"Alastair McKinley" <amckinley03@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> Lol. I thought this might come up. It's actually my laptop (well sort
> of, out of my research grant, its a grey area), but in order to
> satisfy the IT people they install the OS(s) on each computer
> themselves, its a condition of getting network access.
Well, if it were me I'd try:
1) taking the disk out and putting it into another computer and
installing from there. I actually did this when upgrading
two ancient x86 desktops to fc6 here. Neither wanted to boot
from CD or usb. If you don't have a laptop-ide to
desktop-ide converter yet, they are worth their price in
gold. (usually ~$7 at stores)
2) Buying a new, bigger laptop disk Some IBM laptops are
password locked via an entry on the disk itself. Swapping
disks will unlock it. Disks are always getting bigger with
lower power so upgrading to the largest laptop disk is
something I tend to do anyway. It also gives me a fallback
if the installation doesn't go so well. (A new 160GB laptop
disk is ~$160 mail order).
-wolfgang
--
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/
