How to create a mini-boot CD for SLES 10 SP1

If you have an older system that doesn’t have an internal DVD but you do have an external USB DVD, here’s how to build a CD to boot from. This will probably work with any version of SLES 10:

1. Boot Linux and mount the SLES 10 DVD.
2. mkdir /tmp/mini-boot

   1	mkdir /tmp/mini-boot

3. cp <path-to-DVD-mount>/boot/i386/loader/* /tmp/mini-boot

   1	cp <path-to-DVD-mount>/boot/i386/loader/* /tmp/mini-boot

4. mkisofs -o /tmp/mini-boot.iso -b isolinux.bin -c boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table /tmp/mini-boot

   1 2	mkisofs -o /tmp/mini-boot.iso -b isolinux.bin -c boot.cat -no-emul-boot          -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table /tmp/mini-boot

This will leave a “/tmp/mini-boot.iso” that you can burn to a CD using your favorite CD burning software (eg: “k3b -cdimage /tmp/mini-boot.iso”, Nero, or Roxio).

Note that it will initially say it cannot find the media, but when you say “try again”, it will find the DVD.