hi everybody. i'm trying to replace a dead hard drive in an old netbook with a 32 gb SSD. i wanted to use puppy linux as the OS. i've been reading in various places the how-to's on installing puppy linus and i'm very confused. i think if i follow the directions, i can install on a USB but that's not what i want to do. and i don't have a CD drive on any of my machines. i have a (different) win7 laptop where i can download files and all. i hooked up my new 32 gb SSD via a USB-SATA cable to my laptop and can see it like any external drive. it seems that the instructions on installing puppy to a hard drive refers to installing it on the same hard drive as windows and dual-booting. i definitely don't want to do that. can i install puppy linux my my ssd like it's an external CD or USB, following the directions as if the ssd was an external cd or usb flash drive, and then install the ssd as an INTERNAL drive into my dead netbook?

Only 32GB?? I have flash drives bigger than that, but okay...

If you have another machine you can plug the SSD in and use dd to copy the image to the disk. Just make sure you get the right one.

For example:
Or, if it suits your fancy use unetbootin.

Keep in mind that you are copying the live image to the harddrive. So, when you go to install Puppy Linux, since it loads itself into RAM, blow the drive and install as you normally would. Then reboot, and you have Puppy installed.

Puppy is a special distro but it does have a few ways to install both in how it installs and what type of install.

Choose your install type first then choose your install method.

I might consider methods of pxe, usb boot and as above remove drive to other system.

thank! i think unetbootin is exactly what someone like me needs. it looks like i'll have to install puppy to the ssd as if it were a usb drive, i'm hoping that once i put it in my old netbook, it'll just work like an internal drive, operating system and all. i only got a 32 gb SSD because i was going to use the netbook like a glorified chromebook, and maybe download some movies for the road on occasion. don't need it for anything else.

When it asks where are the files during the install process. Make sure your usb is mounted 1st before you get to that part of the install process. Then pick the other option that does not say cd but files. Then point to pendrive.

Make sure drive is pre-formatted with gparted before running the installer. No swap partition should be put on ssd. Just my opinion.

i thought the unetbootin was the perfect solution, but it didn't work: when i attach my SSD, it shows up in windows as "E:". but unetbootin doesn't see it as a USB drive. i can pick "hard drive" but then my only option is the "C:" drive.

so i'm stuck. i'd really like to get puppy on my new ssd and use that as in internal drive in my netbook, but don't know how; and i don't want to just boot the netbook from USB all the time. help?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxVOH3mo3Gw


https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...-links-457465/

you could install puppy to usb key and copy iso to usb key using laptop. Then insert usb key into netbook with ssd installed and boot puppy from usb key. Create partition on ssd with gparted, then run universal installer to install puppy to ssd. frugal install is the prefered method of install

edit: make /boot directory and install grub to the ssd mbr and mark the partition that puppy is installed to active so as to be able to boot puppy

i didn't go through the whole youtube video, because the first part involved putting puppy linux on a CD and booting off that before doing anything else. i dont have any computers with a cd-drive (but i may have to find someone who does if i can't find another way). thanks for everyone's suggestions. i probably wasn't clear as to what i wanted to do. i don't want to have to keep booting my netbook off of a USB (although it worked ok -- can't get my wifi to work with it, but that's another issue).

1. my netbook's hard drive is dead.
2. i bought a 32 gb SSD to replace the netbook's internal hard drive.
3. i want to put an OS, preferably puppy linux, on the SSD. I have a USB to SATA cable that i can use to move files off and on the SSD using a different (windows) laptop.
4. i was hoping there was an easy way (for me, since i can follow only simple cookbook instructions) to put the OS on the SSD, just like putting it on a bootable CD or USB. i don't need dual-boot or anything fancy.
5. i thought unetbootin was going to work, but when i connect the SSD via the SATA to USB cable, unetbootin doesn't recognize the SSD as a USB drive.

pretty much everything i've read involves things like installing linux onto my functioning laptop's hard drive and making it dual boot, or booting my netbook off external media. my laptop is fine and i don't need a new OS on it. i don't want to boot my netbook using USB (and i don't have a CD drive anywhere)

did you try my method of installing?

i thought your method was going to work, but i got stuck on the gparted thing. i ran gparted and got warning about ntfs and making some linux file system thing instead of ntfs or fat or something, which went completely over my head. i tried to just make a partition but couldn't really figure out how.

To keep from getting warning reformat drive as ext4.

Do not install Puppy on the drive in a conventional way. It can be done, but it's not recommended as the result is not secure, since Puppy runs in administrative mode. Puppy is secure if loaded into memory at each boot, which is what they intend. That can be done from a CD, USB stick, or a hard drive.

The last method what you need. You start with the live CD or USB, which I presume you have. When you run it, you can do what's called a frugal install.
http://puppylinux.org/main/How%20NOT...#FrugalInstall

But before you do that, you need to run the program Gparted and reformat your SSD to a Linux filing system, like ext3 or ext4. Create two partitions: one for swap, of about 1GB, and the rest for Puppy. You can see what Gparted looks like here (if this page looks complicated, remember it's giving you a lot of information you don't need, but others do)
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/gparted.html

1 members found this post helpful.

thanks for everyone's thoughts and advice --- truly appreciated! managed to get it done, but i couldn't get puppy linux to recognize the wireless adapter. it was fun while it lasted, but i'm definitely one of those that need idiot-proof ready-to-go solutions.