Problem downloading

[bropee1]

I am trying to download backtrack on a computer that has only a cd drive, not dvd, will not connect to internet due to a basic windows xp os that was installed to make sure it would work after the repair. I do want to only run backtrack on this pc. does anyone know of another way. I have tried using a usb drive and a usb dvd drive and nothing. The computer is an IBM thinkpad. Thanks in advance.

[theprez98]

Can you explain why the USB didn't work other than "nothing"

[Snayler]

I think grub4dos supports booting from iso, you might take a look at that,

[br0c07]

More information will be useful for sure but my first guess would be that you didn't edit your BIOS to make sure that the computer boot from the USB instead of your internal hard drive.

[Lincoln]

Not sure which is your issue, installing or downloading...

You could try VMWare. Then you wouldn't need to make any alterations to your host (XP) machine. You can either download the pre-built VMWare image, or if you have the ISO already (which it sounds like you do) you can check out this easy "How To" by pureh@te:

Backtrack 4 Final Installation in VMware with VMware tools

[DigiP]

My guess is the boot order, or the machine is so old, the bios doesnt support booting from USB. I would start with the bios and see if you have an option to boot from somehting like "removable" listed in there. If so, move it to the top above cdrom and HDD, then reboot with the flash drive plugged in.


There is one other thing you can try, but not sure how far you would get with it. I beleive the latest grub4dos can boot directly to the ISO files themselves without unzipping or burning to a disc, hence dump a bunch of ISO's on a large thumbdrive and point to the ISO itself to boot from using grub. If all else fails, you can try making a bootable cd with grub4dos on it, then point it to the HDD where the ISO file itself is, then boot that way. Might be a little over the top just to run backtrack, but what the hell, give it a shot. This will not be an easy task though, as you will need to make the cd bootable, most likely using win98 boot files or even a BartPE type setup, along with copying grb4dos to the cd. You might have to manually edit the meu.lst file after booting to find the iso.

[balding_parrot]

I think grub4dos supports booting from iso, you might take a look at that,

grub4dos indeed does support booting from an iso, but this support is quite limited and can often be very fiddly to accomplish and because of that does not support directly booting bt4 as an iso.