[tlug] NEC Trouble (Bootable from floppy?)

["Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon" <ronfaxon@example.com>]

I mentioned in here some time back how I was having trouble with the 
BIOS of an NEC laptop (NEC LaVie C  LC60H/5 ) - sometimes (nearly all 
the time now) when I try to power it up, the BIOS insists on booting 
from the floppy and *only* the floppy.  As it cycles back and forth 
between trying to read the empty floppy drive and giving an error 
message, it sounds like this:

"Ka-Thunk-Ka-Thunk-Ka-Thunk... Beep!-Beep!-Beep!... 
Ka-Thunk-Ka-Thunk-Ka-Thunk... Beep!-Beep!-Beep!" etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

When the problem first occurred, plopping in a floppy - any floppy - 
satisfied the machine's lust for a floppy and then it booted normally.  
Recently, however, putting in a floppy shuts up the 
"Ka-Thank-Ka-Thunk-Beep!-Beep!", but then the machine just stops dead 
with the power light on and with a black screen.  15-20 attempts finally 
produce a successful boot.  Internet searches have not produced an 
upgrade BIOS for the bugger, so here's my question:

Can I set up SuSE 9.3 to boot from a floppy?  The floppy would tell the 
machine sick with floppy-lust to find the program on the hard drive.  
Since the machine works normally once it's up and running, I'm planning 
to run it constantly for the meantime - something I'd be less worried 
about with a desktop, but since it's a laptop, I'm hoping to not have to 
leave it on for too long due to heat concerns mostly.....

Lyle