InstallationFromUSBstick: retired from v.10 on, left for reference

Problem

Imagine you have a server that wont boot from USB CDROM drive or have no internal CDROM drive. Or even you prefer to install from a USB stick instead a physical media.

Solution

Create a USB stick with SME software on it

Requirements

You'll need a usb stick with more space than the sme.iso something like 800mb should do

Tested with SME v7.3 ~ v7.5.1 and SME8B6, so download one or the other iso file.

The latest GRUB4DOS (no Grub/Grub2 wont do). I used 0.4.4
Download from http://sourceforge.net/projects/grub4dos/

Creating USB stick

1) Getting the usb to boot
unpack the grub4dos.zip.
Now to install to you usb drive, cd into the grub4dos dir, find and run
./bootlace /dev/<Make SURE this is your usbdrive) MINE was /dev/SDD YMMV
take a peek at http://diddy.boot-land.net/grub4dos/files/install.htm for more hints on this
Now we need a couple of files too.

So we copy grldr and menu.lst to the root of the usb drive.

There, now it would try to boot.

2) Getting the iso ready for the boot
Copy the file smeserver*.iso to the usb stick.
its important to NOT rename this iso, as sme's install program will search for it
now if you know you will newer have to work on servers with less than 1GB ram, then skip this

Otherwise
mount the iso in a temporary directory and copy the boot.iso to the root.
Something like

mkdir /media/iso
mount -t iso9600 -o loop smeserver*.iso /media/iso
cp /media/iso/images/boot.iso /media/<usbstick>/SMEboot.iso
umount /media/iso
rmdir /media/iso 

3) now for the magic.
On USB edit the menu.lst to include this

title SMEserver
fallback 6
find --set-root /smeserver-8.0beta6-i386.iso
map /smeserver-8.0beta6-i386.iso (0xff) || map --mem /smeserver-8.0beta6-i386.iso (0xff)
map --hook
chainloader (0xff)
savedefault --wait=2


title SME boot.iso(lowmem)
fallback 7
find --set-root /SMEboot.iso
map /SMEboot.iso (0xff) || map --mem /SMEboot.iso (0xff)
map --hook
chainloader (0xff)
savedefault --wait=2

4) Read this too
When booting, grub4dos, will cache the cd image to memory
Thats why i included the boot.iso method
the Boot.iso just isnt as polished as the normal installer, so avoid if you can
When booting the smeserver, the initial caching will take a looong time
If anyone has any idea how to get an invadeaload game on, ill take it, otherwise just wait
Your not working.. SME is working for you

5) IMPORTANT
When the installer is running, it will ask where to find the install image.
Point it at the usbdrive.
When asked if you want to format/repartition the drive with the loopback device
JUST SAY NO
Otherwise i suspect you'll have to start over ;-)