Building NS onto a laptop
John Kheit
Im planning on getting a laptop to run NS on. I think I found a nice
one (even though the tech support people are a little snotty :). Its an Acom
DX2/66, 16bit sound, 16meg RAM(32max), 540meg IDE drive, PCMIA III, PowerBook
like palm rest and trackball position, dual-scan color, 1megVRAM VLB video.
All for $3050 (at 1 800 898-2665).
The catch is I'm not sure I can easily install NS onto it... I thought
I would just be able to pop out the 2.5" IDE drive, and plug it into my desktop
computer, and do a build disk from my other hard drive. But the tech support
people say that 2.5" drives wont plug into regular IDE controllers; that 2.5"
drives need special cables. They said that adapters used to exist. Anyone
know where I can get such an adapter?
So, does anyone know a good way of installing NS onto one of these 2.5"
IDE hard drives? I dont want to get a docking station and a SCSI controller
card because I would never again use them with the portable. I already have
a desktop Intel system with a SCSI controller, CDROM, E-net card etc.
Any help will be greatly appreciated. Perhaps there is some way of
building a disk over E-net? Are there any PCMIA E-net cards supported by NS?
Thanks very much for any/all help !-)
Later, John
op...@zwicky.unm.edu
John Kheit <kh...@gandalf.rutgers.edu> wrote:
>Hi All,
> Im planning on getting a laptop to run NS on. I think I found a nice
>one (even though the tech support people are a little snotty :). Its an Acom
>DX2/66, 16bit sound, 16meg RAM(32max), 540meg IDE drive, PCMIA III, PowerBook
>like palm rest and trackball position, dual-scan color, 1megVRAM VLB video.
>All for $3050 (at 1 800 898-2665).
>
> The catch is I'm not sure I can easily install NS onto it... I thought
>I would just be able to pop out the 2.5" IDE drive, and plug it into my desktop
>computer, and do a build disk from my other hard drive. But the tech support
>people say that 2.5" drives wont plug into regular IDE controllers; that 2.5"
>drives need special cables. They said that adapters used to exist. Anyone
>know where I can get such an adapter?
>
That company's techsupport is apparently clueless. You can get the special
adaptor to go from a regular IDE connector to a 2.5" IDE drive connector
at any local computer store (well, with the possible exception of radio shack).
> So, does anyone know a good way of installing NS onto one of these 2.5"
>IDE hard drives? I dont want to get a docking station and a SCSI controller
>card because I would never again use them with the portable. I already have
>a desktop Intel system with a SCSI controller, CDROM, E-net card etc.
>
> Any help will be greatly appreciated. Perhaps there is some way of
>building a disk over E-net? Are there any PCMIA E-net cards supported by NS?
>
Currently this does not exist. However, 3.3 is supposed to come with it.
We installed NS onto a Sager by just taking out it's 2.5" drive and hooking
it up to a PC that had an Adaptec 1542CF and an IDE controller.
- Colby
--
\ | / Colby Kraybill - University of New Mexico - I.F.A. - H.E.P
,-, op...@unm.edu, UNMB::OPUS
-- -- My onions are my own.
Dave CIRT Boy Klingler
> Im planning on getting a laptop to run NS on. I think I found a nice
>one (even though the tech support people are a little snotty :). Its an Acom
>DX2/66, 16bit sound, 16meg RAM(32max), 540meg IDE drive, PCMIA III, PowerBook
>like palm rest and trackball position, dual-scan color, 1megVRAM VLB video.
>All for $3050 (at 1 800 898-2665).
>
> The catch is I'm not sure I can easily install NS onto it... I thought
>I would just be able to pop out the 2.5" IDE drive, and plug it into my desktop
>computer, and do a build disk from my other hard drive. But the tech support
>people say that 2.5" drives wont plug into regular IDE controllers; that 2.5"
>drives need special cables. They said that adapters used to exist. Anyone
>know where I can get such an adapter?
>
> So, does anyone know a good way of installing NS onto one of these 2.5"
>IDE hard drives? I dont want to get a docking station and a SCSI controller
>card because I would never again use them with the portable. I already have
>a desktop Intel system with a SCSI controller, CDROM, E-net card etc.
(belated crunch)
It's definitely possible, because we just did it on a Sager 7500 (about $3300
with 20 megs of RAM, 520 meg IBM hard drive and DX4/100). Any knowledgeable
clone shop should have the necessary adapter. Ours cost $15.00 with a bracket
locally, and was definitely overpriced. The build was pretty straightforward
from there, except that I discovered that it would only work with 1 hard drive
installed. For some reason I could only install the basic OS at first, too,
then I had to install the other packages manually. I'm sure none of that had
to do with using a 2.5" hard drive, by the way...
We love the Sager, with a couple of caveats. First, as denoted in another
post, we've got the "Sager trackball blues." Our trackball doesn't seem to
work, despite that it works in DOS and is supposed to be straight serial MS
compatible. Second, we'd love to have the Cirrus 7440 (I think) display
drivers that would allow us to use the machine in full resolution. The
trackball's definitely the most agonizing concern. We feel silly having to
plug a mouse into a laptop, especially considering that we have to use the
computer soon for data acquisition.
So there you have it! Good luck!
Dave