Howto: Install Ubuntu without a CD

**volneilo** · October 12th, 2008

Hmmm... got a problem too.. Installed Unetbootin in order to create a live USB with Puppy Linux. Carelessly I sent the installation to my Windows partition instead of the USB flash drive one... Now, every time I choose Windows in the GRUB menu, it loads Puppy. I've checked and confirmed that Windows installation is already there, but inaccessible. I've made many attempts to restore GRUB, including re-writing MBR, but it always points to Puppy instead of Windows... Could someone help me? Oh, and excuse me for the poor english... I'm from Brasil.
Thanks in advance!

**Natanael_L** · October 22nd, 2008

I'm too lazy to read the entire thread, so...:

Does dual boot work with this? I already have Vista (pre-installed) and Ubuntu (installed from LiveCD), so if I install Fedora (or any other distribution), are Fedora going to be added to my OS boot list in GRUB?
Currently GRUB is started when i boot my laptop, and it shows a list of some Ubuntu boot alternatives and a "default" Vista boot alternative.
Will I see Fedora at the end of that list if I use this for Fedora?

I really want to know, please answer soon.

**notwen** · November 9th, 2008

I'm trying to re-install Windows XP on my new Dell Inspiron Mini 9. I created a iso of Dell's Windows XP re-installation disc using the dd command and have successfully put it onto my USB drive, but when I boot from USB the normal Unetbootin screen comes up w/ the Default option and then continues to loop the 10sec countdown. Any ideas and/or suggestions? =]

In the end I'm wanting to dual-boot XP and Ubuntu on the mini9.

---edit---
Looking back, there is no mention of Windows support w/ Unetbootin? Is there any reason it "shouldn't" work? =x

**MaindotC** · November 12th, 2008

I created a bootable USB using the current nightly build .iso from cdimag.ubuntu.com. I booted my laptop using the USB drive and it booted just fine - even works w/ my wireless card. When I download and install updates like the kernel upgrade, they're not saving (thought this was the point of a nightly build) and if I connect to a wireless network and store the network key in a keyring, that also isn't saved when I reboot w/ the USB drive. How can I save updates and settings to the USB drive?

**minhmeoke** · November 22nd, 2008

@Kibagari: If the system reports no operating system on the drive, then either the installation failed completely (this should give you a BIOS Error) or your GRUB menu.lst is wrong (this should give you "Grub Error 15 File Not Found"). Also note that files downloaded in Linux are not executable by default, so you will have to manually set the file to executable with the command: "chmod +x unetbootin*"

@mio75, billgoldberg, volneilo: You will have to edit the GRUB menu.lst, there should be instructions for doing that in other sections of this forum.

@Natanael_L: The operating system installed by UNetbootin is exactly the same as the one installed by CD, so dual boot will work fine. Fedora will chain-load the boot menu by creating the default Fedora boot menu and adding an entry for Ubuntu. If you select the Ubuntu entry then the original Ubuntu menu appears, and from here there should be an option to boot Windows. If you want to put all the options into one menu, then you will have to edit the GRUB menu.lst.

@notwen: UNetbootin only works with Linux/BSD installations, since *nix and Windows boot/installation are very different. To create a Windows liveusb you can try using BartPE http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ . A CD-less reinstallation is harder, if you can access the windows partition, then you could copy the i386 folder over to the USB drive, and run "winnt" from command prompt to start installation.

@strAlan: This thread is for hard-drive installations; there is a separate thread for usb-drive installations: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=811397 . To save data on the USB drive ("persistent" rather than "liveusb" install) follow the steps in this post: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.p...70#post6106470 . You should also edit syslinux.cfg and add "persistent" to the end of the "append" line, as shown here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...54&postcount=4

**theDaveTheRave** · November 25th, 2008

Hi all,

I'm performing the install as I type, obviously on another terminal!

so far... for ubuntu. Grab the appropriate debian windows installer from here

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

downloaded and ran the file.

Selected ubuntu from the list and then the <netInstal> that was appropriate for my machine (in this instance an AMD dual core 64 bit).

At the bottom of the installer window is the location for the instalation, I want a "true" dual boot instal, and hence selected the c:\

I was then asked to reboot.

I had 2 options in my boot loader... one for the original XP and one for the "unetbootin".

I've now followed what looks like a "normal" ubuntu setup, however, it hasn't found my XP install and offered to dual boot... is this correct?

I've had a quick hunt on the forums, but nothing is telling me where I should go from here. Please help, I'm getting exceedingly anoyed at not having a Ubuntu desktop on my works pc!

David

**SukiSuki** · November 26th, 2008

I'm new to all of this..

I tried unetbootin and, to make a long story short, I made a similar mistake to the one about the boot flag on this page so now all I can get is my bios and "Error Loading Operating System".

I've backed everything up on an external drive, so I'm not worried.

So the current situation is: The bios doesn't seem to support booting from USB (it's not in the listed boot sequence options, but I'll try to make a bootable USB drive tomorrow anyway). The CD drive is busted, or I wouldn't have been using Unetbootin. The floppy drive probably works. I'm writing this from my girlfriend's mac...

So, I think the answer is for me to get a replacement CD drive; (this is kindof off topic) but if anyone has any ideas on how to move the boot flag back to a bootable partition I'm open to suggestion. Thanks.

**minhmeoke** · December 5th, 2008

@theDaveTheRave: The installation generated by UNetbootin should be exactly the same as a standard (CD-based) Ubuntu install, so I am not sure why it is not autodetecting the windows partition. Can you post the output of "sudo fdisk -l", and check that there is a Windows FAT32 or NTFS partition present? If fdisk can see the Windows partition, then you should be able to make the windows entry appear by adding an entry to /boot/grub/menu.lst .

@SukiSuki: If you have access to another machine that can write floppies, you could try loading a utility floppy such as BootE http://boot.everywhere.dk/ then set the bootable flag using fdisk. You could also remove the non-booting hard drive and hook it up as a secondary (slave) drive on another unix computer that can read/write the ext3 filesystem (I think MacOSX can do this with ext2fsx http://sourceforge.net/projects/ext2fsx/ ), and run fdisk from there. As a last resort, if your do not have any access to any install media and your BIOS supports PXE, then you could boot a minimal environment off of another computer via TFTP and run fdisk there.