6

The motherboard I have doesn't support booting from USB, and I don't have any CDs lying around here. Is there any way to install Linux Mint (or any other flavor for that matter) directly to the disk?

I resized my Windows partition, and have a secondary, free partition.

1
  • Sometimes some USB drive are detected as HDD... have a go, check your BIOS and check under HDD boot and see if your USB is listed you may get lucky
    – Darius
    Sep 26, 2013 at 8:11

5 Answers 5

4

There might be two possible solutions

Installing through LAN

You might need to set up a BOOTP + DHCP server then boot over the network via PXE, read here for detailed instructions

Alternatively,You could follow up the solution provided over here

Additionally you could do grub boot from iso,the detailed answers were provided over here

2

Yah, I was in the exact situation as you are. Old Motherboard refuses to boot from USB and DVD drive is already damaged leaving me with the only option to directly boot from the ISO image.

The easiest way to do that is to install Grub in windows and then let grub boot from the ISO image.

Download the Grub2Win zip file from here -> http://sourceforge.net/projects/grub2win/

Extract Grub2 in your C:\ drive and run Grub2Win.exe

Don't change any thing and click OK. this will just make an BCD entry in Windows 7 with just one boot entry - Windows 7 (default). Close grub2Win. You can find that the program creates a new file named GRUB.CFG

Open the GRUB.CFG file in a text editor like NOTEPAD. Add an extra menuentry just after the default Windows menuentry ->

menuentry "Linux Mint" {

set isofile="/linuxmint-17.1-cinnamon-32bit.iso"

loopback loop (hd0,1)$isofile`

linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=$isofile noprompt noeject

initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz

}

Remember: Here in this case the ISO file is in the first partition of the first disk so, the file location is (hd0,1), if you put the ISO file elsewhere change the loop device location accordingly.

Once restarted, you will see an extra boot entry Grub 2 For Windows. Select Linux Mint and you will enter the LIVE session.

Now Open terminal and type the following command to unmount the /ISODEVICE

sudo umount -l -r -f /isodevice

Now you can resize the partition and Continue to install mint like you always do.

Watch This Step By Step Ultimate Guide to install Linux Mint Directly from ISO image Stored in Hard Drive and Dual Boot With Windows -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FnNrvF-Tw0

1

Not sure if you have another computer and the cables lying around, but if you do one option would be to remove the hard drive and plug it into a second computer that could copy the files directly onto the free partition.

1
  • Download and install Qemulator and its extention pack.
  • Load the iso as CDROM on the emulator software.
  • Ensure your hdd is seen in the Virtual Envionment.
  • Load the ISO live session.
  • Try install.

Else.

  • Copy ISO to c:/
  • use the emulator to and add C:/ as a mount.
  • Install Grub
  • Configure Grub to boot both iso and Windows.
  • restart computer select ISO boot (or whatever you called the menuitem in grub config).
  • Run install select second partition as / (which is root).

Hopefully this helps. You might need to research how to install the GRUB loader and configuration, I could teach you here but researching it yourself gives you valuable experience.

0

The only other method I can think of would be PXE booting. This would be installing the OS over the network. Here is a link to a relevant page that has directions.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .