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#1 2009-01-26 00:42:18

yvonney
Member
Registered: 2008-06-11
Posts: 671

Can i boot from floppy+install USB? - no usb boot - broken CDR :-)

[OBJECTIVE:  boot from floppy disk on laptop, mount 256 meg flash drive in non-bootable USB port, install arch from the USB img file]

Hi.... I have an old Dell 2500 laptop which I've had success installing onto though it requres removing the drive, putting in a totally differnt desktop, installing via ftp etc. I put the drive back into the laptop and it works....Yet, the last time I did this I had lots of slow startups as it took forever to FAIL the 2nd IDE device due to the laptop's CDR being broken.

ALL the above is irrelevant IF I can:

1) boot somehow a syslinux? or whatver from the laptop's working floppy.... THEN install the
archlinux-2008-06-ftp-i686.img file which I will get expanded onto a 256 meg USB flash drive I've got.


So... unfortunately i need fairly full assistance here....

i'm not good at any dd commands ... etc. Not really good enough yet with mounting etc.

I've read through about 5 wiki pages and am really hoping to get some guru advice/points/guidance for

create a floppy to boot from
the commands needed to discover what and when my USB 256 meg flash drive is at
the actual process for installing from this 256 meg flash drive

My laptop will NOT boot from USB and it'll be slow as well as it's USB 1.1

that's all fine and greatly preferred compared to installing on another machine and having to remove and replace the drive....


can I get some help on this...?

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#2 2009-01-26 01:49:51

yvonney
Member
Registered: 2008-06-11
Posts: 671

Re: Can i boot from floppy+install USB? - no usb boot - broken CDR :-)

http://www.eldamar.se/2009/01/archlinux … tallation/

Found this.... gonna see if it's what I'm needing....

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#3 2009-01-26 19:28:30

eldamar
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2008-02-11
Posts: 104

Re: Can i boot from floppy+install USB? - no usb boot - broken CDR :-)

Nice that you found my post, it's not an easy installation proses but if you give it a serious try i bet you will be able to get your old computer running with Arch Linux. Please write me back (or comment on the page) if there is something in the guide that is not explained enough or you need more guidance on so i can help you and improve the guide for others.

Last edited by eldamar (2009-01-26 19:29:25)

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#4 2009-01-27 07:15:39

yvonney
Member
Registered: 2008-06-11
Posts: 671

Re: Can i boot from floppy+install USB? - no usb boot - broken CDR :-)

Great eldamar...

So it's been a great night and day.... have learned what I believe was enough regarding ...what I DIDN'T know about

dd  mke2fs and fdisk

So.... I FINALLY got the image properly copied to the hard drive FROM the USB stick..

I got basically this... finally   hehehe   [sopied from your tutorial]

# dd if=archlinux-2008.06-core-i686.img of=/dev/hda4 bs=512 skip=63
629760+0 records in
629760+0 records out
322437120 bytes (322 MB) copied, 19.86 s, 16.2 MB/s

So NOW.. I've tried a supergrub boot floppy and am stuck...
I had tried a few things from the wiki before finding and no trying your tutorial.... and ....hmmm...

HAVE I GOT THIS RIGHT...

the .img   as applied correctly (output noted above)  copies itself to partition 1 (in my case) of the laptop's SINGLE hard drive...

AND as I only have the ONE partition on there the image expands to it ....right?

So WHERE does the install go to? I'm not thinking clearly here though I'll just ask...

DO I need to have 2 partitions????????????

Anyways.... I'm having problems getting grub on there using supergrub floppy boot..

Will keep trying....

any idea??


thank you!!!!!!!!!

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#5 2009-01-27 10:01:37

yvonney
Member
Registered: 2008-06-11
Posts: 671

Re: Can i boot from floppy+install USB? - no usb boot - broken CDR :-)

SUCCESS: well, I got GRUB installed from the floppy. FUNNY thing is that it turned out to be a floppy boot thing. I knoew I had a touchy floppy though supergrun floppy booted... and did it's thing somewhat and got me to an ORANGE ATCH LIVE! screen..

then upon attempting to boot arch install I got   error 15  file not found...
After about 10 attempt I got a DIFFERENT GRUB screen which I recalled seeing months ago which is BLUE  .... installed grub successfully and took me to the arch linux USUAL install menu which is ALSO BLUE!!! weird...


well I STILL have the same problem.... I really must be missing something...

I cannot just ignor the PREPARE HARDRIVE, choose and install packages as I can't the the locales nor set a root password... something funny .....SO I went back and rebooted and tried AGAIN to set FILESYSTEM MOUNTPOINTS

same thing as 2 days ago....

ERROR CREATING FILESYSTEM   mke2fs/sda1

Is this because the installer is on the same partition as I'm attempting to install to???

Shouldn't I leave the .img ON the flash stick and have the floppy boot it from the stick and NOT the drive...

I'm VERY confused.... though much wiser actually!   hehehe

IT IS because the drive is used ENTIRELY with the .img file ....correct?

So..I'm now looking to boot from floppy.... and somehow install from non-bootable usb port with flash stick in it obviously.

possible?

Last edited by yvonney (2009-01-27 10:05:56)

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#6 2009-01-27 17:13:08

eldamar
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2008-02-11
Posts: 104

Re: Can i boot from floppy+install USB? - no usb boot - broken CDR :-)

Actually what the guide does is a hard drive installation from the help of usb and floppy, the image file is applied to an hard drive partition, have you setup grub on the hd that you applied the image to? i think you can use super grub and just press 'c' at the start and do grub> root (hd0,x) and then setup (hd0,x) x being the partition you have chosen... I was trying to get grub to boot USB directly at first but i was unsuccessful with that, maby just because i don't know enough about initrd and grub.

actually what i accidentally did was to make a grub floppy with the menu.lst from the usb stick image.. using some guide from the wikipage, this floppy ofcourse gave off an error but i could edit it after the error was presented and use the strings root, makeactive and chainloader+

I'm having trouble seeing were exactly you are getting in to trouble. You will not be able to boot from the usb stick this way tho, for that you need some kind of floppy with usb drivers and i read somewhere that puppy Linux was using such a floppy, might be something worth checking in to.

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#7 2009-01-27 18:59:54

yvonney
Member
Registered: 2008-06-11
Posts: 671

Re: Can i boot from floppy+install USB? - no usb boot - broken CDR :-)

thank you eldamar!  [any comments on the following great appreciated]  my two above posts are rambly though I have come quite a ways in 2 days as mentioned.

NOTE: thanks for puppy idea. I was (nicely coincidentally!) attempting to get it to finish booting yesterday and am trying other things right now actually.

OK... when eventually installing ARCH  as per you tutorial DO I setup the hard drive or go straight to INSTALL PROGRAMS?

IF I were to setup harddrive with the AUTO feature it would say: /dev/sda will be COMPLETELY ERASED. So I try to do just Set Filesystem Mountpoints ..... can't do that either...

I'll try to be concise.

- I used the 'supergrub' boot floppy for the grub part of your tutorial and except for the initial weirdness it did work in allowing the HARD DRIVE to boot the .img file that I ASSSUME is on there EXPANDED? in some way...  though I could not complete the installation of ARCH CORE.

- I had gotten through successfully your tutorial where the dd command copies or expands? the archcore.img file onto the hard drive..... onto the ONLY partition on there.... so HOW does arch install onto this SAME partition IF ther image file is booted and being installed from????

- I THINK I was unable to set file system mountpoints due to this...

I really don't get why I can't boot from floppy and install/mount the arcgcore.img file and install to the hard drive from there.
Yet, I do have a few thought though I'll leave them for now...

yes, this must be a very basic thing I'm missing...


Or perhaps NOT being able to create file system mount points is caused by some other issue?

Last edited by yvonney (2009-01-28 01:01:52)

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#8 2009-01-28 14:38:22

eldamar
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2008-02-11
Posts: 104

Re: Can i boot from floppy+install USB? - no usb boot - broken CDR :-)

What exactly happens when you are trying to make mountpoints?
you need to set up mountpoints, so maby you could leave some space over and make the leftover space for something like /var or /home later when the installation is complete. just use the other space for root and swap at first and make use of the installation partition later on.

the .img file is making a replication of an exact structure so that once you use the 'dd' command the harddrive becomes exactly what the USB stick is ment to be if we where making a normal installation, thus allowing us to boot up to it and installing.

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#9 2009-01-28 19:52:07

yvonney
Member
Registered: 2008-06-11
Posts: 671

Re: Can i boot from floppy+install USB? - no usb boot - broken CDR :-)

appreciate your help eldamar... I'm sorta getting what your saying. The mountpoints problem just say error unable to create file system... i think? can give you exactly right now. 

I believe I have a FUNDAMENTAL thing that's making lal the other problems happen... so... I STILL don't get it.

I CANNOT have just ONE partition on the harddrive can I !!!!!!!!!????
And I install arch into ONE partition anyways as an aside... I don't use swap partition at all. I create a swap file later. Forget about that ppoint as that the way I like to do my setup.

I would greatly prefer to boot of of some floppy... maybe a modified  puppy wakepup floppy? and then find the .img file created via dd the same as COULD be created to the hard drive THEN install onto a FULL hard drive from there...

So..... you DID have more than one partition the way you did you hard drive install ...right?

you DIDN'T install to the same partition that the . img file was expanded to....right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was sure though that you specified smoething like  hda and not hda1 in you tutorial... VERY happy to be wrong though.. can't check right now....

Can you tell me the anser to that..... MUSt I have 2 or more partitions.... and if so...HOW CAN I create one from within the install without RUINING the .img expanded arch core!!!!!!!!!   hehehe all good fun! :---)

(in my case there's currently ONLY ONE partition on the hard drive and I think? it's being used ENTIRELY by arch core  image file I expanded ther..... right???)

much much appreciation!!!!!!!

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#10 2009-01-28 23:45:39

eldamar
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2008-02-11
Posts: 104

Re: Can i boot from floppy+install USB? - no usb boot - broken CDR :-)

In the guide i use /dev/hda4 for the installation partition and i have no problem setting up more partitions manually once i get to the installation setup in arch. I only used 3 partitions on my installation, one for swap, one for root and one for the installation...

The puppy solution would maby work aswell, i can't try that out at the moment becouse my floppy drive is broken sad

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#11 2009-01-29 02:31:30

yvonney
Member
Registered: 2008-06-11
Posts: 671

Re: Can i boot from floppy+install USB? - no usb boot - broken CDR :-)

eldamar !!!! YES, I went and read your tutorial again and noticed the /dev/hda4... ! thank you very much for the additional details aout your partitioning...
I've gone this far to..um, get this far... so I think I'll do my best to find a way to use any of the many tips I've been pointed to, or have discovered to:

boot from floppy, mount/boot arch from USB 1.1 non-bootable via flash stick and then install my ALL-IN-ONE on ONE partition ARCH linux!!! do I ever love ARCH!!!
And the new ISO and IMG are out this week I think... and there seems to be a couple of new things that may be of interest for installing on there.

In the hope thatr all of your efforts may be of use to others I will add the link to my other...oops... similar post ...
it has a bunch of cool stuff that you are likely aware of ... collated for us all by... ahcaliskan!!!

thank you both for making the week so great! um, and it's only wednesday!

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