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I’ve taken on a Fujitsu LifeBook B3010D as a side-project, since I want an ultraportable computer to take around instead of my trusty MacBook. One troublesome aspect is that there is no built-in CD-ROM or floppy drive, and the BIOS doesn’t support booting from a USB stick either.

Going from Windows XP to Ubuntu 10.04 the first time was pretty easy; I just used UNetbootin and followed the instructions with little fuss.

But after adding some applications that locked up the computer shortly before displaying the login screen — effectively locking me out of the system — I didn’t know how to roll back and reinstall Ubuntu. Most instructions relied on being able to boot from a Live CD to fix things, and obviously I didn’t have that option.

“Netboot Install From Internet” HOWTO wiki page had my answer. I was able to (1) use a different computer to download some key files to a USB stick, (2) transfer the files from the USB stick to the /boot directory using the rudimentary command line available from initrd, (3) reboot and use the grub command line to initiate the netboot installation.

Earlier in the evening, I also tried a more extreme solution with a friend — we pulled the hard drive from the Fujitsu, put it into a Dell machine that could boot from a USB stick, and installed the basic, command-line only Ubuntu system that way.

There are options if you don’t have a system with bootable media. Good luck!