JettCRX
Group: Members
Posts: 3
Joined: Dec. 2005 |
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Posted: Dec. 10 2005,19:39 |
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I just did something very similar to this last night. I was fortunate that my laptop DOES have a cdrom, but it doesn't boot from it and it doesn't have a floppy drive so really we're in the same boat.
Here's what I did:
1. Removed the 1gb hard drive and attached it to my desktop via a 2.5"-to-3.5" HDD adapter. (I got it for $3 from Geeks.com on green light special. If you don't want to order it online, you should be able to pick one up at your local CompUSA for $5 or so.) I disconnected my other HDD's so there's no chance of FDISKing the wrong one. Call me paranoid.
2. Used a copy of the Ultimate Boot CD to boot my desktop. Once booted, I chose [F6] DOS/Linux Boot Disks, and then [F1] FreeDOS Boot Disk V3.22 (I'm more familiar with the hard drive utilities in DOS than Linux).
3. Once the computer booted to FreeDOS, I ran FDISK, wiped everything off the 1gb drive, and created a small partition. While mine was only 10mb or so, you will need more because you don't have a CDROM in your laptop. Everything on the DSL CD takes 50mb or so, so I'd probably make at least a 60mb partition to be safe. Fat16 is fine, since it's so small.
4. I think at this point it's best to reboot (it may even be required before formatting the newly created partition will work), loading the FreeDOS boot disk again from the UBCD menu. Then format the hard drive.
5. Once the hard drive finishes, from drive A: (the FreeDOS Boot Disk in RAM), type
This will transfer the boot files to the hard drive and make it bootable.
6. Next, I copied the CD drivers that the UBCD boot disk used to control my cdrom to drive c: and created simple config.sys and autoexec.bat files to load them. I've glossed over this step because you said your laptop has no CDROM. Instead, you will want to copy the ENTIRE contents of the DSL LiveCD to your new partition. Keep the same structure.
7. The last things I copied to my new bootable partition are the EDIT.COM (might have been EDIT.EXE) file from FreeDOS (Again, don't recall if it was on A: or Q:) and LOADLIN.EXE, (which you can get it here.)
8. Now, it's time to put the HD back in the laptop and boot.
9. Once FreeDOS loaded, I used the settings in STEP 5 from these instructions in the DSL Wiki to create a config file to boot DSL using loadlin.
| Code Sample | | edit loaddsl.cfg |
I believe this is what my actual file ended up looking like:
| Code Sample | D:\boot\isolinux\linux24
root=/dev/ram
rw
initrd=D:\boot\isolinux\minirt24.gz
vga=normal
ramdisk_size=100000
init=/etc/init
lang=us
apm=power-off
nomce
noapic
quiet
BOOT_IMAGE=D:\knoppix\knoppix
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You will need to change the locations of the 3 files I have pointing to drive D: to their locations on drive C: that you copied them.
Now, you should be able to do:
| Code Sample |
loadlin @loaddsl.cfg
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Once DSL started, I followed the instructions from this page in the DSL wiki to actually install it to the HD. I created a 128mb swap partition (hda2) and used the rest (800mb or so) for the Linux partition (hda3).
Viola! You're done. 
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