TR Forums

Just on the wild offchance, I don't suppose anyone has any good lines on getting hold of some of Compaq's esoteric spares at sensible prices?
Picked up a couple of Deskpro EN SFF 6350s the other day - P-II/350, integrated ethernet, sound, network, very compact etc - will do nicely as a proxy/mail server for me.
Doesn't have a CD-ROM in it, which though not essential, would be nice.
Takes a special slimline CD-ROM. A special COMPAQ slimline CD-ROM. Part number 314214-001 (and then you need a 314215-001 cable set too). And I'll be damned if I can find them for anything remotely reasonable ... like, the CD-ROM is £62 and the cable set (floppy + ide + cdrom) is another £29. Takes its own custom cable which carries power and data in one.

Point is, the Deskpros only cost £40 each ... I really don't wanna spend >£100 on the CDROM?

Anyone any cunning ideas?

I'd just do a network install and forget about the CD drives.

http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/network/

You can build a very slick network bootdisk with little to no effort at the above link.

Not that this is my post, but

thanks Ryu!

That link is the one I have been looking for for a long time..... Very helpful

Likewise. I was wishing I had something like this last week.

Hi,
As mentioned, the CD-ROM isn't essential, it'd just be nice; what I actually did was to hook up the HDD in another PC, and copy the i386 directory to it ... put the HDD back in the DeskPro ... then a bog basic boot floppy was enough to make the disk active and 'sys' it, which was bootable enough to get it going.
'tis just that having a CD would occasionally be nifty, and Compaq's official spares prices are, to be kind, utterly extortionate.