how do I install fc12 from a hard drive partition?

LinuxHippy · #1 2nd December 2009, 12:03 AM

how do I install fc12 from a hard drive partition? I downloaded the fc12 dvd iso file...when I burned this to a DVD it wanted to install from my DVD and not a file on external media.

---------- Post added at 08:03 PM CST ---------- Previous post was at 07:53 PM CST ----------

this looks like it:

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/instal...install-hd-x86

LinuxHippy · #2 2nd December 2009, 03:33 PM

this is a bit cyrptic...I stumbled though and got it to work, though. First download the DVD iso and burn it to a DVD or mount it as a loopback device so you can copy the file install.img from the image (it is in the image directory I think). Copy the install.img and DVD.iso to a partition you won't be using for the new install. Then boot the DVD and press TAB at the menu on a install line and add a space and askmethod and press ENTER. Then it should boot and not ask for a media check. After indicating the install language and keyboard language it presents you with a menu asking where the install media is located. Select hard drive and then enter the partition and directory where install.img is. I did this:

/dev/sda8
/FC12/install.img

If it finds the ISO and install.img then it continues the install from the ISO file.

stoat · #3 2nd December 2009, 05:13 PM

Hello LinuxHippy,

That's good. But I've been curious all along about what the advantage of this is to you. If you created the installation DVD and booted the computer with it, why did you choose not to install from the DVD? I just want to make sure that I am not missing out on something useful.

LinuxHippy · #4 2nd December 2009, 09:19 PM

2 reasons I always do it this way now:

1) My DVD burner is slowly dying and sounds like an old lawn mower when it runs-it scares me.

2) Speed-it's a lot faster to install from the internal hard drive (even faster for me than a usb external drive...I never tried a firewire external drive). I installed 5 GB (KDE, GNOME, XFCE, and a bunch of additional repo apps) from the iso and 4 repos in an hour...and that's with a 1.5 Mbps DSL connection.

stoat · #5 2nd December 2009, 10:59 PM

Okay, fair enough. It is a faster installation process. If you have an existing Linux system on the hard drive (say, Fedora 12 when the time comes to install Fedora 13), you can extract vmlinuz, initrd.img, and /images/install.img from the ISO file (or download them) to the same partition with the ISO file and boot vmlinuz from the existing Linux (either from a grub> prompt at its menu or the grub.conf file). Then you won't have to burn a disk at all. You can also boot vmlinuz using a Super Grub Disk to boot the machine to a grub> prompt in case there isn't an existing Linux next time. The Super Grub Disk might even directly boot vmlinuz. I never tried that on Anaconda's kernel, but it does have the capability to directly boot kernels. Anyway, a Super Grub Disk is a handy thing to have around.

P.S.: The Super Grub Disk comes in a USB version for pendrives in case that DVD drive is long gone by the time Fedora 13 comes around.

LinuxHippy · #6 3rd December 2009, 12:14 AM

yup-I did that years ago....maybe with FC5 or Slackware12? I just edited grub.conf to have a boot option to boot an install. Couldn't tell you, though, where I got the vmlinuz or initrd.img files....probably from some repo.

EDIT:

Actually, I'm thinking now that I could have gotten vmlinuz and initrd.img from the install iso file. They are in the FC12 DVD under isolinux. I like to burn the media first, though, rather than doing a loopback device so that I have an emergency DVD.