I have an old Windows 2003 Server junk machine from 2005 which is thoroughly messed-up. I would like to replace the OS with Debian 10 Buster.
However, the dvdrom is not working (it only opens with the paperclip and then the dvd inside is not even spinning).
Furthermore, it is apparently not bootable from usb (I made four tries: putting Live, and then NetInstall versions on the usb stick; first with Rufus, and then with UNetBootin).
I would be willing to try win32-loader, but the Win2003 won't boot - the Directory Services are corrupted and I've forgotten the DSRM password.
At this point, I think I'd like to pull the IDE (or the SATA) drive out of the junk machine, plug the drive into my Debian 9 Stretch production machine via a usb port with an IDE/SATA to usb adapter (the point of this entire exercise being to test out 10 on the junk machine before upgrading my production machine), install 10 to that drive, and then plug the drive back into the junk machine.
The problem is that I can't find any info on how to install / on that drive during partitioning without endangering / on the production machine's /dev/sda.
Would anyone have any suggestions?
FYI: the junk machine is an Intel Celeron 2.66 GHz 608MB RAM with Phoenix AwardBIOS v6.00PG running Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition SP1 and Maxtor SATA HDD 300GB and Western Digital IDE HDD 40GB.