Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

How can I transfer/copy my Puppy Linux that is installed in RAM to my 80GB HDD? My problem stems from an old Acer Aspire 3000 (3003WLCi) that does not include the feature to boot from any USB device like a USB thumbdrive. To work around the problem, I burned the Debian BookwormPup32 ISO image to a CDROM disc which is a choice on the Acer Boot Menu, but it is very slow and mechanically about to fail.

Now, instead of booting from the slow CDROM, I want to boot from my new hard drive that would be a lot faster, and leave everything else the same. To accomplish that goal, I cloned the CDROM to my Hard Drive partition sda1 using the command: dd if=/dev/SR0 of=/dev/sda1 bs=256 conv=noerror,sync . The contents of the CDROM and HDD sda1 are now identical, but it won't boot with a black screen when I select "Hard Drive" from the BIOS Boot Menu.

I can still boot choosing CDROM from BIOS Boot Menu, but nothing seems to be saved like my hostname, and a script file named dvorak-toggle that I had stored in /root/Startup directory. This is strange because I saved everything as requested by the "First Shutdown" dialog. This First Shutdown procedure recommended using sda2 to save changes in a folder (not a file). It even setup Swap space with a custom .swp filename, so I don't know why nothing is saved in subsequent booting from the CDROM.

Any suggestions on how I can boot from my Hard Drive via the Boot Menu at this point would be greatly appreciated. After that is working, I still prefer having Puppy Linux installed in RAM to run faster. If that is possible when booting from a hard drive, what settings or procedure do I need? By searching the web, I saw some older documentation that used a green "INSTALL" button that does exactly what I want to do. (see attachment).

Not sure how much 32 varies from 64 but if you go to the menu while booted from the CD then go to Setup then Puppy Installer it will let you install to hard drive (how I have my 64 installed).

To get it to boot from the hard drive, you need a bootloader and the installer handles that. Not sure your experience with Linux so not sure how to elaborate further.

your working puppy is installed on a CD and runs in ram. when you make an install on the HD, it also can run in ram.

dding a cd to the hd is not the best way foreward. as flora mae mentioned, look for puppyinstaller in the menu when booted with the cd

if you have problems, maybe ask at
viewtopic.php?t=10087
your install method will need to reformat the HDD

Both of your replies were very helpful, but when I went to the Menu --> Setup --> Puppy Installer, the Puppy Installer started to respond by getting out of the Menu and took me back to the Desktop, but the Puppy Installer did not start running, and basically did nothing.

When I ran: "ls -l /dev/sda1", it returned:
brw-rw-rw- 1 root disk 8, 1 May 16 20:04 /dev/sda1

It seems that the "b" means block device and it is read only. I'm not sure if I should try fixing the sda1 partition that has the CDROM cloned into it with the dd command, or use GParted to recreate a new (empty) sda1 partition. I am assuming that the Puppy Installer does not have partitioning functionality, and maybe that is why it did not run. Ideas?