[SOLVED] Installing to hard drive does not work

[jgrant]

hi guys,

egg      egg   Happy Easter   egg       egg       egg

,

I'm trying to install TC to my hard drive, from a running TC (on a USB-pen), following 2 sets of instructions:
Wiki 1: "Install Tiny Core without a CD or DVD Drive" and
Wiki 2: "Install Tiny Core on a Hard Drive without being Connected to the Internet"
But no luck here.

Wiki 1 says in step two REINSTALL: "use ... [your USB install] to reinstall Tiny Core to the hard drive ... using HD/USB Install from the Tiny Core Control Panel."

BUT the "HD/USB Install" button from the Tiny Core Control Panel does not work as advertised. (I can probably do a frugal install with the USB-pen as a source instead of a CD-ROM. Nevertheless:) The HD/USB installer option seems so elegant, it should be possible to make it work. I think.

Any help here? Please?

That was the short version.

Follows the long version. What went wrong, in detail. You may read this out of interest, or because it might give you an idea how to tweak/improve this tool. Or just plain skip it. Thank you.

So what's happening? First, I installed TC on my USB-pen via UNetBootin (from Window$ 7). The pen is booting, TC is running, me=happy. This is step one in Wiki 1. In step two it says: "Then use this [USB install] to reinstall Tiny Core to the hard drive ... using HD/USB Install from the Tiny Core Control Panel."

Okay. So, I select the TC Control Panel, click the "HD/USB Install" button, a terminal window opens, and, well, I get stuck. It moans about syslinux not being available. Hm. Not THAT easy, then. So I read a bit and find Wiki 2, it seems to fit the bill and I start to follow the instructions.

The first steps in this Wiki comprise downloading, copying and installing a couple of files and some partitioning. Done. Now it says "Run the Installer" - and here we are again, the terminal window opens once more. Bit I still don't like what it says: it is labeled "USB install" and the first line reads: "Tiny Core pendrive BIOS boot installation/update". Where is the "HD"-part of the promised "HD/USB Install"? Hmph. But I decide to let is loose on my HD, regardless. Well, at least no complaints about syslinux any more.

However, the options in the process do not match the Wiki's description. And here is where I'd like to have some help, please.

Wiki: "Run the installer from Control Panel, then HD/USB Install."
My TC: No "installer" in the Control Panel, just the "HD/USB Install" button.

>Terminal window.
(The way I understand Wiki 2, there shouldn't be any terminal window. Because the Wiki keeps instructing me to click the forward arrow after each selection. That doesn't sound like a terminal, does it.)
Anyhow, as I said: terminal window.

Wiki: Select Tiny Core.
My TC: No such selection.

Wiki: Select the location of either the tinycore iso file, or the tinycore.gz file.
My TC: Ok, same here. [see down below]

Wiki: Select Frugal.
My TC: No such selection.

Wiki: Select Existing Partition. Then select the partition.
My TC: No such selection.

Wiki: Formatting Options: Select No formatting, use existing.
My TC: No-oh.

The selections that are put in front of me are those:
1. Ext, HDD or Zip. >Ext
2. logfile >no
3. enter the device name of the pendrive (sic!) >hda1 (that is the 1st partition of my HD)
4. installation or upgrade >installation
5. from a running TC or from an iso >running
6. path for tinycore.gz and bzImage >/mnt/sda1/boot/ (this is my USB-pen with the running TC)

Ok, now were re-uniting reality and Wiki:

Wiki: Boot options. Type: opt=sda1 home=sda1 norestore
My TC: same, so I give it these boot options

And now the complete divorce of Wiki Paradise and Terminal W. Reality:

Wiki: Click the Forward arrow. Click Proceed. Tiny Core will be installed.
My TC: Hm. NOT. Instead, here goes:

Want to prodeed? >y
Last chance to exit before destroying all data on /dev/hda1 >y
Writing zero's [!] to beginning of /dev/hda1 - Done.
Partitioning /dev/hda1

/dev/hda1:
hdparm: BLKRRPART: Invalid argument
Formatting /dev/hda11
formatting WHAT? hdaELEVEN? Where is the stop button? aaarrrrghh!!!!
Luckily, there was nothing important on that partition. But apparently it could have chosen any of the remaining 12 partitions to wreak havoc. Some of them DO have valuable data stored.

The terminal then goes on ...bla, bla (readout from formatting business), and then:
Applying extlinux to pendrive partition.
/dev/hda11/boot/extlinux is /mnt/pendrive.
Setting up Tiny Core image on /dev/hda11 ... Done.
USB EXT installation has completed.

Has my foot! Hda11 is unmountable (actually destroyed!) and /mnt/pendrive is empty.

So here's my conclusion:
1. I very much dislike the decisiveness of the installer to just go about and format a randomly chosen partition. Actually, I'd consider that a bug.
2. Wiki 1 "Install Tiny Core without a CD or DVD Drive" - could this please be looked into? Its second part, labelled "Reinstall" is giving uhm, well - wrong info.
3. Nevertheless, I had much fun while trying. Its only this afternoon that I stumbled across Tiny Core, and I'm very much impressed by the look and feel of it (from USB-pen, so far   ), and by the presentation. Clear-cut informative website, lots of documentation (never mind the opportunities for improvement  ), and I mean it. So, thanks a lot so far for whoever made TC and the website possible, and I'm looking forward to any help from the forum. Just in case you forgot, I am trying to install TC on my HD from a running TC (on my USB-pen). Oh, and thanks for bearing with me.

Joey

(...and now I'm off to hide some eggs in the garden for the kids.)

[Guy]

Did you read the first paragraph?

Improvements have been made to the installer in Tiny Core 3.6. At the time of writing, only the release candidates are available. Until Tiny Core 3.6 is available, use the latest release candidate, or use one of the other installation methods.

It seems like you are not using version 3.6. Is that correct?

[curaga]

The script installer clearly says "Last chance to exit before destroying all data on..", it has other warnings as well. It will clear the whole drive by design. For safer installs, see the guide on the web page, or try the 3.6 rc's.

As for the hda11 thing, it expected the whole drive name, not hda1 ("hda"). Then it would have created hda1.

[jgrant]

@ Guy

I read the 1st paragraph alright. And I am using the current version as of yesterday.

I went to the download page "http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/downloads.html", there it says" – Base (TCB) –  • Direct DL: Tiny Core (iso) | Micro Core (iso)", so I clicked the "Direct DL: Tiny Core (iso)" and got a file named "tinycore-current.iso". I don't know which version it is, but according to the website this is what we are supposed to download, aren't we? How do i find out about the version?

[jgrant]

@ curaga

>The script installer clearly says "Last chance to exit before destroying all data on.."

Well, it clearly said "Last chance to exit before destroying all data on hda1". That was exactly what I was expecting it to do. Instead, it destroyed all data on hda11, not on hda1. And, like I said, it did not touch any of the other 12 partitions (incl. hda1) of hda.

>As for the hda11 thing, it expected the whole drive name, not hda1 ("hda").

So it expected the whole drive name? Cool. But: it did NOT tell me so! It did not complain when I entered "hda1", either.

>Then it would have created hda1.

Well, it didn't. Instead, it destroyed my hda11. Shouldn't have.

>For safer installs, see the guide on the web page

You are not being friendly, curaga. As I said in the very beginning, I followed EXACTLY a guide on the web site ("http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:install_hd_offline"). So you have another guide in mind, when you say "see the guide on the web page"? Which one do you mean?

>or try the 3.6 rc's

I could do that. On the other hand, I guess the web guides have been written for the current official release, not for any release candidate.

[Guy]

Right now, tinycore-current.iso would be 3.5.1.

When 3.6 is released, this will change to 3.6

I have added the latest install guides based on 3.6, before the final release of 3.6. This should be released within a few weeks.

Until 3.6 is released, to use them, you need to use the latest release candidate.

Read the first paragraph of the install guides. This is explained there.

[curaga]

>As for the hda11 thing, it expected the whole drive name, not hda1 ("hda").

So it expected the whole drive name? Cool. But: it did NOT tell me so! It did not complain when I entered "hda1", either.

We are aware that the script isn't perfect, that's why there's a new GUI installer in the 3.6 release.

To me this is fairly clear, as wanting the whole device:
"Enter the device name of pendrive.(EXAMPLE: sda):"

I do understand how the wording could be better.

>Then it would have created hda1.

Well, it didn't. Instead, it destroyed my hda11. Shouldn't have.

As said, the usb install script uses the whole drive by design. It has several warnings, and also quits if any partition is already mounted on the device.

But discussing it is fairly pointless now, any testing should be directed towards the new installer in 3.6.

>For safer installs, see the guide on the web page

You are not being friendly, curaga. As I said in the very beginning, I followed EXACTLY a guide on the web site ("http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:install_hd_offline"). So you have another guide in mind, when you say "see the guide on the web page"? Which one do you mean?

>or try the 3.6 rc's

I could do that. On the other hand, I guess the web guides have been written for the current official release, not for any release candidate.

I mean http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/install.html

[jgrant]

Thanks for your replies. I'm really impressed by how quick you were able to answer. Couldn't respond earlier myself - had to travel on short notice, sorry for that.

As for installing, it went smoothly with RC4, thanks a lot.  Oh, and I've noticed that a lot of work has been put into rewriting huge parts of the Wiki. Nice.

One small suggestion, if I may. Do you think you could add a couple of words to the beginning

Improvements have been made to the installer in Tiny Core 3.6

something like "the following instructions do not apply to any version of TC prior to 3.6". Because this is exactly what was not clear, at least to me. The paragraph, as I understood it, tells us about improvements of the installer. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the old installer works completely different, does it? And as far as the RC versions are concerned: the download page says: "• Release Candidates (Testing)". I wouldn't normally touch any "Testing" version until the Final Release.

Well then, of course, if the Final Release was only days away...

[Guy]

Tiny Core 3.6 has now been released, and the installation guides have been updated.