Originally Posted By: Robotic
If I could- I could judge whether I could (somehow) hook in a standard CD drive in order to perform the OS install with the cover off and drives hanging all over the floor.
It might be possible, for example, to install a typical IDE cable (with plugs for two devices) and run a standard 3.5 CD and the blank HD that way. I haven't dissected the machine far enough to know what I can do with the HD cable.
The reference manual, available from your link, says that the primary IDE connector is standard 40-pin. So as long as you can find the primary IDE connector, that should work.
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Maybe slim-line CD drives are more easily swapped than I think? At this point I can only imagine them to be less universal than the full-size versions.
I think there's only two ways in which they vary: PATA vs SATA at the back (yours is PATA), and slot vs tray at the front.
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But I have to ask- does anyone have any ideas for performing an OS install on this machine? It's too old to boot from USB, but the BIOS will allow booting from LAN... never done anything like that before, though.
Booting Linux from a LAN is not a job for the faint-hearted; I can only imagine Windows is worse.

Peter