Installation of Linux from a virtual CD 1

[Swamphen]

Since I don't have a CD-Writer and I do have Paragon CD Emulator, I had this brilliant idea to just download the needed CD images for a Debian installation, to make them into virtual harddrives with Paragon and then to install Linux (thus Debian) directly from these virtual harddrives.

Is this really as stupid as it sounds or can it be done?

Thanks,
Swamphen

 

[fluid11]

I'm not familiar with Paragon CD Emulator, but why not just copy the files from the CD to the hard drive?

ChrisP If someone resolves an issue for you, or was helpful, please click the link on the bottom left hand corner of their post to give them a "star" letting them know they helped you.

 

[MrTom]

if the target machine has net access then just grab the Debian boot floppies and you can do a full install from those. it's a very nice way to install an OS.

 

[Swamphen]

I'm really aware of the inefficient approach I'm taking towards this installment problem.

Indeed, it is probably quite easy to only download the bootfloppy's and start from there on.

Maybe my strange approach needs a bit of explanation:

- I actually downloaded the iso's because I was thinking to rent the CD-writer of my friend.

- Since he is on holiday now this plan didn't work out to well.

- Then, although I'm still not quite sure (fluid11: hint ...) how exactly this would work,
I considered the possibility of copying the iso's to my hard drive. But by making a new ext2-partition
for Linux together with a swap-space, I used pretty much all of my remaining harddisk-space. So, if I
had to copy the iso's first to the harddrive I would at least have to delete (and re-download) one iso.

- And finally I thought about this Paragon CD-Emulator program and
decided to ask the experts about its potential use, without hoping on it too much and actually
understanding the near-absurdness of my question.

So, since apparently it will be non-trivial to simulate the booting process from a
virtual CD, I will :

* or install it from my hard drive. This if fluid11 catches my hint and tells me how to do this.
When giving his hint, he should bear in mind that win2kpro still has to be on there afterwards and
he should as well know that I only have 1 (partioned) harddrive. This way I will only have to
redownload some 400 Mb.

* or I will start from scratch, first downloading the bootfloppies. This way I will eventually have to download
everything again.

Thanks a lot already,

Swamphen

 

[fluid11]

Is your Win2K partition NTFS or FAT? If its FAT, you can extract the .iso to the hard drive and start the Linux installation through DOS. Let us know.

ChrisP If someone resolves an issue for you, or was helpful, please click the link on the bottom left hand corner of their post to give them a "star" letting them know they helped you.

 

[Swamphen]

My primary partition (C: drive) is NTFS, as well as my Data-partition (D:drive). For reasons of back-up (ghost-images) I have a FAT32-partition (E-drive) at the end of my harddrive.

Is this information of any use to you?

Thanks,
Swamphen

 

[fluid11]

I thought about it, and I'm not sure if it would work from the hard drive since there is more than one CD. An installation over the network would be a better choice if you can't burn the .iso images to a CD. If you want to try it anyway, here's what I would do...

Create a directory on your FAT partition called Linux, and below Linux, a folder for each CD - Linux/CD1, Linux/CD2, and so on. Extract the .iso images to the hard drive into the correct folder under the Linux directory. Use a program like WinISO or IsoBuster or whatever you want to extract them.

Boot to DOS with a DOS disk. If your using RedHat, change to the D:\Linux\CD1\dosutils directory and start the autoboot.bat file. I dont' know about Debian, but I'm sure they have a similar way to start the installation from within DOS.

Let us know how it worked out, if you tried it.

ChrisP If someone resolves an issue for you, or was helpful, please click the link on the bottom left hand corner of their post to give them a "star" letting them know they helped you.

 

[Swamphen]

- I used Isobuster to extract the iso's, although I could have probably achieved the same result using Paragon CD-emulator.



- I extracted them to E:\Linux\CD1->3 as you said.



- Indeed I found a batchfile, namely

CD1/install/boot.bat



- I booted to DOS and executed this batchfile and everything seemed to work fine ...



That's why I gave fluid11 a star, because I think the mess which I ended up with eventually is greatly due to my own stupidness.





... but then, as I already suggested, the **** hit the fence. I will tell you about this in a new thread. Please stay tuned.