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View Full Version : [ubuntu] Strange install situation



anandppatil
November 30th, 2009, 09:42 PM
Hi all,

I'm trying to rehabilitate a computer that has had a hard life. I bought a new hard disk for it and I'd like to install Ubuntu Karmic on it. Here are the constraints:

- The hard disk is dead
- The CD/DVD drive is dead
- The BIOS won't boot off a USB stick.

So currently I can't boot the thing at all. I could, however, pop the new hard disk into another Ubuntu machine, write data to it, and then try to boot off of it.

The only thread I've found from someone in a similar situation was this: http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ubuntu-help/115293-installing-ubuntu-boot-off-hard-disk.html in which the poster was advised to use netboot. Netboot looks pretty complicated. However, that thread is pretty old, and I'm wondering if there's an easier way by now?

Thanks,
Anand

dhavalbbhatt
November 30th, 2009, 10:24 PM
Hi all,

I'm trying to rehabilitate a computer that has had a hard life. I bought a new hard disk for it and I'd like to install Ubuntu Karmic on it. Here are the constraints:

- The hard disk is dead
- The CD/DVD drive is dead
- The BIOS won't boot off a USB stick.

So currently I can't boot the thing at all. I could, however, pop the new hard disk into another Ubuntu machine, write data to it, and then try to boot off of it.

The only thread I've found from someone in a similar situation was this: http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ubuntu-help/115293-installing-ubuntu-boot-off-hard-disk.html in which the poster was advised to use netboot. Netboot looks pretty complicated. However, that thread is pretty old, and I'm wondering if there's an easier way by now?

Thanks,
Anand

To be quite honest, your post is unclear. I guess what you have is a non-working computer, on which you are trying to put a new HDD. It also looks like your CD drive is toast. With that being said, I would change the HDD (looks like you have a newer HDD) and the CD drive (which should not cost a whole lot anyways) and then try installing Ubuntu on it. I am not sure why you would want to put the newer HDD on a separate machine and write data to it and boot from the other machine

j2bv16
November 30th, 2009, 10:26 PM
To be quite honest, your post is unclear. I guess what you have is a non-working computer, on which you are trying to put a new HDD. It also looks like your CD drive is toast. With that being said, I would change the HDD (looks like you have a newer HDD) and the CD drive (which should not cost a whole lot anyways) and then try installing Ubuntu on it. I am not sure why you would want to put the newer HDD on a separate machine and write data to it and boot from the other machine - I guess I don't understand why you'd want to do that.

agree