I'd like to have a bootable CD where when you pop it into a computer, it just overwrites the hard drive with a hard drive image from a file on the CD.

Do you know of a linux project that does this, or a simple way to write a script that does this?

I have no experience with linux and HD images, but it seems like this should be simple. Also, the HD image would have to be compressed on the CD of course.



^^^This would be used to rapidly install a working OS/system on blank computers that come in without manually installing an OS and apps and configs.

There are already heaps of live cds that have partimage on them

The smallest download is Recovery Is Possible live cd (RIP)

2) do you have one optical drive or 2?

knoppix , knoppix will work, you can download knoppix 5.0 just google it
boot from cd, and once it boots to the desktop, press ctrl + f4, then type knoppix_installer now, you can install it as 3 things, 1 as a debian like system, 2 as the knoppix cd (choose this, it is the exact copy of the disk installed to your pc, its like running the disk off your hard drive), and then 3 something like a begginner

basically follow the instructions and there you have it

ps knoppix is great

klinux89....will that work with any version of knoppix and do you think knoppix is a good distro to run from hd. i know it makes a great utillity cd. what would be the benefits of installing to hd compared to the knoppix live cd? just looking for your personal opinion.

If you want to get a CD that you can just pop in your drive and just boot and install, head over to your local bookstore and pick up a linux magazine for a couple of bucks. Most of them have CDs or DVDs with the latest distributions already on them. You can probably drive to the book store, buy it, and get back before you could download all of the ISO images anyway :-). Just a thought.

I was talking about a bootable CD to write an Image of my choice to the hard drive, not INSTALL THE DISTRO.

yes I referred to partimage here is the web
www.partimage.org

let me know if that is acceptable if not I will lash myself 20 times as I use this all the time , the image program not the lash

yeah, knoppix does, you have three options, and one of them is copy the image to hard drive to boot from, btw im sorry its not ctrl + f4, its ctrl + f3 then type knoppix-installer

you just can't copy the image to hd and expect it to boot, therefore there is a program to do that, and that program just doesn't copy it, it like installs it, but this knoppix distro can copy the exact cd to ur hard drive

unless if you wanted to take a cd and make an image, just use isobuster, or nero image, it will create an image to ur hard drive

mapquest

when you mentioned hard drive image I fancied you meant something other than cd iso images.

to be clear, what images do you mean