No CD and no USB :)

Question

Hi I installed Xubuntu a long time ago, and it doesnt boot up so I want to install arch linux because when I used it before it never had issues booting up.
My PC doesnt seem to give the option of booting from a USB stick on the BIOS screen, and I tried several times to get it to work to no avail. The CD Drive is broken, it doesnt recognize discs at all.
I have tried UnetBootin but that hangs after it selects a partition (HD(0,3) EXT 2).
I tried Wubi but that doesnt get rid of the old Xubunti installation so it has very little space to operate in.
I also tried a debian windows installer but that complained about a missing HAL.DLL and then wouldnt appear on my boot menu ever again.Even after re-installing.
I have a Laptop with a working  CD Drive if there is some possibility of using that to install linux on my desktop?
If I boot up Xubuntu I do get a terminal. Sudo apt-get update doesnt work as the FTP addresses dont seem to be working.
Last edited by slenkar (2012-05-09 13:50:43)

Answer 1

I would like to resize my 12GB linux partition to 7GB so I have some room for arch,
My partition program that I am using on windows only lets me resize windows partitions...is this normal?
Can you take a few GB from your Windows partition? Windows 7 and Vista can shrink it's own partition when it's running.
The tricky thing is that you can't take any risks with Xubuntu until you get Arch up and running, because Xubuntu is your only savior right now...
Be careful with the bootloader. I guess you have Xubuntu's bootloader in mbr now. That means Windows will not boot if you delete Xubuntu before Arch is working. When you restore your backup, at first keep Xubuntu on disk and Xubuntus bootloader in mbr and add Arch to it's bootmenu. Then you boot up Arch and if that works you can install it's bootloader to mbr. But be careful when you edit menu.lst so you get it right.
Read rsync and Full System Backup with rsync.
if I alter the partitions it wont mess up my master boot record will it? I cant do fixmbr with no cd drive
If you delete a logical partition, all the following logical partitions get changed number, so if Xubuntu's (and later Arch's) partition number gets changed Grub will not find it until you reinstall Grub in mbr. Also use uuid instead of partition number both in fstab and menu.lst.
When you add a partition, primary or logical, that will not change the other partitions number.
I also had another question, in Linux the /boot folder is located in the current partition or the boot partition?
No need for a separate boot partition. Arch should have it's boot folder in the system partition. Don't mix it with Xubuntu's boot folder / partition.
Last edited by Lennie (2012-05-12 08:58:18)