2) Get a linux boot floppy, create a small bootable partition on the hard drive. Use wget to yank all the contents of the arch cd to the small (cd sized) parition, and do some monkeying so that it would boot like it was a cd. Then install arch after booting to that partition (it would act like booting from a cd).
I am sure that barring either of those working, I would just yank the friggin hard drive out of the laptop, get one of those cheap adapters that converts the cable input on the hd to an ide style interface, and just use a desktop box with a cd to install it.
Then plop it back in the laptop. This works. I have done it before on shitty laptops that just would not cooperate.
I'm starting from scratch. If presented with this situation, how would you install Arch?
If all else fails I know I can install Fedora Core. FC1 has install floppies that, for whatever reason, will recognize my USB floppy drive (unlike Arch's, which work OK for the first floppy and then look at the nonexistent fd0 after I put in the second one...). Once that's done, I can select an ftp site and it will do an ftp install. However, I think I would learn a lot more by using Arch. It's just a matter of getting it onto the laptop in the first place.
Again, I'm willing to try just about any install method permitted by my hardware. Thanks in advance for any tips.
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