Booting into a Linux ISO that's on my hard drive using Plop

[kaz]

Hi,

I have a Vaio Tap 11 without a functioning RF keyboard, that only has one usb port. If I start a linux installation from that usb, I need to pull out the dok and connect a keyboard to choose "install XX" at the boot menu, at which point I get an error since the disk on key is not attached.

A usb hub / splitter does not seem to work, so I was wondering if it was somehow possible to put the linux ISO on the hard drive, and have Plop boot from that? That way I can use the keyboard and have the installation going.
The current os running is Win 10, the desired Linux (for dual boot) is Mint 17.3.

Any feedback/ideas would be welcome


Thanks,
Jo

[Elmar]

Hello,

no, thats not supported by the Plop Boot Manager.

A solution for your problem would be to setup the linux boot menu to auto boot the install mode.

Regards
Elmar

[kaz]

Hi Elmar,

Thank you for the tip, do you have any idea how I can manually do this ISO alteration from within windows? I'm not very savvy with this

I actually tried using Unetbootin and YUMI already but to no avail.. 

Is there maybe a way to have a hard disk partition be "marked" as a USB, extract the ISO there and then have Plop do it's thing?

[Elmar]

Thank you for the tip, do you have any idea how I can manually do this ISO alteration from within windows? I'm not very savvy with this

There exists a program to modify ISO's, but I cant remember the name. It's also possible to use mkisofs to recreate the ISO.

Is there maybe a way to have a hard disk partition be "marked" as a USB, extract the ISO there and then have Plop do it's thing?

No, thats not possible. But you can use grub4dos to boot an ISO from the hard disk.

[kaz]

Thank you for the info, I found that EasyBCD and Grub2Win should support booting an ISO from the harddrive. EasyBCD is smaller (1.3 Mb) so I'll give it a try, thanks for the help!