Possible to boot livedvd off of external harddrive?

[MorningWood]

Hi guys, I just found out about Sabayon 3.4a and really want to try it out via dualboot on my laptop. The only problem is that I don't have a dvd burner and don't really want to settle for the mini version. However, I do have an external USB hard drive and was wondering if it would be possible to boot the LiveDVD iso from the drive? My laptop does have the option of booting from a USB harddrive, so the thing I need to know is what exactly do I need to tweak for the ISO to boot?
Thank you in advance.

[nickrout]

You shouldn't need to tweak anything but your bios (to tell it to boot from external drive first)

[MorningWood]

I have copied the ISO over to the drive and even extracted the ISO and tried booting to the hard drive and I just get a blinking cursor.

[2ny]

No, no, no!

This cannot work. The ISO is an actual disc in digital format that is bootable, put it on you HD and it is just another file - there is no way it can boot your machine. I like the question though. Theoretically, if you format that drive as a System Disk and extract the ISO onto the drive, provided everything landed in the right place it might work. Do Linux have something like the DOS DISKCOPY program? Used correctly that might do it. But I am dead certain that the essentials will not land in the right place.

It takes a bit of mind bending to grasp what the ISO really is. That is also why most people have trouble burning the thing correctly the first time.

Tony. . .

[MorningWood]

Thank you for clearing that up 2ny, I thought there might be a "trick" because I've seen tutorials such as this one:

http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Hd_Based_Ho ... _choose_to:

and thought it might be possible. Well I guess I have to track down a dvd burner.

[2ny]

I checked that link, but I didn't read all of it. It seems Knoppix have come up with a proprietary way of subverting the system limits - and one that requires a boot-floppy that transfers the start-up procedure to the HD copy. This is interesting, but I do NOT think you can make any immediate use of the technology. And a burner is so nice anyway - and cheap too. Not as cheap as not having to buy it, though!

Tony. . .

[nickrout]

I have copied the ISO over to the drive and even extracted the ISO and tried booting to the hard drive and I just get a blinking cursor.

Sorry I misunderstood, i thought you were booting from an external dvd drive, not an external hard drive.