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I'm trying to install Linux on the older thinkpad r31. I have several cd's but the optical disk drive seems to have passed away or is simply dying.

I made an usb stick woth unetbootin to install from usb. But it seems I cannot boot from usb.

I've read (and replied as i thought it was a valuable contribution to one of the replies) this post:

How to install Ubuntu on a IBM R31 Thinkpad

My boot devices list is without an usb device and I found at the lenovo support pages that boot usb support is mentioned on the x31 page regarding a bios update, but I cannot read anything about boot usb support for the R31 on its Lenovo bios update support page.

lenovo r31 support page: http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=DS014002

lenovo x31 support page: http://support.lenovo.com/en_US/downloads/detail.page?DocID=DS003898 where this is written:

Reserved Area

The following conventional memory addresses are reserved by BIOS and others. •C0000-CFFFF : Reserved for Video BIOS 
•D0000-D3FFF : Reserved for Option ROM of Ethernet (*2) 
•DC000-DFFFF : Reserved for USB BIOS (*3) 
•E0000-FFFFF : Reserved for System BIOS 

Notes:
•(*2) This area becomes free by disabling the Internal Network Option ROM option under Config and Network in the BIOS Setup Utility. But, if disabled, both Wake-on-LAN and PXE boot functions do not work. 
•(*3) This area becomes free by disabling the USB BIOS Support option under Config and USB in the BIOS Setup Utility. Even if disabled, the USB devices work under the Windows environment. 

How can I achieve this on the R31?

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  • 1
    Didn't you read Steeldriver answer?
    – Braiam
    Jan 24, 2014 at 13:32
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    yes, I did. In fact, my original first question was an answer to Steeldriver's answer: that the r31 doesn't have the same bios options as the x30/x31.
    – DutchArjo
    Jan 24, 2014 at 14:29

1 Answer 1

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The BIOS of the R31 doesn't support booting from an USB pendrive/HDD. You can check it here.

The R31 can't boot from USB pendrive/HDD/CD but it can boot from an USB FDD. There is a minimal chance that you have an USB FDD lying at home, but if you have, use that one to make a bootable FDD containing a boot manager (GRUB or plop as it is mentioned more for this method.) and configure the boot manager to boot the USB drive.

That page also suggests that you laptop has an internal FDD so if it is working you can use that one the same way.

If you don't have an FDD drive I think you shouldn't buy one, as buying a new optical drive for your laptop would be likely cheaper anyway.

You may also try booting from network as your laptop supports it. This process is described here.

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  • because my cddrive is still partly working, I have burned Plop Linux / boot manager to my cdrw, then used this to be able to boot from USB. With the usb pen drive in the usb port, I was able to boot Linux Live or Linux installations.
    – DutchArjo
    Jan 28, 2014 at 14:25

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