Various USB Sticks wont boot. I know...

[Mario]

Update: (14.02.2014)
-Took out the 2GB HDD of the Vaio
-Used Acronis to backup the XP installation of the Vaio 2GB HDD (IDE2USB Adapter on 2nd Laptop)
-Installed FreeDOS to the Vaio 2GB HDD (IDE2USB Adapter on 2nd Laptop + FreeDOS Install CD-Rom)
-Put HDD back into VAIO
-Flashed Bios of the Vaio using FreeDOS then
-Took out HDD
-Used Acronis to play back the XP installation (IDE2USB Adapter on 2nd laptop)
-Put back the 2GB HDD into the Vaio. Bios updated. ^^
-Still, plop rocks ! =)




Hi,

1st of all, a big thanks for the plop bootmanager. I installed it on many (old) laptops/netbooks already and it was always a big help to me.

Sometimes various USB Sticks simply wont boot on choosen laptops. No matter what I do (Remove Usb Keyboard, Alt-U, Shift-U, USB Mode1/Mode2 etc.)

On an Acer Aspiere 9500 for example, only 1 "special" noname stick did the job. But it worked.

But now I got a 1999 Sony Vaio Notebook here (PCG-505G, Pentium MMX 223MHz, 64MB Ram), with only 1 single USB-Port.

1st of all, it has 2 sperate connectors for a external CD-Rom and a external floppy, that look like this :



But alas, I dont have these.

I do have a USB floppy here, but I think it does not seem to get enough voltage of the USB Port, as it does not even start up (it works on other laptops though)

(I bet these connectors are already part of the problem (hickup?), but more about it later)

So, to install plop, I took out the 2GB HDD of the Vaio and connected it via USB adapter to another laptop.
Installed Grub4Dos/Syslinux/FreeDos just to check what might be "better" and managed to install plop for testing without problems and later that day I installed Windows XP via the 2 partition technique. Hours of my life wasted. No OS found, rewriting MBR, blablabla... :p

When XP was installed, I ran the installToMBR and plop was ready to go...not...

Well, it installed and I can run plop, but booting from USB seems not to be possible. (see intro phrase)

As mentioned, I already think that the external CD/Floppy connectors could be the problem. (hickup?)
And that a USB floppy cant be started either.


All I want to do now is flashing the bios to a "newer" version as I also found a phoenix-bios (un)packer for very old phoenix bios and would like to try to mess around with it as well. But for now I only wish for a bootable (Free)Dos that wont freeze.

USB boots I handled so far :
-Knoppix boots to the blinking cursor
-FreeDOS gets to the Language/Keyboard selection screen, lets me press enter and I get a blinkigng cursor.
-SysLinux does show me "SysLinux" in the upper left and freezes (no blinking cursor)

Every situation tested with various noname and non-noname sticks, from 1GB to 8GB. Tried FAT and FAT32. Always the same "problems".

Dont get me wrong, I know I could install FreeDOS to the HDD now and flash the BIOS this way. After using acronis to image the Windows XP installation...but before I do that (I might not do it), Id like to ask for advices or things I might have missed about this situation.

Regards,
Mario

[vesalocal]

1st of all, it has 2 sperate connectors for a external CD-Rom and a external floppy, that look like this :

The pictures show a Toshiba Floppy drive - does it fit the Sony Vaio?
I'm asking because I have a Toshiba Floppy drive and a CD-ROM drive "designed for Toshiba" over here...

BTW: the CD-ROM drive has a cable to connect via PCMCIA and gets power from an external power supply or a battery pack.



 

[Mario]

The floppy/CD drive "look like those". I was only trying to show that image as an example, as I dont own the floppy/cd-drive and havent found a fitting image via google image search that night.

But the connectors look very similar Id say, if I should judge just by the images up there.
Im not in the mood, nor do I have the time right now to backup/image that tiny HDD nor am I in the mood to reinstall XP now, just for beeing able to flash the bios.

But Id like to know whats the bottleneck here, even if I suspect the Floppy Connector or a "bugged" Bios...and if there might be a solution to it. =)

p.s.
Can you boot from an external USB Floppy drive ?

[vesalocal]

... was only trying to show that image as an example, as I dont own the floppy/cd-drive ...

Well, in that case I cant help.  Would be glad to find someone using my old drives.

Since you installed WinXP, were you talking about an USB1.1 or USB2.0 port?

Can you boot from an external USB Floppy drive ?

I actually don't own a laptop.

Best wishes!

[Mario]

Well, in that case I cant help.  Would be glad to find someone using my old drives.

Since you installed WinXP, were you talking about an USB1.1 or USB2.0 port?

I actually don't own a laptop.

Best wishes!

Its a USB 1.0 port on this laptop. Win2000 is the last officially supported OS by Sony on this laptop.
I found similar floppy/cd drives on eBay already, but 30+ Euro is definitely not worth it

If you would like to donate these...germany here

[vesalocal]

Its a USB 1.0 port on this laptop.

USB1.x supplies very limited power, so an USB floppy drive will not work.
And of course Toshiba gear won't plug into a Sony laptop.

Best wishes!

[Mario]

Its a USB 1.0 port on this laptop.

USB1.x supplies very limited power, so an USB floppy drive will not work.
And of course Toshiba gear won't plug into a Sony laptop.

Best wishes!

In theory I would just "add" additional USB-mAmperes to that USB floppy from my other laptop via a Y-USB cable...n8n8 ^^

p.s.
The Toshiba and Sony connectors look very similar, but I cant find any details about it...


Update:
I Acronis'ed the HDD and installed FreeDOS to it. BIOS flashed. But for further flashing experiments Id still like to know why I still cant boot from USB. Bios update did not help here. :/

[vesalocal]

I took a look into the PCG-505G manual.  There is a cardbus slot, Cardbus to USB 2.0 cards are available for little money.
This could be worth a try, since the PLoP boot manager has

PCMCIA CardBus support to enable boot from USB PC-Cards

If you would like to donate these...germany here

By the way: did you already donate a few EUR for Elmars great bootmanager?-)

Acronis'ed the HDD and installed FreeDOS to it.

Did you install Linux?   There is PLoP Linux ;-)
This would give at least some information about USB and attached devices...

Just searched "vaio" in the messages over here and came across https://forum.plop.at/index.php/topic,1414.msg5511.html#msg5511

[Mario]

I did not want to invest any money into this old typewriter anymore.

FreeDOS did the job. Bios updated. Thx Elmar.

plop still rocks !

Donation asap, promised =)