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Old 2nd August 2010
BSDfan666 BSDfan666 is offline
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It would be easier to use removable media like a burned CD or a properly prepared flash drive, there does exist ways to do what you ask, but it's complicated and should only be done by someone who understands the risks.

USB drives are cheap, blank CD/DVD's are cheaper, and it will save you a lot of headaches.

The complicated method I'm referring to is similar in nature to the custom remote installers "yaifo" for OpenBSD and "depenguinator" for FreeBSD.

Basically you write a small disk image directly to the start of your drive, trashing the existing OS, but effectively bootstrapping the new installation process and allowing you to proceed (..but you must do so carefully!).

OpenBSD uses a RAMDISK kernel that once loaded into memory, discontinues using the boot drive, this allows you to fdisk/disklabel/newfs and install the sets from network or another disk.. if however you botch the installation or for some reason your system is unsupported, you will need a CD to recover your original "trashed" OS.

So as I said, not something a novice user should do, not unless you're prepared to get your hands dirty.
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