How can I start an installation of a non-bootable CD using a boot floppy?
 

Dear members,

I received a installation CD of a tool based on CentOS7-64.
The CD is not bootable. It is fine to upgrade the tool but not to start an installation from scratch.
I will have many differents versions of this tool and want to find an easy way the start the installation.
The CDROM provided by my manufacturer contains a full centOS7-64 installation image.

I tried to create a floopy boot image file but it fails.

I installed centOS7-32 and try :

# mount -t iso9660 /dev/cdrom /media
# cd /media/images/pxeboot

# dd if=initrd.img of=/dev/fd0

dd: writing to'/dev/fd0' : No space left on device
2881+ record in
2880+ records out
1474560 bytes (1.5 MB) copied, 0.16194 s, 9.1 MB/s


What is the better way to boot on floppy and then load cdrom driver and to start the installation from the CDROM ?

I tried "allinone.img" and "bootE-0.10.img" but none of them seems to be suitable to solve my issue.

Thanks for your support and advices.

Best regards.
Pascal

Welcome to LinuxQuestions.

If the tool runs on CentOS 7 and the CD is supposed to be a full installation of Centos 7 but does not boot then I would ask the manufacture for help.

I would not expect an upgrade to require a reinstall of the operating system but without any knowledge of said tool I can only guess.

Does your computer hardware support a 64 bit operating system. Have you tried installing CentOS7-64?

You can try plop boot loader.

I agree with michaelk about contacting the vendor, but another solution might be to create a bootable USB drive from a CentOS image (or even a CentOS 'live' distro), and keep the vendor software on another USB. Boot from one USB stick, mount the vendor software from the other, and run the installer.

Floppy booting is going to be difficult.

Thanks for your reply.

The CDROM provided by the manufacturer is not supposed to be used to boot.
It is supposed to be used only to upgrade the system, OS and application. It is the reason why it is not bootable.
I want to make some tests in my lab and need to install the application and the OS from the CD I received.
USB is not supported by the application.
The only way I see, it is to boot from a floppy, load CDROM drivers and then start the installation from the CDROM (as I am use to proceede on Windows operatind system).
Is there any way to do such basic function?

Based on your advise, I tried plop boot loader. It fails. Once I selected CDROM from the boot option, I have got the message "CD NOT BOOTABLE".

Any other suggestion?

Thanks.

You did state the CD is not bootable. Without knowing the contents of the CD we have no way knowing what is possible and your two statements seem contradict each other.

There is no modern kernel that can boot from a floppy disk anymore so that is not an option. What is wrong with using an downloaded CentOS 7-64 installation image from the CentOS website. You did state you installed CentOS 7-32.

Here is the list of folder and file present on my CD.

X Centos
X Cisco
X images
X isolinux
X LiveOS
X repodata
X sources
.discinfo
autorun
checksum_file
checksum_file.sgn
EULA
GPL
isofilename
ks.cfg
platformConfig_cuba.xml
RPM-GPG-KEY-redhat-release
TRANS.TBL
upgradeCOnfig.xml

I installed centOS from an image downloaded from internet to create a boot floopy. I failed.
I can't isntall my own centOS and then install the application.
The installation process install OS and applicaiton at once and I don't have root access to it.
It is not a problem if I can just start the installation from the CDROM but my concern is about the fact my CD is not bootable.
There is no way to do that?
Starting from a very light ditrib of linux on a floppy even if it is an old one and then, start the full installation, OS and application, from the CDROM?
I tried "bootE-0.10.img" but I was not able to mount the CDROM (access denied).

Showing us a directory listing tells us nothing. We don't know (because you still haven't told us), what this software is, how it SHOULD be installed/updated, etc.
Right; because again, you can't do that with modern kernels. And honestly, what's the point? I haven't seen a machine with a floppy drive in about 20 years, much less know where to buy a floppy disk.
Then again: **CONTACT YOUR VENDOR**. You are giving us no details.
Again: NO, and there is no point. Either you have a defective disc (contact vendor), or you have bad installation instructions (contact vendor).

Thanks for your advices.

Just to clarify.

I have got a CD from my manufacturer. On this CD there is an image to install centOS7-64 and the manufacturer application (CISCO). I listed the folders and files just to help to understand what is burned on this CD.
This CD is supposed to be used for upgrade only. It is the reason why it is not bootable. If I had a running version of the tool, I could start the upgrade process without booting from the CD, the system would be live.

My concern is that, I would like to use this CDROM for a non-standard installation for test in my lab.
I don't have the tool previously installed in my lab and before applying the upgrade on the live system, I would like make some test in the lab.
I can use 60 days free licences for test, but first of all, I need to install it.
I can install the old version in my lab and then start an upgrade but what I am trying to do now, it is to find a way to avoid that extra step because I will probably install and remove the tool many times during my tests.

I can't ask my manufacturer to change anything on the CD because it is not the way I am suppose to work.
If it was simple, I did't need your help ;-)

Do you better understand what I am trying to do?

I am only tryinf to find a way to start an installation from a non-bootable CD knowing that USB is not supported.
I was thinking booting from a floppy disk could be an option but based on your text, I can imagine it is not.

Your CD shows a isolinux directory, that should most likely be syslinux to boot a .iso image, so I'm guessing you have a bad CD.

Your post came in after I started mine. :)

Maybe, extract the CD contents, & re create it as a bootable cd image.

(A possible is to run isohybrid against the CD.iso image, then try booting it, from a pendrive.)

..and you ***STILL*** don't bother telling us what software/application you're talking about. Again, if it was shipped from the manufacturer and is SUPPOSED to be used to upgrade things, then contact the manufacturer for instructions on how to use it, or if you're having problems. Simple.
Then I guess you can't. You are still not providing answers to questions.
Yes; you're trying to use software you don't know how to use, in a way it wasn't designed to work. The upgrade packages are typically just UPGRADES...not the entire suite. You start with a base and install it.
And how did we know this was not supported, since you've not TOLD US until now?
Don't imagine; know. The kernel itself is bigger than a floppy can hold; simple math.

The tool is CISCO UC applications (CUCM, voicemail, ... and many others) but that doesn't matter, the question is just about how to boot.
Based on your advice, it is just not possible.

The same tool was previously based on a Red-hat image and it was easy to transform the CD to a boot CD. I used the "isolinux.bin" present on the CD, and burned a new bootable image.
Since CISCO moved to centOS, it is no more possible. Any change on the CD result in a checksum error probably due to Grub.
There is a full centOS7-64 installation image on the CD, believe me.

There are very small distribution like "bootE-0.10.img" which can run on one single or just a few floppy disk. I didn't find the right one which can cover my issue.
"plop boot loader" is not, it result in a message "CD not bootable".

Any other suggestion? Other usefull tool to manage boot? Any tool, maybe also based on DOS floppy boot image?

Thanks,

The CD has been remastered but the bootloader not installed despite the existence of the isolinux directory.

It should be possible to recreate the ISO and make it bootable but I agree with fatmac and that a bootable flash drive would be the easiest. You need to create an ISO file from the CD and use rufus to create a bootable flash drive. rufus requires a flash drive with a FAT32 filesystem.

I wonder if you could use a regular centos of that version and boot to it then point to this image for the install?

Cisco ought to have all that available on their site I'd think.


Wonder why they offered such an old copy of boot anywhere linux image?

Easy2Boot is supposed to allow you to boot CDs from ISOs on a storage device (USB stick). There's PXE boot to network boot things. With grub you can boot things, even other grubs. I often use that one for first boots. And then install grub on that device while booted to it (with the USB stick I don't want to change unplugged).

I found the tool ;-)

I use a MS-DOS 6.22 boot floppy with CDROM drivers.
From the floppy disk, I can load the kernel stored on the CD with the tool "Loadlin.exe".
It works fine and it is exactly what I needed.
No need to change anything on the CD, just using a floppy to boot and load kernel on the CD.
All required parameters to use are available in the isolinux.cfg file present on the CD.

Thanks and have a happy Easter.

Regards