>How about downloading a boot floppy from one of the PPC linux distributions >and using pdisk or something similar? > >LinuxPPC seems dead but yellow dog might have something on their site. > >I'm not a linux-on-mac guy though, it might be that there isn't a boot disk >that will work on the 5300. But that would save you finding/buying a >connector. > >Maybe one of the Mac-linux guys will let me know if this won't work. > >Brian
Hey, good idea! Unfortunately, old world Macs can't boot linux from a floppy without some serious voodoo. I don't know of any distros that actually distribute a boot floppy. The conventional way to boot linux is to load the ramdisk from your hard drive... sigh, catch-22 Still, pdisk is a Mac OS port of Fdisk, and boy is it powerful. It just might be possible to boot the PowerBook from a 2nd drive (floppy, CD, external HD, etc) and run pdisk... Wish I had thought of this months earlier - I also have a 500MB drive for a 5300 that is protected with Norton DiskLock and haven't been able to find a way to reformat it. When I've got some time, I'll dig out my copy of pdisk and set up the 5300 to see what I can do. Contact me off-list and I'll send you a copy of pdisk. FWIW, pdisk is free with several versions of Linux, most notably the old Apple project MkLinux (pdisk was developed by Apple for the MkLinux project). pdisk is a text-based application (no graphical user interface, everything is done in a text window) that is intimidating at first, but once you learn to use it, you can do great things, such as reformating individual partitions, instead of an entire disk. Heck, you can even use it to resize partitions (dangerous)! Thanks for the idea! Peace, Drew -- <http://homepage.mac.com/alk/> "There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are `Why are people born?' `Why do they die?' `Why do they spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?'" -- Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." -- PowerBooks is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PowerBooks list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/powerbooks.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/powerbooks%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
