But how do I transfer anything to the hard disk without removing the CD?
Jumping late into this thread, so this my not apply to your case.
Burn either boot or rescue CD (my preference is rescue). Boot from it. On boot prompt (on the first fedora splash screen, as soon as CD boots), type "linux askmethod" and press <enter> key. As soon as it asks you for language, you can remove CD drive. You are not going to need it anymore (haven't actaully tested it all the to the end, but I got to disk partitioning part). Answer the language question, than keyboard type, and from where do you want to install. If you want to install from network, choose one of FTP, HTTP, and/or NFS, depending on where is your install server. It'll ask you to configure IP address of your network interface and so on. If you don't have local install server, choose HTTP (or FTP) and point it to one of Fedora mirrors. When it asks you, for directory enter path to directory that contains top of Fedora tree, for example /pub/fedora/linux/core/3/i386/os if using download.fedora.redhat.com.
If you plug network card after Anaconda started, there's possibility you'll need to load drivers for it manually. Hmmm... not sure, but there might be option you can pass on boot prompt to force loading of a driver even if device isn't present at boot time. Maybe somebody else can jump-in here.
If your laptop (I guess it is laptop, you mentioned PCMCIA stuff) supports booting off USB, instead of burning rescue CD, you can transfer diskboot.img from images directory onto USB memory device (USB memory key, or some kind of memory card such as compact flash if you have USB reader for it) and boot from it. You do not need CD. The procedure from there on is the same as when booting off rescue CD. I've tried this out several times, and it works like charm. And you bypassed all those problems with removing CD drive. If your laptop supports booting off USB, and you don't have USB memory key, consider borrowing or buying it. Buying is investment all right, but the smaller ones are kind of cheap these days, and you'll probably have use for it even after the install is done.
If it doesn't support booting off USB, check if there are any BIOS updates for your laptop. There is (very small and unlikely, but there's still hope) possibility that booting off USB was added at some point in time.
If your laptop can boot directly off network using PXE, there's also pxeboot directory with kernel and initrd images that can be placed on boot server. I never attempted this kind of booting, and therefore can't help you how to setup boot server (maybe somebody else from the list could, or maybe there's some kind of HOWTO, I'd be also interested in trying it out).
So, you have several options listed above. Go and play ;-)
-- Aleksandar Milivojevic <amilivojevic@xxxxxx> Pollard Banknote Limited Systems Administrator 1499 Buffalo Place Tel: (204) 474-2323 ext 276 Winnipeg, MB R3T 1L7
