On Wed, 13 Jun 2012 10:27:22 +1000, Scott wrote in message
<4fd7de6a.6020...@gmail.com>:
> On 13/06/12 04:45, Brian wrote:
> > On Tue 12 Jun 2012 at 16:52:43 +0200, Arnt Karlsen wrote:
> >
> >> On Tue, 12 Jun 2012 11:01:22 +0100, Brian wrote in message
> >> <20120612100122.GJ30016@desktop>:
> >>
> >>> The DVD is a USB device. She cannot boot from USB on the machine
> >>> she wishes to install Debian to.
>
> Make and model?
> I can't think of any common laptops (or netbooks) manufactured in the
> last ten years that can't boot from a USB device.... only the Toshiba
> R series laptops, and then only if it's the Toshiba external DVD not
> using a Toshiba OEM DVD/CD - for which there is a work-around.
> Enable "legacy USB support" in the BIOS (and disable any USB
> "performance modes") and USB usually becomes bootable.
>
> <snipped>
>
> >
> >> ..once in grub, Karen wants to issue:"root (" and then hit the
> >> tab button twice, to get grub's suggestions on what it can boot.
> >> If that fails, take a standard grub meny entry and strip it
> >> "down" upwards from the bottom until the "root (" and try again
> >> from there, grub 2 is more modular than legacy grub, and I don't
> >> remember if I've ever done this "in anger" from grub-2.
>
> I've tried that a number of times with old machines whose BIOS didn't
> support USB booting, only on a couple of occasions did GRUB manage to
> use the root=/dev/sdb line.
> :-(
..the key is use the cdrom grub boot as a stepping stone to
find the usb dvd's boot record, and boot that. E.g. Knoppix
have a few 16?MB "boot only" isos to boot their 4GB dvd isos.
..in my (grub legacy) experience, I did this 3 ways, chainload
the next boot loader, or, use memdisk as kernel and the iso
image as initrd, and finally "the grub way", "root ([tab][tab]".
I borrowed memdisk from syslinux. ;o)
..but yes, grub and the kernel will often disagree on "what's where."
> I've have had some success in those case with floppy image from
> DamnSmallLinux designed for that purpose.
> PLoP will also allow you to boot from a CD/DVD that's not supported by
> the BIOS (pre-1998 BIOS)
..the first time I pulled such a stunt, (5 1996 vintage IBM 760ED
thinkpads that came with 3 cdrom and 2 bootable floppy drives to
fit the auxillary disk|battery compartment,) I put Smart Boot Manager
(http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/about.html) on the harddisk mbrs, then
removed the floppy drives and put in the cd drives and booted the
distro installer cds from the harddisks.
First X boot was an early knoppix clone that took 2.5 hours
off that poor 4x cd drive. ;o)
--
..med vennlig hilsen = with Kind Regards from Arnt Karlsen
...with a number of polar bear hunters in his ancestry...
Scenarios always come in sets of three:
best case, worst case, and just in case.
--
To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org
with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20120613200418.66f70...@celsius.lan
