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Install CentOS 6.2 on 80GB External Hard Drive??

Posted: 2011/12/26 05:39:16
by freephoneid
I've Windows XP installed on my laptop. And I've external 80 GB SATA drive which I usually connect to my laptop through USB.

I want to install CentOS 6.2 on this external drive & it should also boot from that drive, if I connect USB to laptop. Is this possible? If so, can any one provide me step by step instructions on how to install it?

I googled it but couldn't understand from many of the links...Some of the links mentioned to download CentOS liveCD but then they also said that there is a limit of writing only 4 GB of data.

I want to make use of entire 80GB of my external drive. Can any one tell me which file do I need to burn exactly from the below ISO?

http://mirror.cisp.com/CentOS/6.2/isos/x86_64/

Also, how to install it on my external drive step by step???

Thanks!

Install CentOS 6.2 on 80GB External Hard Drive??

Posted: 2011/12/26 11:33:14
by pschaff
Welcome to the CentOS fora. Please see the recommended reading for new users linked in my signature.

For a test of compatibility the LiveDVD would be an appropriate choice. Whatever you saw about a 4GB limit is apparently obsolete information. The LiveCD/DVD media now have an install to hard disk option which should work with the external drive, as long as your laptop BIOS can be set to see that as the boot device, and you are satisfied with an image of what is on the CD as a starting point for the hard drive install.

For more control over the installation process use DVD1 instead. DVD2 is not required for most installs. See the upstream [url=http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html-single/Installation_Guide/index.html]Installation Guide[/url], [url=http://docs.redhat.com/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/6/html-single/Deployment_Guide/index.html]Deployment Guide[/url], etc., for more complete information.

Re: Install CentOS 6.2 on 80GB External Hard Drive??

Posted: 2011/12/27 21:22:20
by pjsr
Plug in the external hard disk and install CentOS6.2 on the USB disk from your installation DVDs.

Let grub install the boot loader in the external USB disk. The CentOS installer will recognize your existing Windows XP installation and add it automatically to your boot configuration.

Change your BIOS settings so it tries to boot from the USB disk before attempting to boot from the hard disk. This way, whenever your USB disk is plugged in, you will boot from the USB disk and the GRUB boot loader will give you the choice between booting CentOS and Windows XP. If you do not have the USB disk plugged in on boot, you will automatically boot into Windows XP.