Old laptop can't find os to boot off

Mojoe134 · Jun 4, 2015

Hello the names Mo, and i found a laptop in the trash.

So normally i took it home, bought a charger for it online and got it to turn on and work.

It is a Dell Inspiron 6000 (laptop)

It has an intel celeron cpu
256mbs of 400mhz ddr2 ram
and a usb with 8gbs of space

I was able to put a version of puppy linux on the usb and boot the laptop into puppy linux and it worked very slow, but it still worked. The internet was the worst and often timed out or took full minutes to load.

So i couldnt find a use for this thing... until now

My friends and I were sick of one person getting total control over the server and that the server was off when the person hosting it wanted to turn his computer off. So i decided i could pop 2 gigs of ram in this baby and run a minecraft server. It could probably host 4-8 people right?
So thats when i tried to install the latest version of Linux Puppy on it non-pae 6.0.2

That would not boot no matter how much i tried to mount it and boot it up
So i researched some more and found an operating system called MineOS Crux

Its basically an OS made to run a Minecraft server so im like: awesome! this will be super light and work great!

Well then reality smacked me in the face forcing me to endure another ordeal of a problem with my Technological noobiness (just made a new word btw)

But finally the take away question i need you to answer.

Why cant i make my USB a bootable storage device for this laptop?
-the usb is big enough
-it did it before
-i formatted it to FAT32
-i tried a software to format the usb and mount it called Unetbootin (didntwork)

-i worked through the BIOS of the setup area with a bluescreen and i enabled everything to accommodate a usb boot
-i tried a cd boot (and learned that the more you format a CD the less space you get

Can someone help me? I really don't understand why the laptop isnt picking up the os, i tried puting the iso unmounted on the usb, i tried using the mounted iso with just the mount files, i tried having the iso and the mount files on the same usb, i tried a 32 gig usb.
Any help is seriously, greatly appreciated.

-Mo

Shaun o · Jun 4, 2015

well it`s because the latop is quiet old.
In any case if you go into the bios there should be an option in a section relating to USB.
Something like enable detection of usb legacy devices.
It must be enabled.
And as you know in the boot menu section removable media or the Usb storage option must be set to
number 1 in the boot order priority settings menu or list.
Should work presuming you have setup a boot able partition on the usb memory stick.

Make sure you save the new settings before you exit the bios or you will be going around in a boot fail loop.

Unolocogringo · Jun 4, 2015

An ISO file is not bootable.

Go here and download Unetbootin.
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
Install it on your windows computer.
Download the Linux distro of your choice, I use Lubunto for its ease of use and driver installs for Nvidia cards.
Open Unetbootin and follow the prompts to make a bootable USB of you downloaded distro.
Boot to the usb and install your operating system.
Download MineOS Crux onto the laptop, it is not an operating system ,just a program to run a Minecraft server under Linux.
Install MineOS Crux and set up your server.

skittle · Jun 4, 2015

How are you creating your USB?

Mojoe134 · Jun 5, 2015

Shaun o :

I've sifted through that entire blue screen of text and checked through everything i needed

Mojoe134 · Jun 5, 2015

skittle :

Hey Skittle, as i said, i formatted the USB to FAT32 and allocated it to 4096 mbs and default allocation size both of them respectively ( i tried both is what im trying to say)

then i tried to boot it off the laptop and i probably pressed F1 more than id ever like to say

Mojoe134 · Jun 5, 2015

Unolocogringo :

I may be wrong but im nearly completely 100% positive that MineOS is an operating system... partly because of the OS part of the name and this page on it: http://minecraft.codeemo.com/mineoswiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

skittle · Jun 5, 2015

You can't just copy a iso to a USB and expect it to boot. It needs to be a bootable disk and needs bootloader like syslinux installed.

Rufus works pretty well. Or windows disk imager.

https://rufus.akeo.ie/
https://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer

Unolocogringo · Jun 5, 2015

Mojoe134 :

Sorry .
It was original a stand alone software you ran under a Linux operating system.
They then integrated it into a Linux distro for people like me who are noobs at installing programs in Linux.
Then they stopped development of it in 2013.
The newest version is MineOS Turnkey.
Available here.
http://minecraft.codeemo.com/
Here you will find 32/64 bit downloads and instructions on how to install and set up.

Alabalcho · Jun 5, 2015

Mojoe134 :

On most Dell's of that vintage (I have Inspiron 1505 which is virtually the same), Boot Menu is displayed with F12 after reset cycle. My Dell boots off USB without problems.

Mojoe134 · Jun 5, 2015

Alabalcho :

Yeah same, and it worked perfectly for me the last time.

Mojoe134 · Jun 5, 2015

Unolocogringo :

Mojoe134 :

Sorry .
It was original a stand alone software you ran under a Linux operating system.
They then integrated it into a Linux distro for people like me who are noobs at installing programs in Linux.
Then they stopped development of it in 2013.
The newest version is MineOS Turnkey.
Available here.
http://minecraft.codeemo.com/
Here you will find 32/64 bit downloads and instructions on how to install and set up.

exactly what i did last time

Mojoe134 · Jun 5, 2015

skittle :

alright ill try it out, i did mount the iso to the drive and format the drive, i also tried unetbootin

Mojoe134 · Jun 6, 2015

It worked! Thanks Skittle! The Rufus program worked perfectly! I'll post on this thread in a bit on how well the server is running thanks a bunch! And thank you to everyone else that helped too!

skittle · Jun 6, 2015

Unetbootin writes its own syslinux config file, doesn't always work as expected :/

Mojoe134 · Jun 7, 2015

Alright i got it running and the laptops running at a friends house, but when ever someone closes the laptop its turns off. And the world is not saving to the usb

Also i haven't figured out how to write backups. And the console is much more different and complex than the windows server program.

Its slow and lags when more than 3-4 people use it, but its perfect for a laptop taken from the trash

stillblue · Jun 8, 2015

You can change the power settings in system settings to sleep or whatever when you close the lid.
When you made your USB it should have given you an option to create a persistence file, this is needed to allow you to modify your flash and to record your work, if you don't create a persistence file nothing is saved.

Mojoe134 · Jun 8, 2015

stillblue :

i didnt get an option that said persistence file but ill look into it, thanks for the input

Old laptop can't find os to boot off

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