[ale] Remote boot/install on old notebook, no floppy/CD/ethernet?

[mutewonder at gmail.com (mute wonder)]

I want to do something with an old notebook that fails to bootup due to a
"corrupt or missing partition table"

Windows 95 or 3.1 is on it now.  I'd ultimately like to replace that with a
Linux distro that'll run on less than 400MHz PII, less than 100MB RAM.
However, I'm used to installing via CD and/or floppy, and this notebook has
neither.  No ethernet, not even a dial-up modem port.  What to do, what to
do...

*PC to PC*:  The notebook has a serial DB9, printer DB25, and one USB
ports.  Would it be viable to connect it to another computer and remotely
repartition the notebook, install stuff and so on?

*Get removable drives*:  There's another connector labeled for an external
floppy or CD drive.  It looks most like a SCSI VHDCI68, but that's a
half-educated guess. I know little about SCSI, and have less experience with
them.  So, any information regarding external SCSI floppy or CD drives would
be good.
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