Is it possible to unmount a live CD?

[Zelmo]

My hard drive died the other day, so I've ordered a new one. In the meantime I can boot my Mepis CD and work off of that. But once the new hard drive arrives, I'll want to do a net-install of Debian. The problem is that I need to burn the net-install CD, but my Mepis CD is occupying the drive.

Is there a way to load everything I need onto the RAM disk and unmount the live CD so I can use the drive to burn the Debian ISO? Maybe a chroot trick?

[Vergil83]

you might take a look at http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12867 I haven't tried it though

[deanlinkous]

Often the OS can be loaded into memory and then you can use the cd drive. GRML has the toram boot time option I think it is.

[bigtomrodney]

Yeah you can usually use the 'toram' or 'copy2ram' boot option. If you have a copy of a smaller distro laying about that might be better, particularly if you don't have swap space. You'll need somewhere to store the image for the disc. Also remember to select burn-on-the-fly so it doesn't try to create another image or anything crazy like that.

[carlosponti]

i used slax onetime and needed the cd-rom and was able to unmount it with no problems not sure about mepis.

[felipe1982]

you may find www.puppylinux.org useful. it runs in livecd mode, and you can eject the cd after bootup. Then, burn the iso to a cd with burning apps found in puppylinux distro, and away you go!

[Zelmo]

Right, but to do that, I need to have a PuppyLinux CD first. Meaning I'd have to burn one. Meaning I'd have to unmount my Mepis CD to put a blank CD in the drive. Meaning I may as well burn the Debian ISO while the Mepis disc is out.

I'll check out those boot options for loading to RAM after I get home. If all goes well, maybe I'll look at putting Puppy on a USB flash drive, just in case.

[Zelmo]

It looks like Mepis doesn't support a "toram" or "copy2ram" option; at least, it didn't have any effect for me. And trying to unmount the CD gives me an "Invalid Argument" error.

So I guess what I'll do is use my fiancee's computer to burn the disc, and then find myself a live distro that does support copy2ram or something similar, and keep that as my rescue disk.