Boot from floppy and install arch from flash stick - NO CDR - USB 1.1

Question

MY PREVIOUS POST BELOW BECAME A HARD DRIVE INSTALL POST WHICH HAS HELPED THOUGH ISN'T ON SUBJECT CURRENTLY AND I STILL NEED SOLUTION  - Now at day 3 :-) - sorry!
I have old laptop with a very broken CDR... so just a floppy and a hard drive and 2 USB 1.1 ports.
[Need commands and which floppy is best]
The USB install WIKI
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ins … _USB_stick
says to write the .img file to flash stick...
--- that I can do!
Though trying a similar process:
I've had no luck with a hard drive install (also on wiki) as I believe that once I write the .img file to the hard drive it WILL boot though can't create mount points as the drive's in use!
Anyways...
IF I have the flash stick with the .img file on it as per the wiki instructions
what commands would I use and what boot floppy would work for:
- booting from floppy
- mounting? the flash stick with arch core on it
- then installing from there to single hard drive partition.
thing is I'm just barely ok with using
dd   fdisk and mke2fs
So: I need to know what command to mount USB stick... then HOW do I get arch installer on the img file to boot up??
Any guru tips really needed ....thank you!
Last edited by yvonney (2009-01-28 08:44:59)

Answer 1

nice Kirurgs
doesn't boot from usb... and CDR very broken... good though as I've learned a lot....
dell inspiron 2500 1 ghz pentium III
method 1) used puppy after booting off wakepup2 floppy ....very handy that wakepup flopppy though be advised there's several versions of wakpup2 and try the second boot option on the aug or sept 2008 version it WILL find your USB device even if like me I had an old 128 meg one.  also, Crash, a guy at the puppy forums has a 3 floppy set that's specific to whatever puppy version you're running... try that as a last resort
UN-NECESSARY BLATHER COMMENT: The way those puppys are created weird me out., the more I looked around, Yes, I've read a wee bit about Aufs, and what goes into the whole persistent thing.... seems like lotsa almost impossible  to ever 'really' know stuff is going on it there.... Consider the source of that comment of course... I have huge blank spots in my knowledge and skill and am actually only a relentless year one linux'r... [not counting 6 years of hum and haw] though I'd wanna build my own live arch usb with tips from here before I ever tried to REALLY figure out what goes into creating puppy. I'm saying that at one or two points I thought.. hmnmm... perhaps puppy on this old laptop.... though concluded that ARCH for ALL things is really the only option. puppy's a great boot and hunt around thing though (for me, and in my current opinion).
method 2) eldamar and eldamar's guide which started me towards success .. which I basically now just do the dd command to an empty partition after booting from puppy .... THEN thrown in a supergrub floppy .... have it 'bring alive' the partition I've just dd'd the arch .img to.... and reboot.... oh, and from puppy I can create partitions as well.. gparted I think.
method 3) untested also can use plop floppy  it's a boot loader... you may be able to get slitaz distro to create one for you through the 'bootfloppybox' terminal command... not sure if it uses the old floppy linux version of PloP or the win version or what.... dunnno dunno!!! gotta go! :--)
crazy busy so writing to say... pretty much all fine! :--)
for me this move was 3-4 days of lots of WONDERFUL bad luck... with everything from puppy hell, my partial-dumbness and back..
thing is.... I'm real good at it now.... hehehehe
gotta love problems!
Last edited by yvonney (2009-02-03 17:27:56)