Boot without hard drive?

[Scorpio123]

Hi there, Im trying to revive an old computer that doesn't have a working hard drive.. Since Knoppix is the best liveCD out there, i thought i'd use it.. Its booting up fine and working well. But because my hard drive is not working, it keeps making a weird noise inside the box, and freezes the liveCD session.

Is there any cheat so that KNOPPIX ignores the fact that i have a hard drive on my system?

Thanks in advance!

[Harry Kuhman]

I don't think there's any code for that. Given that you know it doesn't work, why not disconnect the drive?

[Scorpio123]

I could do.. But would the LiveCD still boot up?

for example, UBUNTU didnt like it when i didn't have the hard drive....

[Harry Kuhman]

I could do.. But would the LiveCD still boot up?....
Many people use Knoppix with no drive at all. It does not need one. Assuming that you don't have a BIOS problem that needs the hard drive (unlikely, but I would take the hard drive out of the boot order just to be sure) then you should have no problem. Less power, less noise, less things to go up in smoke, and if it's a laptop longer battery life too.

[Scorpio123]

Awesome, i'll give that a try!! With its saving config capabilities its the best alternative to spending money on a new hard drive for such an old piece of junk!

Thanks for the reply!!

[Harry Kuhman]

I don't know how old your old piece of junk is, it might be a lot newer than some of the systems that I still run. In fact, that it can run Knoppix without a hard drive swap file confirms that it is. But yea, it's generally a bad idea to upgrade old hardware. And depending on the age you might even find new hard drives will not work with it (many older systems had serious limitations on the size of hard drive they will support). But, if you don't have a spare you may be able to scrounge on old hard drive for it at some point. Until then Knoppix should be fine without a hard drive.

[Scorpio123]

well to be honest it isn't that old... Got it about 7-8 years ago.. Its a Pentium 4 1.7Ghz, 256MB RAM.. But it hasn't been used for a LONG time, so its working even worse than it should hehehe.

But im only using it as a temporary PC until i can find an AC adaptor for my HP dv1000..

Thanks again for the help dude!