Network install from USB key

[d03boy]

ComputerA and ComputerB

A has windowsxp. B will soon have mandrake (currently has slack)

 

I dont have floppy drives, or cd's at the moment

 

I have all 3 mandrake cd's in iso format on computer A

 

I want to install drake on computer B using a net install

 

I need to know:

• How to make my usb key bootable
  
  
• How to put net.img (or whatever I need) onto the USB key
  
  
• After booting from it, any info would be helpful
  
  

[johnnyh]

Assuming your Slack box sees your USB key as /dev/sda1 and assuming your Mandrake boot ISO is called boot.iso, do the following.

 

# mkdosfs /dev/sda1

# syslinux /dev/sda1

# mkdir /mnt/iso

# mkdir /mnt/usb

# mount -t iso9660 boot.iso /mnt/iso -o loop

# mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/usb

# cp /mnt/iso/isolinux/vmlinuz /mnt/usb

# cp /mnt/iso/isolinux/initrd.img /mnt/usb

# vi /mnt/usb/syslinux.cfg

 

--- syslinux.cfg ---

default vmlinuz

append initrd=initrd.img ramdisk_size=8192

--- end syslinux.cfg ---

 

# umount /mnt/iso

# umount /mnt/usb

 

Your USB key should now be bootable. Getting XP to mount the ISO images and getting Linux to see them on the NTFS system will take some doing, mind you. If you have the space on your HDD, copy the ISO images to a separate partition on Box B, mount them during install, and go from there.

 

HTH