impuLse Posted November 19, 2003 Report Share Posted November 19, 2003 i have a HP Omnibook 4150(laptop) Pentium 2, 300 mhz, 6gigs. Ive been wanting to install it for quite some time but no one can seem to help. IT doesnt boot cds-It has a bios password(i bought it cheap off of ebay cause of the password) and it cant boot through disk because it can only use one cd rom or floppy drive at a time. Anyways i tried booting it through disk but of course since there can only be one at a time it said couldnt find cdrom, after that it took me to this menu that said "Which driver should i try to gain SCSI access?" and theres a option that says cdrom.o and when i choose it it says "Please enter the paramiters to give to the kernel" well heres where i need your help-if i type in whatever command i need to and switch the floppy drive to the cdrom would it then read it? i know this is probably confusing for u im a newb though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoopy Posted November 19, 2003 Report Share Posted November 19, 2003 Welcome aboard the MUsB, Just to be sure, you are saying your bios was never set to boot from a CD and you also can not press F2 to enter the bios to set your laptop up to boot from a CD? Is there a running system on this ? You don't need both floppy and CD drive to install. You should be able to use CD 1 or if you could copy the files to your harddrive, then you would just boot off the floppy and install using the harddrive method. But on another note --- passwords on windows computers were made to be broken. Check this out: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechS...01&locale=en_US Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidzoo Posted November 19, 2003 Report Share Posted November 19, 2003 I think he means that the bios has a password on it. If this is the case, there should be a way to get around it. With a desktop computer, if you reset the CMOS jumper it will clear any settings made in the bios, including the addition of a password. I'm not sure if you would be able to do this with a laptop as I have never tried, but it might be worth looking into. Another option would be to find out what kind of bios you have (the HP support site should be able to tell you this) and flash the bios. WARNING This could end up very badly if you do it wrong. You could end up with a very expensive brick. Please don't attempt to flash the bios if you aren't sure what you are doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted November 19, 2003 Report Share Posted November 19, 2003 Just replace the the bios with Bad Flash. I used this place a while back, and it got me out of a jam with a motherboard that was only a few months old! Either way, get rid of the password. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
impuLse Posted November 19, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 19, 2003 removing the CMOS battery will do nothing the password is stored in a EEPROM. currently it has Windows XP. anyways would i have to copy all the files from the first cd into a directory of my choice then boot it using the floppy and choose the directory to install it from?? :unsure: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoopy Posted November 20, 2003 Report Share Posted November 20, 2003 removing the CMOS battery will do nothing no, not the cmos battery --- the cmos jumper. If you clicked the link I supplied above, it explains the process and has a pretty picture (below) to follow. You are looking for a little plastic thing that covers two pins, much like the jumpers to set a harddrive or cd drive as master or slave. Once your clear the supervisor password, you will need to set a new one and then you will be able to get into the BIOS to set CD drive to boot. Hope that helps and let us know how your making out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
impuLse Posted November 20, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 20, 2003 are you sure this will reset the bios pw? and what will happen when i do press it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidzoo Posted November 20, 2003 Report Share Posted November 20, 2003 Resetting the CMOS jumpers clears out the EEPROM chip and reverts it back to the drfault settings, so yes; it will clear out that password. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoopy Posted November 20, 2003 Report Share Posted November 20, 2003 Sorry, I am not typing too clearly here. We are not gonna "press it" we are going to remove the little plastic thing and put it back onto the pins next to it (like it shows in photo). And nothing should happen then, as you better have the power unplugged when you do this ;) I would be sure that you do change the correct one, either by your motherboard is gonna match the picture I used from HP or it will say "clear password" or "clear pw" right next to these pins. I am looking at that photo from HP again, but it appears it belongs to a tower instead of a laptop because of the pci and isa slots. I did search the site looking for info on your Omnibook 4150 and this is what came up. We definiately want to be sure we find the right pins to do this. Will have to do some more searching tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquidzoo Posted November 20, 2003 Report Share Posted November 20, 2003 If you would like to try flashing the bios, the specific link you need is this one. Flashing the bios will get rid of that password as far as I know. It seems like a fairly common thing, too. Searcing the support forums it seems like it is a highly recommended update. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoopy Posted November 20, 2003 Report Share Posted November 20, 2003 I just read someplace on HP's site that upgrading (flashing) the BIOS does not change the password. Sorry. But I did find something else to try. Use "admin" or "Admin" just to check and see if it is still set on its default setting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
impuLse Posted November 20, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 20, 2003 thx for the help a lot!..but can someone tell me more about the coping the cd to the hd and running it from floppy. BTW if you need to know what the bios is, it is phoenixBIOS 4.0 Realese 6.0 hope that helps Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoopy Posted November 20, 2003 Report Share Posted November 20, 2003 I think it would be a really good idea to find a way to get past that BIOS password... sooner or later you will need to, plus, you should might need to turn off plug and pray to install linux properly ( not sure with laptops, since I never used one ). Anyway, as you requested, info on alternative installs: I believe, seeing you have XP running, you should be able to start the install from windows and opening CD1 and running "autorun.exe" without needing to boot from the CD. or, create a boot floppy as described here: http://doc.mandrakelinux.com/MandrakeLinux...tml#win-rawrite You should not need to copy the files to the harddrive if you have everything on CD. Plus you really only need the first CD to install a basic Mandrake system with a basic KDE desktop. The rest you can install from the net. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
impuLse Posted November 20, 2003 Author Report Share Posted November 20, 2003 I believe, seeing you have XP running, you should be able to start the install from windows and opening CD1 and running "autorun.exe" without needing to boot from the CD.uh no when i run autorun.exe it takes me to the install mandrake part then it boots...and cant use floppy! i told u it can only use a floppy or cdrom at once ...and what about coping the files to my windows hd and then using the hd.img floppy to boot it would that install it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoopy Posted November 20, 2003 Report Share Posted November 20, 2003 uh no when i run autorun.exe it takes me to the install mandrake part then it boots...and cant use floppy! i told u it can only use a floppy or cdrom at once But why do you need the floppy at this point? I don't understand why you would need to use a floppy if you gotten this far into the install process? Whatever is causing this, I would think this will continue to be a problem later on. ...and what about coping the files to my windows hd and then using the hd.img floppy to boot it would that install it? Yes, that should work - but then so should the other methods ;) Copy the files just as they appear on the cd and boot with the hd.img and floppy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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