Re: Installation failed

[Shane Johnson <sdj@rasmussenequipment.com>]

Thank you, Shane. I did use 'dd' to write the Debian Live ISOs to USBs and that did work (though the documentation for 'dd' was wrong). A gentleman on the debian-live list helped me.

What didn't work was this: When I attempted to install from one (booted) USB (running Debian-LXDE) to another USB, after much fiddling, I managed to get the install to copy over the operating system (took over 1/2 hour), but then it failed trying to write GRUB or LILO.

Mark,

I don't the particulars of this, but what I do know is that Thumbdrives are seen different by the MB, BIOS, and thus the OS.  That is why they have the specific instructions for writing to USB and a basic install won't work and why Grub/ Lilo have issues writing to the MBR.  I haven't tried installing to a thumbdrive or USB harddrive with Debian, but the one time I did try Knoppix I had to get a Utility from HP to convert the thumbdrive.  That was ages ago as well and any memory I have regarding the reasons why, has been buried.  

I would recommend if you want to truly try Debian and play with it, install it to another HD or use the partitioning in the installer to split your existing drive so you can dual boot both Windows and Linux.  I wish you the best of luck.  

Shane