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Old 04-19-2007, 03:46 PM   #16
DeanLinkous
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That is one of the things I love about debian. Attention to various install methods.

Quite likely with any GNU+Linux CD you can take the initrd and the vmlinux files and put them on your hard drive and then use *something* to boot those and after it boots it should look for the CD and use it to install from. This likely will not work for liveCD type images though - or at least the one time I tried I did not have much luck.

Of course you likely cannot wipe out the partition where you have the files stored at while you are installing.

You might also look for some kind of DOS floppy with USb support and then maybe using grub4dos create something that works? Just sounds like a lot of fiddle-faddle to me.

Last edited by DeanLinkous; 04-19-2007 at 03:48 PM.
 
Old 04-19-2007, 05:06 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nx5000
You have to create an initrd on the floppy that will modprobe all necessary modules. Then you can tell grub to boot on /dev/sda1.

Searching on google with keywords:
grub boot floppy old BIOS usb

I found this:

http://club.mandriva.com/xwiki/bin/v...t2?language=en



will try this not sure why I overlooked this post. I feel silly.

btw, I notice during bootup, one of very first messages (like third line on the screen) is a message saying that it detected the USB device. That seems to me to be an indication that there is some way to tell BIOS that it is okay to boot a USB device, but I have no idea how to do. It is AMI BIOS type of BIOS version 1.23.
 
Old 04-19-2007, 07:37 PM   #18
DeanLinkous
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when what boots up?
 
Old 06-22-2010, 02:21 AM   #19
grosbete
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You can boot an USB linux distribution without USB bios support.
WakePup is a FREEDOS floppy used for Puppy distribution.
It loads USB driver and find a kernel to boot on a USB drive.
In order to use it, you will have to create an empty file named USBFLASH
in root directory of your USB flash stick.
Perhaps, you will also have to change kernel path in AUTOEXEC.BAT of WakePup (look for a line calling LINLD).
 
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Old 02-19-2014, 08:12 PM   #20
jgamleus
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Program to magically boot whatever from USB does exist

Good thinking! In spite of what others say, a program for a floppy or cd to boot whatever is in the USB-drive DOES exist. It is called Plop and I use it to boot from USB on an old computer that cannot boot from USB. A manual can be found on http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16822...-wont-let-you/

My way for a floppy, didn't bother to even make a CD:
1. download and unzip the latest Plop boot manager from http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/download.html
2. download and run the program Rawwritewin from http://download.plop.at/files/rawwritewin.exe
3. put a writeable floppy in the floppy drive
4. choose as Image file <your downloaded Plop boot manager>\plpbt.img
5. hit Write
6. hit Exit
On your floppy should now be a file plpbt.bin. You can use the floppy now already to boot from USB. However if you don't want each time you boot from flop a menu on your screen but want to boot it straight away from USB (making a real boot-usb-flop) then
7. run <your downloaded Plop boot manager>\Windows\plpcfgbtGUI.exe
8. choose as Boot Manager File A:\plpbt.bin
9. hit Open
10. hit Hidden USB
11. hit Configure plpbt.bin
12. hit Quit
Et voila, now you can silently boot from USB and whatsever on it when your floppy is in the drive. I use it to test many pendriveLinuxes from pendrivelinux.com with YUMI. Works perfect.

As a thank you, you can visit my www.medjugorje.eu page with the latest messages of Mary, mother of Jesus, of this month, to see what God lets happen to this world. Yes, that also exists

Success and God Bless,

Johannes
 
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Old 02-19-2014, 09:06 PM   #21
John VV
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on older hardware if you hit "f12" or "f8" during the EARLY boot it will bring up a bios manager
select the usb drive to boot from

but if this is to old than it will be a USB 1 port on the computer ,and will take DAYS to install something .

usb2 not so bad

but this is an old resurrected thread from 2007
and the OP was last active in 2011
they are long gone ....

Last edited by John VV; 02-19-2014 at 09:11 PM.
 
Old 02-19-2014, 09:09 PM   #22
colorpurple21859
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you do know your answering a thread that was started in 07 and until today the last post was in 2010
 
Old 02-19-2014, 09:42 PM   #23
jgamleus
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I know

The original author could not boot from USB through BIOS, read his post, like me. So, the program and the solution is valid. Yep, I know the question is old, but apparently still people use those computers to run Linuxes on (like me ) And they'll find this Linuxquestions page with its solution through Google, like I did.

Last edited by jgamleus; 02-19-2014 at 09:51 PM.
 
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Old 02-19-2014, 09:55 PM   #24
colorpurple21859
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Okay, just checking, lol, Plop does work real good, I just recently used it to do a usb install of debian on an older computer.
 
  


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