ive asked something similar to this before, but now i have a different need. I need to take a hard disk image on a cdrom and somehow make it boot and install itself on a hard drive. the hard drives will be the exact size and models, but will be empty before install, so i need a way to make a bootable cd out of a hard disk image and install the image on the drive. i cant use kickstart, since i need the install to be already customized, and i cant do this over a network install. any ideas? Ive looked into isolinux, but i cant tell if its just booting the cd or installing it onto the hard drive.

edit:

I figured out all of it but one aspect. any ideas how i'd get a customized kernel packaged into an rpm so it can be automatically installed? I cant figure out a way to get the modules, source, and kernel all to install (unless i use the stock kernel, but that isnt an option).

Let me get this straight:either
a)You have an ISO image on your harddrive that you want to boot from?
b)Or you want to make an image from your harddrive?
c)Or you have an image of a harddrive (loopback file with valid filesystems on it) stored on a CD that you want to boot from?

If it is A) then you can use dd to copy the ISO image to a partition. Set that partition as bootable with fdisk prior to doing this and your machine should boot from it OK.

If it is B) then, you can simply use dd to make a copy of the filesystem to an file.

If it is C) then my guess is that you'd need to configure an initial ramdisk (perhaps using islinux) to mount the file as a loopback filesystem. If you take a look at Knoppix, you get the idea.

Or am I missing the question entirely?

close, i didnt word it very well, sorry. I have the hard drive image, and i want to put it on a cd so i can install it on other systems. i already figured out how to do that using kickstart, but i want to be able to install a kernel i have already customized.