Help with HD install

**dbruley** · 01-24-2008, 10:23 AM

I have a Toshiba P15-S479 (if that makes any difference), and someone very dear to me got me a new HD for my laptop. I have been using my flash drive to run Knoppix 5.1.1. I love the OS, but now I want to run it OR Ubuntu from the hard drive. Two issues prevent this from being easy: 1. it won't recognize my external DVD burner; 2. the DVD burner in my laptop doesn't work as well. I've tried the "tohd" function, but it says the hard drive is unmountable. It's currently NTFS. I'm new to this and don't really know what I'm doing. I know Knoppix has been strongly discouraged from being installed to a hard drive. All I want is a functional laptop again with a working HD...and I really enjoy tinkering around with Linux. I don't think I could use a flash drive forever.

The hard drive itself is blank...as far as I know. Even when I try to create a persistent Knoppix disk image or save configuration files, the flash drive is shown as the CD-ROM and the hard drive is unmountable. Can someone help?

**Harry Kuhman** · 01-24-2008, 10:41 AM

Originally Posted by dbruley

...., but now I want to run it OR Ubuntu from the hard drive. ...

Ubuntu is an option, although from what I've seen of it I can't find a good reason to select it over the choice I'll mention below.

Knoppix isn't really a good option (I.M.H.O.). Knoppix installed on hard disk is plagued with problems. See answer #2 for details.

If you like Knoppix, why not install Debian, the intended for hard disk distro that Knoppix is based on? If you have a high speed connection, I would suggest doing a net install of the current "testing" version, with either the net-install ISO or even the business card ISO. The business card ISO file is only about 50 meg in size, all of the rest is installed directly from the Internet. This would give you a very stable installed system, into which you could easily install anything included in Knoppix and a lot more. And addressing one of the things you mentioned here, the Debian install will look at your disks and figure out how to partition things for you (although it gives you the choice to over ride this).