Installing Linux on a hard drive before installing the hard drive..?

[Old Pink]

I don't need to boot from USB on the live machine, I just need it to recognize the drive in the installation process. I'm booting from an .iso.

Everything works fine until chosing where to install the OS to, at which point only virtual HDs are listed. I can't find a way of giving a whole drive to the virtual machine.

Also, VMWare won't install. It gives some horribly vague error and just gives up the game.

[varunendra]

I don't need to boot from USB on the live machine, I just need it to recognize the drive in the installation process. I'm booting from an .iso.

Everything works fine until chosing where to install the OS to, at which point only virtual HDs are listed. I can't find a way of giving a whole drive to the virtual machine.

Also, VMWare won't install. It gives some horribly vague error and just gives up the game.

Since you mentioned VirtualPC, I thought you are trying this on windows, installing VMware (or any Virtualization software) on which is pretty easy.

However, The problem of accessing physical hard disks in VMs is exactly the same reason why using it as a USB one (using a usb enclosure) would have worked a treat! Although there IS a way to access entire physical hard disks (or partitions) from a VM, but they are a bit risky, especially on OSes like windows which love to mount all physical drives on startup.

If you don't have the option to attach the drive via a USB enclosure, check out the "Advanced Topics" in VirtualBox's help section. Adding a physical disk goes something like this (copied from VBox PDF manual):

To create an image that represents an entire physical hard disk (which will not contain any actual data, as this will all be stored on the physical disk), on a Linux host, use the command
VBoxManage internal commands createrawvmdk -filename /path/to/file.vmdk -rawdisk/dev/sda

This creates the image /path/to/file.vmdk (must be absolute), and all data will be read and written from /dev/sda.
On a Windows host, instead of the above device specification, use e.g. \\.\PhysicalDrive0.

[Old Pink]

I'm giving up on the Virtual PC side of things, far too complicated. All these software packages seem perfectly kitted to mount and have full use of an A: drive or D: drive, thought it'd be just as easy to give it an external hard drive.

No bother, I'll try the CD method now, just going to have to be extra careful with the GRUB thing.

[lykwydchykyn]

You could try the method I describe here:

http://www.alandmoore.com/blog/2011/...ebian-offline/

which uses debootstrap. It's a little technical, but not impossible if you follow step-by-step.

It works for debian or ubuntu, you just specify an ubuntu release name for the release instead of "stable" in step 2.2

[Old Pink]

It won't install, gets stuck at around 88%, half way through installing the kernel. Can only assume it's because it won't fit on the hard drive, I've had this exact issue with a 6GB hard drive before.

Best small distribution? Baring in mind it needs to be easy enough to install using this method?

Update: Gone for Xubuntu, some experience with this in the past.

[Old Pink]

It won't install, gets stuck at around 88%, half way through installing the kernel. Can only assume it's because it won't fit on the hard drive, I've had this exact issue with a 6GB hard drive before.

Best small distribution? Baring in mind it needs to be easy enough to install using this method?

Update: Gone for Xubuntu, some experience with this in the past.

Xubuntu gets stuck at the kernel installation too. Tried on two separate computers, with three different discs and two different operating systems. (2 Ubuntu discs, 1 Xubuntu disc) - only common denominator is the hard drive. This makes no sense at all?

[Cheesemill]

I'm pretty sure it's a disk space issue.

Once the installer has partitioned off some space for swap you're not left with enough for an install.

You could try using the Minimal Install CD and then adding a light WM such as Openbox, but even if you can install there won't be much room left for applications.

Take a look at this thread for some more options:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1582027

It only gives values for RAM use but the ones with the smallest RAM use will probably be the ones with the smallest disk requirements as well.

[Old Pink]

I'm pretty sure it's a disk space issue.

Once the installer has partitioned off some space for swap you're not left with enough for an install.

You could try using the Minimal Install CD and then adding a light WM such as Openbox, but even if you can install there won't be much room left for applications.

Take a look at this thread for some more options:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1582027

It only gives values for RAM use but the ones with the smallest RAM use will probably be the ones with the smallest disk requirements as well.

5.6GB is enough for Xubuntu?

Also I've tried ext3 filesystem instead of ext4, I figured maybe the old hard drive wasn't up to the new technology - no joy.

[Old Pink]

Reckon it's time to give up?

[varunendra]

5.6GB is enough for Xubuntu?

Also I've tried ext3 filesystem instead of ext4, I figured maybe the old hard drive wasn't up to the new technology - no joy.

Ext4 and ext3 are basically same, so it doesn't really matter which one you use.

You still haven't let us know your laptop's hardware specs. Are you sure it is capable enough to keep up with Xubuntu? (I have doubts even with Lubuntu!!).

How much RAM does it have, and what processor?
Have you tried formatting the drive then run fsck on it to check there are no bad-block issues?
Have you taken a look at SliTaz yet? (or at least Lubuntu)

In any case, it would be best to create partitions using gparted, then install the desired os on it. Do not let the installer create partitions, as most probably, it may create large swap partition depending upon the RAM in the current system.

Oh, and also, "6GB" in manufacturer's terms means 5.59GB in Operating system's view. And partitioning operation would further consume some space (although very tiny). So consider it no more than 5.5GB availability.