1/2" floppy drives, I also attempted to take it apart and failed miserably- I don't think it's supposed to come apart, at least removing all the screws on the bottom did absolutely nothing, and I stripped one of the screws holding the keyboard on pretty bad (I swear they had to have made those screws out of putty), so my only option is to find a bootable device. At the moment I'm looking at ebay for the official itronix brand pcmcia drives, but if that fails I'll have to look at something else.

edit: this should be bootable, right?

http://cgi.ebay.com/TOSHIBA-Universal-PCMCIA-FLOPPY-DRIVE-PA2940U-NEW_W0QQitemZ280103529488QQihZ018QQcategoryZ31534Q QssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

edit 2: \/\/ you mean pcmcia, right? This is a pcmcia drive.

[Paul Komski]

this should be bootable, right?
It all depends on your BIOS. The only reference to external drives in the manual doesn't say which type they are, which is why the suggestion to contact itronix. Floppies are generally less problematic boot devices than CDROMs but USB can always be finnicky.

[Prosthetic_mind]

ok, bought the aforementioned floppy drive. once it gets here we'll see if it boots.

[Prosthetic_mind]

Just my luck- I get it in the mail, and right there, at the beginning of the manual it says- this device is not bootable. Talk about bad luck! What next? At this point I'm practically giving up.

[Paul Komski]

If you cant get any other device to boot then you can remove the drive and attach it to a destop mainboard using a cheap IDE to 2.5" adapter cable. Partition and format it with say a 1gig FAT partition (but certainly just big enough to hold a Windows installation files folder, win9x or i386, or linux distro iso or equivalent).

The first thing, after having created your FAT partition, is to "sys" the partition to make it bootable. You need an appropriate version of sys (http://www.computerhope.com/syshlp.htm) and the Win98 boot floppy diskette from bootdisk.com would do this from an A: prompt by issuing sys X: (where X is the drive letter of the attached 2.5" drive). You should get a system transferred message - that's important - and maybe then test if you can boot to the drive now attached to the desktop.

Then copy the i386 or win9x folder and any other files you may need to that partition and put the drive back in the Notebook. It should now boot to a C: prompt, where you can navigate to the setup.exe file for WinME or winnt.exe for Win2K or WinXP. (You should make a note to remember to have copied smartdrv.exe from the boot diskette to your sys'd partition and now run it prior to running any NT-based installation (in particular) or else it will just take forever when copying files). Some notes on installing WinXP (http://www.iol.ie/~krakowangus/winnt.htm) from a hard drive.

I'm not up to speed with installing Linux this way but do your research and place all the relevant files (installation files and drivers with at least the minimum necessary to let you access the internet (or a LAN) or any external drive you attach to the notebook) once you get an appropriate OS loaded. WinME or XP would be good because both have intrinsic native support for USB drives.

[Prosthetic_mind]

The issue with that is that it involves removing the HD, and last time I attempted to open up the laptop I removed every screw that I saw, and the thing just wouldn't come apart.

[Paul Komski]

http://www.gd-computing.com/upload/pdf/Itronix_XR1_reprint_v2.pdf

Not your model but maybe some clues.

Have you tried contacting Itronix/General Dynamics support. http://www.gd-computing.com/index.cfm?page=Itronix:Home

[Prosthetic_mind]

The issue with my model is that is has a protective sheath of rubber all around it that protects it but also holds it together, and there are some screws hidden in it that you can't get at with anything that can be called a normal screwdriver. At that rate, it really seems as though it wasn't designed to be taken apart.

I've tried to get into their internet support system, but it supposedly takes a few days for them to verify it and everything, so we'll see.

[Paul Komski]

You can be sure that there is a way of getting inside it or of making the hard drive become removable. I have seen Laptop Specialists include Itronix among the makes that they will work on - and I doubt if the use sledge-hammers.

[Prosthetic_mind]

Of course. The issue is that whether I, as a novice, can take it apart without messing it up, and I'd rather not push my luck.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Seen this page (http://www.gilanet.com/ohlandl/itronix/iTronix_XC-6250_Features.html#XC-6250_Case)?

Otherwise not much out there on your model. :( There must be some way to take it apart even if it means dropping it from a 3rd story window! :eek:

[Prosthetic_mind]

ok, I went through my spam filter recently and found the email from their technical support. I replied, and unsurprisingly, they don't support the XC 6250 anymore. I went ahead and set it down with the campus IT people, so it's in their hands now. Doesn't look like there's anything more to be said.

[Prosthetic_mind]

All right, the people at the computer store managed to take it apart successfully and install linux on it for me. Turns out there were screws hidden under the handle. Either way, it's fixed, and that's that.

[Paul Komski]

That's great.

Out of interest how did they install it - by removing the hard drive and making it bootable by accessing it from another machine or by some other method?