How to HD install FROM HD?

Forum: HD Install
Topic: How to HD install FROM HD?
started by: PBear

Posted by PBear on Feb. 02 2005,19:49

OK, I give up ... I've spent two hours reading the documentation and half the forum messages here but I can't find anything that says it's possible to do a regular DSL HD install from a downloaded image without using a CD-ROM drive. There's no point in burning a disc 'cause this old clunker 486 test machine I'm going to use has an old Wearnes CD drive that refuses to recognize burned CDs (CD-Rs).

I don't want to do any of that "boot-from-floppy/run from DOS/backup-restore to/from the DOS partition" kind of install that there's so much info here about. Ye gods, what a nightmare!

I just want to install DSL to a newly-formatted Linux partition on my hard drive, using the extracted ISO image on my DOS partition as the install source. (Of course, I know I'll need to RAWRITE a floppy boot disk to get started.)

Is there a way to get a floppy boot prompt to give me an option to install DSL to the hard drive using my DOS partition as the install source?

Thanks.

Posted by clivesay on Feb. 02 2005,20:44

Quote (PBear @ Feb. 02 2005,13:49)

Is there a way to get a floppy boot prompt to give me an option to install DSL to the hard drive using my DOS partition as the install source?

Sure. It sounds like you have done all the right things. If you have an extracted image in the root of the partition all you will need to do is create the boot floppy and then at the boot: prompt type:

Code Sample

dsl fromhd=/dev/hda1 vga=normal noicons

Where /hda1 is notmally the c:\ drive on your machine. Now, keep in mind that it may not be possible to run DSL on your 486. I added the vga=normal and noicons parameters because it is a 486 box with little memory I am guessing. This at least gives you are starting point.

Good luck

Chris

Posted by cbagger01 on Feb. 03 2005,04:40

OK, here is your solution:

(1) Create a small DOS partition (50MB or so) and copy the \KNOPPIX\KNOPPIX file over to it.

(2) Create a DSL boot floppy.

(3) Use the boot floppy to get DSL up and running.

(4) While in DSL, use cfdisk to create a larger EXT2 partition for your "normal" hard drive installation.

(5) Use the DSL hard drive install script to perform a full hard drive install to this partition.

(6) Reboot into your new DSL hard drive installed system. Run cfdisk again to destroy your 50MB DOS partition and reclaim the space as a swap partition. Run mkswap on the new partition and then swapon to activate it.

This concludes the brief conceptual summary on how to get from point A to point B

If you need more details, try searching the forums for keywords like "*hdinstall" "cfdisk" "swap AND partition" "poorman*" "boot AND floppy", etc. Be sure to search ALL FORUMS and FROM THE BEGINNING or NEWER

Posted by PBear on Feb. 03 2005,08:54

Thanks for your replies, but I'm afraid it's all moot now. Apparently, I can't boot any recent versions of Linux on that old machine: I decided to try DSL (as it was something I could comfortably download over my dialup connection) when I came a cropper trying to install an old set of "real" CDs (not CD-Rs) I had for Red Hat 7.2. Getting the install CD to come up to the boot prompt was no problem but, no matter what kind of install I chose, or what options I tried to enter on the command line, the boot sequence would completely freeze up the computer after a few lines were displayed.

When I booted up with the floppy I made for DSL, I had the exact same problem I had with the Red Hat install (boot locked up the machine in the exact same place).

I did some digging on the internet last night and found an old message board thread that described my problem exactly. The clunky old Presario 2200 I inherited runs on a Cyrix MediaGX 486 with everything built on the board (audio & video) and there seems to be some quirk in the PCI bus that makes more recent Linux kernel builds - post-2.0 I think - freeze up on boot, right before the point where any sort of "failsafe" mode could stop further hardware probing, right after the boot sequence reads "Working around Cyrix MediaGX virtual DMA bugs" [!], then "Checking 'hlt' instruction". Obviously, the kernel isn't "working around" what it should be on this box - and I couldn't find anything else in any of the archives online that provided, or even suggested, a "working" workaround for the problem.

So, I guess I'm just stuck with the ancient Caldera 2.2 install I managed to get working on there last week (which installed without a hitch, by the way, being based on Linux 1.1.1). The only problem is, it's so freaking old that I can't install any new software packages on it (even after updating its original Xfree 3.3.3 to 3.3.6 - there are too many other core components that are still too old to support current apps like Firefox, or even the Flash plugin) - and the 4.0 Netscape that's installed is awful, but only slightly worse than the built-in KDE 1.1 web browser that's included (which can't even handle SSL pages).

My only choices seem to be to give up on Linux for the time being, risk an install on my "real" (XP) machine - which I hate to screw around with, as its single HTFS partition has never been touched - or re-download DSL to this machine (I've got no way to transfer it from the MediaGX box unless I want to ZIP it to floppies!), burn it to a disc and run it live off the CD.

So, thanks again ... it's been grand.