>On Mon, Jan 11, 2010 at 3:30 PM, Mark <mamar...@gmail.com> wrote: >I have a couple old machines (i386) that I would like to be able to install Debian on from an hdd partition on the same physical hdd that the Lenny installation will reside on (on a different partition), so I can >avoid purchasing new CD or DVD drives (the ones in the machines don't work anymore, and USB booting is not an option). Reading the instructions here http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch05s01.html.en#boot-initrd I'm wondering if it's possible to get the boot process going without an existing operating system; here's my idea so far: > >- Shred hdd to erase all partitions >- Create 5GB ext3 partition at end of hdd via GParted >- Copy hd-media/initrd.gz into new ext3 partition >- Copy dvd installation .iso to new ext3 partition
Thinking more about it, I bet there needs to be a small FAT16 partition just before the 5 GB ext3 partition with initrd.gz, vmlinuz and syslinux.cfg on it. That's how I set up the usb devices per the manual and it worked. In this case I will used the hd-media version of these files instead of the usb versions though. Mark
