sarge installer: unsure what images needed

[Alexis Huxley <ahuxley@gmx.net>]

Hi, I'm attempting to install 'testing' on a very
old PC which will not boot from CDROM, and does not
have a "common" NIC (it's an SMC something). I have referred to
http://http.us.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/main/installer-i386/current/doc/INSTALLATION-HOWTO
and have tried to install, but got errors about possibly corrupt CDs
and Debian mirrors.

I don't believe anything is corrupt, so I went back to the
above-mentioned URL and re-read it. And now I'm confused
about what I need in order to make the installation.

What I would *like* to do is to boot from floppies and then install
everything from local CDROMs, but from the above document it seems
that *only* network installation is supported; at least that is
what I interpreted from "These images are intended to boot from CD
and install additional packages over a network" in the "2. CDROM"
section.

Here is what I believe I did :-), if anybody could comment or
suggest what I should have done instead then it would be appreciated!

1)  burn "netinst" ISO image to CDROM.

2)  dd to floppy images bootfloppy-image.img, floppy-image.img and
    the net_drivers and cd_driver images.

3)  boot the 'bootfloppy-image.img' floppy

4)  when prompted insert exchange it for the 'floppy-image.img'
    floppy (which is really a "root" fs image, right?)

5)  DHCP config fails, manual NIC config also fails (presumably
    because my NIC is not "common")

6)  insert cd_drivers floppy and insert netinst CDROM

7)  load drivers from cd_drivers

8)  Running "df" on ALT-F2 VT now shows CDROM is mounted
 
9)  installer reports that CDROM or Mirror is corrupt

10) somehow make it switch to behaving as if it had booted directly
    from the CDROM ???

11) then do an installation from network using either Germany 
    mirror or local mirror of 'testing'.

If anyone can offer any advice, it'd be appreciated! Many thanks!

Also, can anybody confirm: at the moment it is not possible to
install with the new installer using CDROMs as the source?

Thanks!

Alexis Huxley
ahuxley@gmx.net