No cd drive, no floppy drive I need HELP!!

[lludacrisboy]

OK so i got this old Sony Vaio it had windows 2000 on it, but now it doesn't because the hard drive went bad. So no i would like to get Linux on to it. In order to do that i need to start from the beginning by installing DOS on to the drive and then commanding DOS to load windows 98 so i can at least get online. Does anyone know and can explain how i can install DOS onto this laptops hard drive without using a CD drive or floppy drive. I cant figure it out.
Thanks

 

[Nodsu]

You can take the hard drive out of the laptop and attach it to another computer. The other machine doesn't have to be a laptop - there are adapters that let you attach laptop IDE drives to normal IDE cables.

You don't even have to install DOS. Linux usually survives moving to another computer, so you could install Linux on that other computer (the first install stage until the first reboot) and simply put the hard drive back inside the laptop.

Another option would be to get an external CD or floppy drive. Sony may have some proprietary soluton for your laptop and you may be able to use USB devices too. (Check your laptop's USB booting capability)

Yet another (really cool (cool as in mad hacker style (and just as tricky))) option is to boot from the network. You can boot both DOS and Linux installers over PXE no problem.