I have an embedded processor with no CD, but with USB and a SATA disk.

I've used usb-creator-gtk, and installed from USB. But USB seems to be unreliable - a given USB stick works only sometimes and/or works on some boards, but not on others.

I've also tried building the SATA disk from a host with eSATA, but this is problematic, because the install detects the host hardware.

Is there a way to install the ubuntu live CD iso onto the SATA drive, using eSATA, and have it launch and install on the embedded processor? Perhaps by creating a small install partition?