Mounting partitions on a debian-installer ISO booted via grub2 copied to tmpfs

[deepclutch]

Hello,
I am trying to install Debian using Netinstall ISO(Similar to Ubuntu Alternate CD) by booting from GRUB2 of My Lucid Ubuntu already in the System.

I use below menuentry to boot debian-netinst-iso(Which is in /dev/sdb7/debian -directory),by adding these lines to /etc/grub.d/40_custom and "sudo update-grub":

menuentry "Debian ISO on /dev/sdb7" {
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,7)
loopback loop /debian/debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso
linux (loop)/install.amd/vmlinuz boot=install.amd iso-scan/filename=/debian/debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso noeject noprompt
initrd (loop)/install.amd/initrd.gz
}


The debian ISO Boots Directly triggering debian-installer-Which asks for where to search for "CD" containing debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso .This is where the Problem Starts.

I installed Ubuntu Earlier by Symlinking the Ubuntu ISO to CDROM device file /dev/sr0 and install went Fine.
--
But ,with Debian ISO Booted as Live CD,I cannot Mount Hard Disk Partition(/dev/sdb7) which contains the "debian-testing-netinst-amd64.iso" image.
If I try to Mount ,it Errors Out :

mount:mounting /dev/sdb7 on /debian failed: No such device

But ,If I search /proc/partitions, I can see hard disk partitions.

AND:
the Debian Live CD is operating from tmpfs completely.If I try "df -H" ,It shows tmpfs as mounted.

How Can I mount the hadr disk partitions When the Livecd is booting from tmpfs(ramdisk)?


OR ,Is there a way,I can copy debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso Which is ~160MB only to RAM ?

Thanks

[deepclutch]

Hello,

Installed Debian testing using debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso (http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/daily-builds/) daily built snapshot on to a ext4 partition. :D
Here is How I installed from CD ISO:
1) download vmlinuz and initrd.gz for hard disk boot provided by Debian team here:
For Mine ,64-bit OS ,I downloaded from amd64 folder:
http://ftp.debian.org/debian/dists/sid/main/installer-amd64/current/images/hd-media/
I downloaded the "capable"(supports more filesystems,specifically for hard disk iso booting) Linux and initrd.gz to /dev/sdb7 /debian folder,Where "debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso" iso also resides.

2)I'm having Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid already on another partition with Grub2 Bootloader.
I added below entry to boot the debian iso from grub2(for booting iso which is in "debian" folder on /dev/sdb7):

menuentry "Debian ISO on /dev/sdb7" {
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,7)
loopback loop /debian/debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso
linux /debian/vmlinuz boot=/debian iso-scan/filename=/debian/debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso noeject noprompt INSTALL_MEDIA_DEV=/dev/sdb7
initrd /debian/initrd.gz
}
^I don't think "INSTALL_MEDIA_DEV=/dev/sdb7" has any effect on debian-installer searching for debian ISO.But ,that's how I booted with ISO.

3) When Debian ISO Boots, It starts debian-installer(it's also a command,once booted) with ncurses based User Interface.
the installer offers to search for debian compatible isos on different hard disk partitions.It cannot search on ext4 partitions(that's what I experienced).
Knowing this ,I copied debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso to a ext3 partition at /dev/sdb8 .
Installer searched and mounted debian-testing-amd64-netinst.iso as a loop device /dev/loop1
and install proceeds as usual.I ended up with a network enabled system also grub2 installed from the Debian.
PS:I don't know ,but when I tried loop mount or even mount ext3,ext4 partition it never worked with debian netinst cd iso!when boots it supports only a couple of file system formats like isofs,vfat(fat32).. .no ext3 also.I think ,later on ,debian-udebs(kernel modules are stored as *.udeb) containing the necessary modules has to be extracted and installed,thus ext3 and ext4 supported!

I have to install Gnome and apt-pinning selections(for testing+unstable) later on as It needs to download a lot of packages which I will do later tonight.

Thank You All For the Support. :)