Install Fedora 10 without cd/dvd

arkantos · #1 2009-02-04, 08:14 AM CST

How to install Fedora 10 without the use of optical drive. I have the ISO file in a XP system. And I dont have a linux installation in my PC. I also have an external hard drive I can use. I want to make it dual booting with XP and fedora 10.

thanks

**stoat** · #2 2009-02-04, 12:08 PM CST

Hello arkantos,

You can install Fedora 10 from the ISO file. The instructions are in Section 6.2 of the Installation Guide and are simple enough. But in your situation without an optical drive or an existing Linux system, the problem will be booting the Fedora kernel (vmlinuz) and initial ramdisk (initrd.img) to start the installer (aka Anaconda).

The files needed

Fedora 10 DVD iso file or the CD iso files
vmlinuz
initrd.img
install.img

Those last three files can be extracted the from the DVD iso file or the first CD iso file, but without a Linux system it will be easier to download them. You already have the iso file. So now download the others from the ~/os/images and ~/os/isolinux subdirectories where you got the iso file. Make sure that you get them from the same version and arch subdirectory where the iso file came from (i.e., ~/releases/10/Fedora/i386 etc.). I recommend that you put all of the above files together in a FAT32 partition on the hard drive even if you have to create a small FAT32 just for them. You can even leave it there for future re-installs. Create a subdirectory named "images" for the install.img file. Leave the others in the root directory of the FAT32 partition.

Other ways to boot the kernel (than with an optical drive)

A floppy boot disk
1. An image for a GRUB boot floppy is available for download. I have used that image before myself. It's an older version of GRUB, but it works to boot a computer to a grub> prompt from which GRUB shell commands can be run to launch the kernel (explained below). From that same site, you can download a simple DOS application called rawrite.exe that you can use in Windows to transfer the image to a floppy disk. The simple instructions can be displayed by rawrite.exe itself.
2. Another floppy option is the Super Grub Disk. It's a free utility that comes in a CD, floppy and USB version. It can directly launch vmlinuz and initrd.img. But I recommend simply using the Super Grub Disk's grub> prompt to manually issue those commands. To get the Super Grub Disk's grub> prompt, press 'c' at the main menu as with any GRUB menu.
A bootable USB stick. The simplest thing for this is the USB version of the Super Grub Disk as explained above already.
GRUB4DOS is a well-known DOS application that you can use from your Windows system to boot GRUB-booted systems like Linux. It can also be used to launch the Fedora installer's kernel by adding a menu entry to boot vmlinuz and initrd.img. GRUB4DOS comes with its own documentation.

The manual commands to launch the Fedora installer from a grub> prompt

Code:

grub> root (hdx,y)

grub> kernel /vmlinuz

grub> initrd /initrd.img

grub> boot

You change x & y in the root command to the drive & partition where the files are located. For example, (hd0,0) is the first drive, first partition. When you enter that boot command, the Anaconda installer starts. Answer the keyboard and language prompts. Choose "Hard drive". Then choose the partition with the ISO file. When you do that, it continues on with the familar graphical Anaconda to install Fedora.

NOTE: Those are the same commands that you would put in the GRUB4DOS menu.lst if you decide to use that method to boot the kernel. However, you would omit the boot command. When used in a menu.lst file, the boot command is always implied.

P.S.: If you have trouble figuring out x & y for the root command, then run the following command at the grub> prompt. The result will be exactly what to use in the root command...

Code:

grub> find /vmlinuz

icanfly0307 · #3 2009-02-04, 12:18 PM CST

I know that you've already downloaded the ISO file, but when I used Grub4DOS, it totally bricked my system. It erased NTLDR and I couldn't boot into windows. Of course, you could try this at your own risk.

My suggestion is that you do a network install if you have a high speed internet connection. Unetbootin is an excellent tool for this: http://lubi.sourceforge.net/unetbootin.html.

Install the Windows Version, Select "Fedora" "Net Install" and you should be set to go. Hope this helps.

**stoat** · #4 2009-02-04, 01:51 PM CST

Quote:

Originally Posted by icanfly0307

...when I used Grub4DOS, it totally bricked my system. It erased NTLDR and I couldn't boot into windows. Of course, you could try this at your own risk.

One of the installation options of GRUB4DOS (like any other boot loader, I guess) is to install it in the master boot record. That sounds like what you may have done. But you don't have to do that to use it in a Windows system. For example, in Windows XP you can simply unzip the GRUB4DOS download file and copy grldr and menu.lst to your Windows C:\ directory. Next edit XP's boot.ini file to add a line to boot grldr from the XP boot menu. Then you can put entries in the menu.lst file for whatever you want to boot with GRUB4DOS. It doesn't harm NTLoader at all in that configuration. It did it that way. Later on, I removed it just by deleting those two files and re-editing boot.ini.

I'm glad you brought this up in case arkantos wants to consider GRUB4DOS. I didn't write details like this in my first post because it sort of got long enough as is. But not only for that... Having a GRUB4DOS menu entry in the XP boot menu could come handy sometime to emergency boot a Linux system with a busted boot loader.

adrynochome · #5 2009-02-04, 02:50 PM CST

Quote:

Originally Posted by arkantos

How to install Fedora 10 without the use of optical drive. I have the ISO file in a XP system. And I dont have a linux installation in my PC. I also have an external hard drive I can use. I want to make it dual booting with XP and fedora 10.

thanks

I'm pretty much in the same boat...here's my dilemma, I want xp and fedora dual OS also...i have a working pc with xp...my laptop is the one that i'm trying to install fedora on. My laptop is a compaq presario v5000...it cannot boot from usb, and the cd rom drive has a faulty connection, so no booting from disk either. I have poweriso on both computers and i have downloaded the live images. I'm not too familiar with poweriso...someone else put it on there. I have an external drive in fat32 format with a partition in ext2. I have also partitioned my c drive on the internal harddrive on my laptop and have included a small swap partition for linux. I did this using partitionmagic and they're in linux format as well. my d drive is fat32....remaining active c drive is ntfs.

now...

i've been reading up about this for DAYS and i still cannot find an answer.

i was hoping i could run fedora like a program through xp and then install it...
and boot from hard drive...

my laptop is already pretty out of shape so if all goes to heck and it dies, i'm not too concerned....keep this in mind.

I don't know which files to extract from the iso files that i have downloaded. they are the correct architecture though.

I think i saw somewhere to put them on a fat32 drive so that windows and linux could access them...idk (my d drive)

I'm a noob please help.

oh also, i don't know when to set the newly partitioned drives as "active"
and bootmagic will not allow me to access configuration options.

on last reboot it listed "xp" and then it had an "x" since the next OS has not been installed and i chose to install later...it rebooted fine, and i chose to use the current OS (of course) but idk where to go from here.

.....at all.