CentOS - Jun 2005 - Is it possible to start Installer from WindowsXP?

Hi,

My computer has only primaly IDE but not secondaly.
I connected  a hard drive as Master and DVD-R as Slave on IDE.
BIOS doesn't recognize IDE devices, but Windows XP that boots up from SATA
hard drive can recognize
DVD-R and can read files on the CentOS Installer Disk 1 of 4.
Is it possible to start Centos4 Installer from WindowsXP?
If possible, which file on Disk 1 should I click?
Even if they are possible, can CentOS boot up from IDE Master hard drive? I
think probably not.

Thanks in advance,
Takashi Nakamura

Previously (many years ago) I had to do the same thing with Slackware
since I did not have an optical drive then.

The process is like this:

- Make a FAT partition
- Copy all the installation files (all disks) to the FAT partition
- You'll need a Kernel, a INITRD image and LOADLIN program
-- Kernel and INITRD is in cd:/images/pxeboot
-- You can find loadlin from the web
- Boot DOS (probably via a floppy)
- Use loadlin.exe to boot the linux kernel

If I remember correctly the command line was like this:

C:> LOADLIN.EXE VMLINUZ load_ramdisk=1 initrd=initrd.img RO

But please check the loadlin documentation. I have not done this for
years and I am not sure if it works with CentOS.

-- sukru

Takashi Nakamura wrote:
>Hi,
>
>My computer has only primaly IDE but not secondaly.
>I connected  a hard drive as Master and DVD-R as Slave on IDE.
>BIOS doesn't recognize IDE devices, but Windows XP that boots up from
SATA
>hard drive can recognize
>DVD-R and can read files on the CentOS Installer Disk 1 of 4.
>Is it possible to start Centos4 Installer from WindowsXP?
>If possible, which file on Disk 1 should I click?
>Even if they are possible, can CentOS boot up from IDE Master hard drive? I
>think probably not.
>
>Thanks in advance,
>Takashi Nakamura
>
>_______________________________________________
>CentOS mailing list
>CentOS at centos.org
>http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>  
>

From: Sukru TIKVES <sukru at cs.hacettepe.edu.tr>
> Of course, I know that!
> That's why I said "Make a FAT partition" and "Boot DOS
(probably
> via a floppy)".
> BTW: You can use a Windows ME/98/95 installation CD to boot into DOS.
Yes, but unfortunately this typically messes up the BIOS disk assignments,
and the DOS redirector (normally used for networking, but also CD) also
plays games with memory.

What you will need to do is boot directly to an actual DOS partition with
a DOS installation ("Chicago" DOS7 aka Win9x/Me will work).  You might
be able to get away with booting as long as the LOADLIN binary and
kernel/initrd are not on the CD so the redirectory doesn't need to be
loaded.

In a nutshell, it's always a PITA, regardless.



--
Bryan J. Smith   mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org