Install (any) linux to netbook from USB external HDD.
 

Hi there,

A few years ago I was really good with computers, and I could of sorted this, but as the years have gone by I have lost patience, and knowledge by the looks of things.

I have bought a netbook, used from ebay. Plainly for the purpose of surfing the web and playing music.

It only has a 8GB SSD drive, and 1GB of ram, and has come pre-installed with Windows XP, which runs really slowly. So I would like to install a linux distro, because I know for a fact it will run a bit faster.

So here's my problem(s)...

Netbook does not have a built in CD drive, and I don't want to buy an external one before anyone suggests it. I have downloaded puppy linux, and used MagicISO to extract it onto my external HDD, which I plan to use for storage of said music.

When I boot netbook from USB drive, I just get BOOTMGR is missing.

Can someone please explain, in simple terms...

How do I install a nice small version of linux, on my netbook (I don't want to run it live) - from my external HDD.

If anyone can suggest any good distros that will suit me, then please feel free to comment!


Many thanks for your much needed help!

First thing is that, the time has gone when people used to use a CD/DVD only to install their OS. You can now use a USB stick for the same, so no need to buy any external CD/DVD drive.

Just download unetbootin software (from here), choose your distro, perpare a bootable USB and boot from it.

And if you already have some .iso of your desired linux distro, you can directly create a bootable USB from that .iso using unetbootin s/w.

Have good luck to you!

Well the Windows XP install for some reason will not connect to the internet, it seems as if it is corrupted somehow. Is there any way of doing it without having to go into Windows XP on the netbook first?

You can download the software from any other PC which has Internet connectivity. Software unetbootin is 4.91 MB in size only and even not required to be installed.

Butttt do I not have to have a copy of a linux distro on the netbook at the same time? I dont have enough room for it on the hard drive

Is there no way of just installing linux onto the external HDD, then just install it from there onto the netbook, without having to mess about with xp on the netbook?

If you can boot from the external hdd then you are good, a $5 USB stick is just going to be seen as an external hdd anyway. Put your BOOTABLE iso on whatever and boot the netbook and install. You will probably have to go into the bios on the netbook to tell it to boot from the external or the USB rather than the internal hard drive. There is no reason for you to ever boot into windows xp with any of the suggestions provided thus far.

Yes I can boot from USB, but when I tried last time, it said BOOTMGR missing. From the top, and with which software, how do I put linux on the HDD so that it will install from it, if that makes sense?

That is exactly what unetbootin is for. It puts a .iso onto a USB drive to allow you to boot form it.
It is possible, with some .isos, to simply dd them onto a USB stick but not all will work that way.

If you do not have a .iso or do not have space on netbook to keep an .iso, then you also need not to download one and keep it on your PC.
But atleast download and install unetbootin, launch it, select your fav. distribution and it's version. Then connect a USB stick, select USB path in unetbootin and click OK.

Unetbootin will automatically download an .iso and load and store it on USB.

Once give it a try and let's know if you face any problem.