Please help w/ installing BT4 via UNetbootin

[Goldhedge]

BT4 is awesome and from digging into BT3 I can see all the hard work that went into building the Backtrack brand of distros.

Can someone please help me with the BT4 install UNetbootin?

I almost lost my primary partition once already today and I had to recover it.

First, please tell us the option to choose when booting into UNetbootin? And also is it best practice to partition the hard disk first w/ Parted Magic before attempting to install onto a Win XP machine?

I do not have a DVD burner and cannot burn ISO to DVD and my system cannot handle Vmware and BT4. UNetbootin is my only option for a hard disk install of BT4.

Thanks

[lupin]

Unetbootin is used to make bootable USB sticks from ISO images. If you want to use a bootable USB sticks to install BT on a system's hard drive:

1. Create the USB stick using UnetBootin as usual (there's plenty of guides around on how to do this)
2. Boot the target system using that USB stick
3. Use the installer to install BT to the hard drive.

[Goldhedge]

Thank you for replying

I'm looking to install direct to my HDD, not a USB stick. I don't have a DVD burner so I cannot burn the iso.

I am getting the "No root file system is defined" "Please correct from the partitioning menu"

[lupin]

Originally Posted by Goldhedge

Thank you for replying

I'm looking to install direct to my HDD, not a USB stick. I don't have a DVD burner so I cannot burn the iso.

I am getting the "No root file system is defined" "Please correct from the partitioning menu"

There's high level instructions here but personally I think you'll get a cleaner install with less partition errors by using the BT 4 installer from a bootable USB stick. You can always remove BT from the USB stick once you are done if you like, its just a good method to perform the install without locking up a partition, and it makes it a littler bit easier not to break stuff.

[Goldhedge]

Originally Posted by lupin

There's high level instructions here but personally I think you'll get a cleaner install with less partition errors by using the BT 4 installer from a bootable USB stick. You can always remove BT from the USB stick once you are done if you like, its just a good method to perform the install without locking up a partition, and it makes it a littler bit easier not to break stuff.

Thank you very much, I will take a look at both options.

Lupin,

Can I do this with a USB drive that still has data on it and is formatted with the NTFS format?

The reason is that I have an 320 mb external drive with all my music files on it and I don't wan't to loose them. I'm also trying to avoid spending $30 on a USB key that I will have no use for other than this operation.

Thanks

[lupin]

Originally Posted by Goldhedge

Lupin,

Can I do this with a USB drive that still has data on it and is formatted with the NTFS format?

I haven't tried that specifically, but I think probably not.

Originally Posted by Goldhedge

The reason is that I have an 320 mb external drive with all my music files on it and I don't wan't to loose them. I'm also trying to avoid spending $30 on a USB key that I will have no use for other than this operation.

Thanks

Tough one. You can either buy a 2GB or larger USB Stick (should be cheaper than $30) or copy the files from your external drive elsewhere temporarily.

[Goldhedge]

Thanks for your input. From trying it out, it seems the USB drive needs to be made bootable first. Now I hope I can just recover my music files.

I see that BT3 is available in the unetbootin menu. Maybe when the final release of BT4 comes out it will be available too.

Here's a link for anyone reading this thread for install procedures from the Hydtech blog.

How to install BackTrack 3 or 4 to hard drive along with Windows XP, Ubuntu, Fedora, openSuse on Lenovo Thinkpad X60 « HydTech

[IsmailBhai]

Originally Posted by Goldhedge

Here's a link for anyone reading this thread for install procedures from the Hydtech blog.

There is one post for BT 4 and without need for USB on the hydtechblog. Can someone post the url, It says i am not allowed.

[Goldhedge]

Originally Posted by IsmailBhai

There is one post for BT 4 and without need for USB on the hydtechblog. Can someone post the url, It says i am not allowed.

The URL is in my last post.

But apparently the issue with not being able to install BT from the iso image via UNetbootin is NOT a problem inherent with Backtrack. I tried to download and install the most recent and stable version of Ubuntu and I encountered the same problem.

All goes well up to the point where it comes to partitioning the HDD for the install and it does not detect the root file system. There is another thread on this forum where I think they were successful but the thread has so many edits to the procedure it is difficult for me to follow.

I think the problem lies where as the iso boots into the mounted cdrom folder but the application is looking for a physical hard drive. I don't know how to fool with these kinds of settings. I already lost 30 gigs of music tonight fooling around with HDD partition settings.

The best I can get BT (or Ubuntu) to work so far using UNetbootin is "Live CD" mode.

But as I recall now, I downloaded the Live Mode version of Unbutu, I will try another method tommorrow.

[=TAPE=]

Not sure I get this, you ARE able to isntall BT4 Pre F using unetbootin..

Just download the iso and point to the download location in netbootin instead of choosing from the drop-down list..
Then when the usb drive is completed you can use that usb to install to either another USB for a persistent install or on your hdd.

There are also possibilities for easily creating a multi-boot USB drive with for instance BT3 + BT4 + OphCrack etc etc..

Hak5 did a show on it a while and I posted on it a while ago as well.

http://hak5.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=13842