A Solution for how to boot Fedora FC3 from a CD without using GRUB or a boot loader

[erap]

I downloaded the latest Fedora (Core 3) FC3 dvd image and burned it on a DVD.
I've only got a PC running XP, and (just like my previous linux installations) didn't want to mess up with my MBR (master boot record), GRUB. LILO etc etc things that I do not fully understand and do not want to spent too much time learning and fixing.
I just prefer the old fashioned 'boot disk' method to load Linux, with no changes whatsoever mand to the boot sequence.

If this sounds like you, read on.

(I've spend a few days trying to achieve this, reading tons of useless posts on the internet from people that didn't know what they were talking about, offered hypothetical solutions, too risky solutions, etc. Fortunately, a combination of these posts WORKED for me, so here is how to save everyone the time.

First things first: Having made the Fedora FC3 installation DVD, pop it in and boot.
I chose 'use empty disk space' and 'no boot loader' in the setup. I was told something like 'you'll need to use a disk to boot linux, since if you don't use a boot loader you won't be able to boot automaticaly'. OK, I said.
The problem: The Fedora installation finishes without prompting me to make a boot disk, and I am stuck. Linux was installed, but rebooting loads XP by default.

Here is why this happend and what to do next:

You can create a Fedora FC3 boot disk. However, it does not fit on a floppy.
(You've probably figured that much by looking around on the internet)

What you can do, is to create a CD boot disk and use it just like a floppy.
There are a few problems:
1) How to get into Fedora to create the CD boot disk? That one is easy, just boot using the installation DVD and choose F5, rescue mode. You'll be presented using a linux terminal similar to the one you try to install. From there, it is straightforward to tell Fedora to create the cd image required to burn a Fedora linux CD.
2) This is the more serious problem: I have created the image to burn on the CD.
How am I supposed to get it out of there and into Windows so that I can burn it on a CD?
(Remeber, it doesn;t fit on a floppy, and it is unique (specific) to your installation and kernel, so using your friend's CD wont work.
The solution I found? Copy the image onto a USB flash pen!!! Linux recognises them easily, and you can use them as easily as a floppy.
(OK, there is als a way to create a 'boot USB drive'. instead of a CD, meaning that you plug in yr USB key and start the PC whenever u want to boot linux, but I think this is over the top, and I need my USB key anyway. A CD is good enough).

STEP BY STEP GUIDE:

1) Download and burn the Fedora FC3 Installation DVD. Boot from it and install Fedora, choosing 'no boot loader'. (I assume youve dont that already).

2) Make sure you have a USB flask pen ready. I had also removed all the files from it, just in case. Also have a blank CDR or CDRW ready.

3) Plug in your USB key and leave it in the machine. (to ensure it is recognised)

3) Reboot the PC, using the Fedora Installation DVD. Press F5 to choose 'rescue mode' (you need to type 'linux rescue')

4) Follow some easy prompts (language etc). You'll also see thing on screen like 'usb-device found' etc. (good news!)

5) Allow the system to automatically find your installation. (click "continue").

6) You'll end up with a prompt. Type:
chroot /mnt/sysimage
to load the linux installation detected.

7) To create the CD image you'll need to burn on the CD later:
a) Find your kernel version. Type:
uname -r
My linux kernel version was 2.6.9-1.667
b) Type: mkbootdisk --iso --device boot-disk.iso 2.6.9-1.667
Replace the last bit with whatever number you got earlier. After a bit (and a warning I got), a file called boot-disk.iso was created. (type ls to verify). Quite expectibly, it was about 2.something MB so yes, it's too big for a floppy.

8) Time to put it on the USB key. Type
mkdir /mnt/jetflash
( My /mnt folder was empty. this creates the above folder)
Type:
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/jetflash
and see if the light on the USB key starts blnking. Sda1 is the name of the USB jet flash drive, as it is detected as a scsi device. NB: if you have other scsi devices, mayby the name will be different (e.g. sdb1), but in my case I don't have scsi hard disks etc).

9) Copy the CD boot image on the USB pen:
cp boot-disk.iso /mnt/jetflash

10) unmount:
umount /mnt/jetflash


11) Type exit twice to restart the PC. (the first exit undoes the effect of chroot you typed at the very start). Remove the DVD and USB device, and boot in Windows.

12) In Windows, use Nero or whatever to burn the image boot-disk.iso you have on your USB pen onto a CD, CDR CDRW...
While you are there, you may need to check your prefered screen resolution (mine was 1028x768) and monitor type, as linux will ask them next time you boot ...

13) Boot from the CD you have just crated! Fedora will start!!!!


GOOD LUCK.

[ltam]

Wow, this sounds like a lot of work. I'm sure there would be others who would need the same thing. I've tagged this thread for future reference.


Out of curiosity, Knoppix doesn't have what you need?

[PeTzZz]

Very nice how-to. I moved it to the How-To section.

[Ned]

Nice howto

But couldn't you just install GRUB to a floppy?

Boot from CD #1 to linux rescue mode and chroot to the mounted filesystem

chroot /mnt/sysimage

then install grub to a floppy

grub-install /dev/fd0

You should then be able to boot linux from the floppy.

Ned

[giacam]

Great post erap, just what I was looking for.
Ned, I tried to do what you suggest but after the chroot I have no more a floppy device, i.e /dev (/mnt/sysimage/dev in fact) contains only null and pts. I made a node to the floppy (mknod etc) but then it complains for something other device not found, or not found in BIOS.

I must add to erap's post that to do step 8 I had to exit from the chroot command, to be able to mount the flash pen (again, /mnt/sysimage/dev is empty...).
More puzzling is point 7: my uname -r gave me 2.6.-1.358, but when I tried mkbootdisk I discovered that in /lib I had 2.6.9-1.667, so I supplied that.

Everything works fine, thanks!

[mndar]

Wonderful idea erap.
Since we are on this topic, here is another method to boot linux without affecting the MBR. You will need GRUB though.
As we all know, Windows XP doesn't recognise Linux partitions and therefore it isn't possible to boot Linux using NTLDR. But there is something you can do about this.
1>Install FC3 as you would normally. Just make sure that you have a seperate /boot partition and you install GRUB into this /boot partition and NOT the MBR.
2> Boot from the Rescue CD and create a file using the following command.
dd if=/dev/hda2 of=grub.bin bs=512 count=1
[Replace '/dev/hda2' with whatever your /boot partition is. You can get the partition table using 'fdisk -l'
3>Copy this grub.bin file to your Windows partition. Assuming its C:\. There should now be a file, 'grub.bin' in you C:\ drive under windows XP.
4> Edit your C:\boot.ini file and add the following line at the end.
c:\grub.bin="MY LINUX Operating systems"
5>Now reboot. You will see a option asking you what you wanna boot
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
MY LINUX Operating systems

If you select 'Microsoft Windows XP Professional', XP will boot as usual. If you select Linux, you will go into GRUB. As a new user, this method guarantees that you don't mess up your MBR. Also, you can play around with the grub.conf file and it still won't be risking your entire system. You can later set the '/boot' partition as the active partition so that you directly go into GRUB on startup. Here are my partition table, grub.conf, and C:\boot.ini files for reference.

[root@mndar ~]# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 80.0 GB, 80060424192 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9733 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/hda1               1        1305    10482381    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA) <-this is where XP is installed. Thats my C:\ drive
/dev/hda2   *        1306        1318      104422+  83  Linux        <---this is my '/boot' partition
/dev/hda3            1319        2611    10386022+  83  Linux       <---this is my '/' partition
/dev/hda4            2612        9733    57207465    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/hda5            2612        8428    46725021    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda6            8429        8559     1052226   82  Linux swap
/dev/hda7            8560        9733     9430123+  83  Linux

grub.conf

[root@mndar ~]# cat /boot/grub/grub.conf
# grub.conf generated by anaconda
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making changes to this file
# NOTICE:  You have a /boot partition.  This means that
#          all kernel and initrd paths are relative to /boot/, eg.
#          root (hd0,1)
#          kernel /vmlinuz-version ro root=/dev/hda3
#          initrd /initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda2
default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,1)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora Core (2.6.9-1.667smp)
        root (hd0,1)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667smp ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
        initrd /initrd-2.6.9-1.667smp.img
title Fedora Core-up (2.6.9-1.667)
        root (hd0,1)
        kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
        initrd /initrd-2.6.9-1.667.img
title  Debian Install
        kernel (hd0,1)/hdmedia/26/vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 devfs=mount,dall ramdisk_size=17000
        initrd (hd0,1)/hdmedia/26/initrd.gz
title Other
        rootnoverify (hd0,0)
        chainloader +1

C:\boot.ini

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=c:\linux.bin
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
c:\grub.bin="Linux"

[alphonsebrown]

mndar that's very interesting approach if you do dual boot and eventually reinstall WIN who will mess the MBR anyway...

[mndar]

yes..it will mess the MBR, but GRUB is installed in the /boot partition. you just have to copy the grub.bin file to c:\ and edit the boot.ini file and your are done !

[alphonsebrown]

Originally Posted by mndar

yes..it will mess the MBR, but GRUB is installed in the /boot partition. you just have to copy the grub.bin file to c:\ and edit the boot.ini file and your are done !

that's what I mean is good about your approach, but I'm not followinf why one needs separate partition for boot files?

[mndar]

Good point... I am not sure if it is necessary to have a separate /boot partition for using this method. The only reason I used a separate boot partiton is that I did not want to risk the '/' partition.
Say I forget my root password, I have to re-install FC3 (minimal install), this time NOT formatting the '/' partition so that all the programs i have nstalled , KDE etc remain intact. This will re-install GRUB, thus changing the boot sector. I am not too sure what happens here, so I mentioned a separate /boot partition. If you don't have a separate boot partition, you could try if that method works and let us know.
Well, If u mess up anything, you can always use this http://fedoraforum.org/forum/attachm...achmentid=4651
It has a floppy image and a ISO of GRUB. Burn the ISO and boot from the CD, you have GRUB there. There you will be able to issue the standard commands

root (hd0,X)                                                     <--this is you /boot partition, in case you don't have a separate /boot partition, all paths will be relative to '/'. so the following lines will be /boot/vmlinuz.....
kernel /vmlinuz-<kernel-version> root=/dev/hdY
initrd /initrd-<kernel-version>
boot

to boot your already installed linux

[alphonsebrown]

Originally Posted by mndar

Say I forget my root password, I have to re-install FC3 (minimal install), this time NOT formatting the '/' partition so that all the programs i have nstalled , KDE etc remain intact. This will re-install GRUB, thus changing the boot sector.

if you reinstall there is an option whether to reinstall GRUB, and how can this help? minimal install isn't it going to overwrite conf files? is it applicable to preset inside the ISO this code?
and by the way that is th difference between the two files in that archive, if any?

I have GRUB in MBR how can I restore it there, I tried with grub-install... /dev/.. not working? something's wrong with syntax

[mndar]

if you reinstall there is an option whether to reinstall GRUB, and how can this help?

While installing, check the box that says "Configure Advanced Boot loader options". Now you will be able to choose where exactly to wanna install GRUB. For more information on installing GRUB see 'info grub'

minimal install isn't it going to overwrite conf files?

Well, It does. In my experience with FC3, the xorg.conf file was overwritten but all other settings, the themes in KDE, splash screen settings, fonts etc. all remained intact!! So all I had to do was adjust the screen resolution, and I was done!

is it applicable to preset inside the ISO this code?

I didn't exactly get what you are trying to ask.

and by the way that is th difference between the two files in that archive, if any?

the img file is a floppy disc image. In Linux, you can write it to a floppy using

dd if=grub.bin of=/dev/fd0

or using rawwritewin.exe under windows. You can also use it to create a bootable CD.
on the other hand, the iso can be directly burned to a CD and used

[jim]

Also every time you upgrade the kernel you'll need to do this process again Since the kernel has been upgraded 4 times since dec thats 4 cds that are useless. Good article tho for users that occasionally use linux.

[mndar]

Initially, I thought that would be an issue, but it worked for me without having to change anything. I was initially running the 2.6.11-1.1177_FC4smp kernel that came with FC3. I am now using 2.6.11.3, the GRUB menu.lst entries etc. have changed but I am still able to use the same grub.bin file.
Also, since I have set this partition, the '/boot' partition, to active, I directly go into the GRUB menu and select the Linux installation I wanna boot. In the GRUB menu, I can select "Other'[the commands for this being root (hd0,0) chainloader +1 ], to get the NTLDR menu!. Choosing Linux there, brings me back to the GRUB menu!

[xyy]

HI guy, I've a problem, in step 7b when I type command mkbootfisk I receive the this message "command not found".... why??? it was all right form step1 to 7a, but I use Fedora Core 4 test1

thanks