16.5. Preparing for a Hard Drive Installation
Note
Hard drive installations using DASD or SCSI source storage only work from native ext2 or ext3 partitions. If you have a file system based on devices other than native ext2 or ext3 (particularly a file system based on RAID or LVM partitions) you will not be able to use it as a source to perform a hard drive installation.
Ensure that you have boot media available on CD, DVD, or a USB storage device such as a flash drive.
To prepare your system for a hard drive installation, you must set the system up in one of the following ways:
- Using a set of CD-ROMs, or a DVD — Create ISO image files from each installation CD-ROM, or from the DVD. For each CD-ROM (once for the DVD), execute the following command on a Linux system:
dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/tmp/file-name.isoThis command may raise an error message when the data at the end of the CD-ROM is reached which can be ignored. The ISO images created can now be used for installation, once copied to the correct DASD. - Using ISO images - transfer these to the system to be installed (or to the correct DASD or SCSI devices).Verifying that ISO images are intact before you attempt an installation, helps to avoid problems. To verify the ISO images are intact prior to performing an installation, use an
md5sumprogram (manymd5sumprograms are available for various operating systems). Anmd5sumprogram should be available on the same Linux machine as the ISO images.Make the correct DASDs or SCSI LUNs accessible to the new VM or LPAR, and then proceed with installation.Additionally, if a file calledupdates.imgexists in the location from which you install, it is used for updates toanaconda, the installation program. Refer to the fileinstall-methods.txtin theanacondaRPM package for detailed information on the various ways to install Red Hat Enterprise Linux, as well as how to apply the installation program updates.
