Can a LIVE CD be copied to hd so as to be available for boot at startup?

redhat5 · 08-14-2009, 12:13 PM

I have a CENT OS 5.3 Live CD which has following folders:

1.isolinux
2.LiveOS

I wish to know:

Can i copy the contents of this CD to my Hard Drive so that i can use CENT OS 5.3 as my additional Operating System besides RHEL5 Desktop installation.

fdisk -l

returns

[root@localhost ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 13 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 14 1288 10241437+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 1289 1419 1052257+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 1420 9729 66750075 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 1420 9729 66750043+ 8e Linux LVM

If its possible, please tell me the exact steps to do it.

Where should the files be copied?
And i think, i will also need to edit some file named menu.lst.
Where can i find that file?

Thank You

Regards
Redhat5

linus72 · 08-14-2009, 12:27 PM

Yeah
it might work

copy those two folders to hd
edit /boot/grub/menu.lst

and add centos entries
Post your isolinux.cfg and we can convert it to menu.lst

also, can centos 5.3 boot from usb?

redhat5 · 08-14-2009, 12:32 PM

Thanks for the reply.

The isolinux.cgf file has been attached as .txt in this post.

I do not know where to copy these two files and how to edit the menu.lst entries.

I have not checked out it on USB.

Redhat5

linus72 · 08-14-2009, 12:40 PM

I'm gonn try it now....

windtalker10 · 08-14-2009, 12:44 PM

What you're asking may be possible with Centos, I never tried it.
The only way I know to do what you're asking for is to either dual boot or just install the distro you wish as your operating system.
Dual booting with grub [assuming you're using grub] isn't that complicated, just "scarey" the first time around.
Distro's related to one another are the easiest to set up for dual booting,, ie, Ubuntu and Kubuntu for instance.
In your case, Fedora and CentOs may be easier to set up since they're both Red Hat related.
It is also possible to install some .iso's without burning them to a cd/dvd,,, simply drop the .iso somewhere and install from the .iso itself.
Doesn't work on all distro's and is complicated as heck, but it can be done.

linus72 · 08-14-2009, 12:54 PM

Yeah it works great

you goota edit your menu.lst

here's CentoS5.3 isolinux.cfg

Code:

label linux0
  menu label Boot CentOS-5.3-i386-LiveCD
  kernel vmlinuz0
  append initrd=initrd0.img root=CDLABEL=CentOS-5.3-i386-LiveCD rootfstype=iso9660 ro quiet liveimg

here's the grub menu.lst entry I just made for centos

Code:

title CentOS-5.3 LiveCD
root (hd0,5)
kernel /LiveOS/vmlinuz0 initrd=/LiveOS/initrd0.img root=UUID=7fe055ba-c753-4616-8b3a-36fe0aeef4d2 rootfstype=ext3 rw quiet liveimg 
initrd /LiveOS/initrd0.img

so, just change root=CDLABEL=CentOS-5.3-i386-LiveCD

to root=UUID=?

and rootfstype from iso9660 to ext3 or whatever

and change ro to rw

to find UUID, do blkid as root

login to centos as root too

I'm writing you from centos now
see screenshot

EDIT: I placed everything in isolinux folder into LiveOS folder

linus72 · 08-14-2009, 12:58 PM

How did I figure that out?
LOL
I am multidistro baby!

Fed11/centos are cousins right?

I just used same cheatcodes fed11 usb uses

I wonder if CentOS can run persistent off usb/hd using fed11's "overlay" like fed11 does?
Maybe I'll try that....

windtalker10 · 08-14-2009, 12:59 PM

Interesting and informative:
Thx for the follow up.
May prove useful to others.

linus72 · 08-14-2009, 01:55 PM

OK
seems the persistent overlay doesn't work with centos 5.3?

it works with fed11 though
thats how I installed fed11, dso I didn't have to make ext4 partition....