How To Do Dual Booting With ISO Image From The Same Hardware

I have multiple computers to install Linux onto.

Some of my computers do not have DVD drives.

I want to boot Linux from C:, not the USB drive.

Do I download the ISO onto a C: drive.
Copy the image to the USB with the image mover.

My confusion is that this all seems to make a boot-able USB drive.

How do I install OpenSuse without having a DVD and end up booting from the C: drive?

Do I first have to boot from the USB?

Hello,

I am new to Linux images (pxe, livecd). I would like to add files to a linux image, like something under etc or var, and have the files be available on the client.
The server I am working on was already configured with a pxe image, and only 2 files are present under the pxe client folder: initrd and vmlinuz. So I am wondering if either of these files contain the dirs /etc, /var, etc..., and how I could add files to them.

To give some background, I have done the same thing in Windows. An image in Windows is typically either boot.img or install.img. You can mount either of these to a folder using the Windows SDK tool imagex.exe /mountrw <img file> 1 <mount point>. From here you can add/remove/modify any files you want. Then commit the changes with imagex.exe /unmount <mountpoint> /commit.

Can someone provide insight to the linux image creation process, which of the files (initrd, vmlinuz/vmlinux, etc...) contain what for the client boot, or something similar to the Windows Image editing process?

I know I'm asking for a range of info, but pointers to any material to help my understanding will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Jon

Good evening;
Following instructions on-line I attempted to create a bootable USB drive (32GB Sandsik extreme) with Linux 17.1 installed to enable a trial before attempting a permanent install beside windows 7 on a new computer with Win7 prof. installed.

On the usb I see a 4.0 GB area highlighted in G Parted but not accessible from the Linux file manager. This shows up as a ~1.4 GB sub-directory titled casper. and also as 4.0 GB 'file' named casper-rw. Can anyone explain what is the purpose of this sub-directory? The software I used to create the usb bootable drive and install Linux to is 'Universal-USB-Installer-1.9.5.9'. This is a windows executable. My intent was to create a bootable usb drive for Linux that also contained my required hardware drivers, etc. This doesn't appear to be working 100%; although Linux 17.1 boots the nvidia hardware drivers do not appear to be available even though I downloaded these and they are on the same usb. On boot-up a message box indicates that hardware acceleration is not enabled and higher than normal processor usage may occur.

Any assistance / direction, etc. would be greatly appreciated.

Regards;
Mike

Hi,

Before installing Linux Mint 17 to the entire HDD of my HP p2 1317cb desktop, it was running a preinstalled windows 8 OEM UEFI. After several failed attempts of dual booting(no grub menu and boots directly to the windows 8) i then decided to do a erase all and install Linux option. Now i have Linux Mint 17.1 working flawlessly, so far. What i want to now do is, dual boot a windows 7 installation alongside my Linux. Please advise on the best way to do this.
Thank You.

Note: Before doing a clean install of Linux i disabled secure boot,enabled legacy, and disabled fast boot.

Hi all,

As you can probably tell I am new to Linux and new to the forum, I am using Kali and Mint both as live Linux environments on USB drives, all is good and I am finding my way around, the reason for the post is that I need to copy 15 CF cards that have multiple partitions, Windows isn't really an option as it can only see one partition on a removable drive, so here goes with Linux.

The CF cards contain Windows Embedded XP in one partition and a separate partition for user data which isn't protected, not that the contents matter, only the fact that it is bootable with multiple partitions, the object is to upgrade the old 2gb cards to 4gb cards to add an additional program on the embedded drive, but they are both full.

as long as I can copy both partitions over the partition size doesn't matter as I can resize that if necessary, but I need both partitions to copy over to the new drive.

I have read that dd command is the way to go but cant find much on multiple partitions which display in Linux as two drives, so how do I go about this, any pointers

Ideally I would like to automate the process as this is something that we could end up doing on a regular basis, I have seen a USB drive that was plugged into a PC and through a basic GUI allowed you to copy a HDD but I don't know If that would do both partitions, something for the future?

I just got a new laptop with Windows 8.1 and I cannot figure out how to install Linux Mint by booting from a CD or USB drive. Previously, I had installed Linux Mint on my old desktop and netbook computers that were running Windows XP. I had no trouble booting from a CD. Now that the process has been complicated in Windows 8.1 I don't know what to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated, I would really like to get rid of Windows 8.1 ASAP. Thanks!

i have windows 8.1 and ubuntu 14.04 ....now wen i try to access a drive of windows in ubuntu it says failed to mount.
then i used "sudo ntfsfix /dev/sda4" for mounting the drives ......it worked for all drives except the E drive (not the system drive).
it gives error windows is hibernated , shutdown windows.
I shutdown my windows properly but still that particular drive refuses to mount..
any solns?

Hey guys, im a long time Mac user but I want to have a Linux computer in my office for web based stuff and fixing hard drives.... I'm going to buy a used computer from eBay to install my Linux software as I believe that Linux is a lot faster than Mac or windows and doesnt need the latest hardware to compete.

In order to be at least as fast as a windows computer but no more than $100. What range of computer should I be looking at? What specs should I look for? And once I get it should I run Ubuntu or mint for web based things and hard drive repair? As you no doubt know, the Linux lingo is a bit difficult sometimes so please bear with me. I'm doing the best I can.

Weird question I know, but I'm sure you know what I mean.

Hello All. This is my first post here. I am worse than a newbie; I'm a PC dinosaur! Not joking either.
Recently got a Dell Inspiron 3048 with Windows 8.1 pre installed. As I am a die hard XP user (my other PC is a Dell Dimension 2400), and seeing that PC's days may be numbered, I want to start using Linux, and decided Mint 17.1 would be first on the list.
Ordered a Linux Mint 17.1 boot disk and went to install it. At the option for a dual boot with Windows, I got lost, and did not understand the "other" choice versus making Linux the only OS on the PC. I wound up wiping my HDD and lost contact with Windows 8.1. Fortunately, the Dell Tech I got at Dell Support was able to walk me through getting Windows back up, but the only way I can now access Mint 17.1 is with the boot disk, but there is no set up options as it is already set up, even though incorrectly for a dual boot.
How do I wipe out Linux without losing Windows 8.1 as well so I can re install Linux and this time make the correct selection for a dual boot?
Anyone willing to respond please do so small and slow so I can follow.
TIA.
BTW, I have tried installing Zorin OS 9 Ultimate on my XP machine via DVD and USB, but I can't get past the f1/f2 loop, even though I have reconfigured my boot sequence according to the drive I'm installing from. Zorin support has been MIA on this. Anyone having a similar problem?
Cheers

Hello!

TL;DR: Deleted Linux partition from Windows. Stuck at Grub rescue prompt.

I'm sorry to trouble you guys, because I'm an idiot.

So I'm wanting to dual-boot Kalilinux and Windows 8.
I went through the steps such as creating a bootable USB, changing the
boot order and so on. I get into Kali, start Gparted and try to partition stuff.

I'm far from an expert, so I wasn't sure what to do. Long-story short, I
didn't seem to get Kali installed correctly, due to something with an EFI
drive being required. So I boot into windows and then stupidly, because it said in the guide,try to "uninstall" Kali by removing it's partition, inside Win8 haha... So I did.

Now I simply get the Grub rescue command prompt when I boot from the same
USB and I have no idea how to fix it. I've run bootrec.exe/fixmbr in Windows haha,
for what it's worth. However Grub can't find any partition it says.

In windows, I have like... 2-3 Recovery partitions. Does anyone know how to remove
them??? I've tried to clear as much as I can, besides the C drive and Auxillary D drive.

Any advice would be very appreciated.