Re: How to install Debian in such a situation

[Zenaan Harkness <zen@freedbms.net>]

On 4/15/13, Yuwen Dai <yuwend@gmail.com> wrote:
> I've a very old PC with an old Debian installed.  Recently I found the hard
> disk has some bad sectors, sometime the file system will be mounted as read
> only.  I bought a new hard disk and downloaded Debian testing version, then
> I found the CD-ROM is broken,  it can not boot from the CD-ROM.  The old PC
>   can not boot from USB disk either.  How to install the new Debian on the
> new hard disk?

You can get a HDD to USB adapter and attach the hard disk to a working
PC, then use debootstrap to install debian onto that HDD (you will
need to format it to your desire first).

If you aren't sure of what you're doing, this will be a steep learning
curve, but is very doable. Just require a little persistence and may
be a few tries before you get there...

If the machine is too old, you will need an older Debian (for network
and possibly other drivers) if those drivers are not available in most
recent kernels.
What CPU does this PC have? How much memory?

Once you've debootstrapped the HDD using a working PC, then you can
plug it back in to the old PC.

Good luck
Zenaan