Trying to build a new boot for Fedora 42 on an ACER Aspire X3200 with BIOS R01-A3 with no success.
The Live ISO on a USB DVD unit boots to Grub but ls on disks identifies 0X0 is not accessible. The workstation hard disk is dos and Linux partitioned.
The USB DVD drive with the ISO loaded is showing as (fd) although it is necessary to set the drive type to HDD for the USB drive to get to the grub boot.
Any ideas if this BIOS can be booted to Fedora at all?
This configuration and USB DVD has been used to boot to other Linux systems, including the current version that is running successfully.
You seem to have a linux version installed on the drive already.
is the drive fully partitioned or is there unallocated space to use for installing fedora?
Are you replacing the installed linux or intending to try dual booting?
What OS is the installed linux? – fedora, ubuntu, or ???
The fact the existing HDD is dos & linux partitioned seems to mean there are only 4 primary partitions available for use. One of those might be an extended partition to provide access to additional extended virtual partitions, but I believe that booting can only be done from a primary partition.
That ACER is about 17 years from its release date which means that there may be problems with drivers and kernels with that older machine.
What does this mean?
Does the fedora live iso fully boot? Does it halt with the boot menu? Is it booting in legacy mode (MBR) or is it booting in UEFI mode?
Without someone having the exact same hardware and bios version we would not be able to answer the question about booting with that bios.
The last problem is the biggest one. Not knowing if Fedora can properly boot on the bios makes a new partitioning of the drive a possible drive off a cliff. The existing Debian is no longer supported and the last four or five times I attempted to obtain Debian updated ISO disks, the disks were rejected with a unverified disk as the closest to a boot disk received. With Deb either having joined Ian in death or entirely out of objective reality (not far really from where she always lived) my special privilege as the first rejected developer they ousted from the royal society no longer allows for any backdoor assignment.
The other versions of Linux I have successfully booted in the last two decades or so are either dead or only valid on other machines. The Redhat disk I bought a decade ago did not have support for the AMD chipset at that time. My guess is that these AMD and Mega bios machines never have been supported and that another valid bios boot disk will also fail.
Are there any validation tests that can be done before wiping the disk and having no further Debian support for the version of the last boot disk that worked successfully available?
I can always load Win7 from disk (this was originally a Win8 machine purchased before Win8 was abandoned). Is it Likely that I could boot from a Live CD as a Win7 model?
The real question is that of validation tests for the Bios and what disk partitioning is the most practical.
If there is someone out there with experience with these older systems they should chime in here.
I fear this is a trial and error, though there may be one factor to consider.
The older processor and limited memory will almost certainly limit you to one of the least demanding spins of fedora. Both Workstation and KDE are extremely demanding for graphics and there are other spins that are not so demanding. Possibly LXDE may work.
Thanks - LXDE is a good choice. I have run LXDE primarily. With a MiniLinux that only lasted about two years, once. It really did warp the limited memory into a workable solution - but not well enough to run full TortoiseSVN without some serious errors quickly showing up.
I will see if I get a view of the file partitions from a LXDE spin disk.
Note also that fedora is soon (possibly Tuesday) to release the upgrade to fedora 43. The f42 spins will no longer be on that same page when the f43 release is available.
Archives of f40 and older releases and spins are archived at
Debian is generally one of the last distros to support really old machines. Much newer systems than yours are being replaced with new systems that support Windows 11. Older systems can’t be expected to keep going forever. If money is a problem, there are groups that accept donations of older PC’s, refurbish them by swapping parts, and make them available to people who would not otherwise be able to afford a basic system. There are also new aarch64 systems with more RAM (like the Raspberry Pi 500) that can easily do most things you can do with your existing system (other than x86 development!).
It seems that I would need to redirect from the CD drive to the USB boot location to get the live system built. Seems a bit like too much work for too little gain.
