hdd and cdrom autoprobe

[wctan@netwxs.com.my]

Hi,

I am a newbie here.
I would very much appreciate any help on the below issue:

I am trying to make some sort like a distro installation CD for myself.
I use syslinux with kernel 2.4.7 to boot a CD-ROM using the El-Torito emulating a 2.88MB floppy.
Upon booting, I try to determine/probe the CD-ROM and HDD type of the target machine in order to 
load the appropriate modules/driver for the device because I can't afford to compile a huge kernel 
for my purpose.
After probing I will need to partition the harddisk and copy/untar/install all the software/data from my 
CD-ROM media to the harddisk.

My question is:
If I don't want to make the user reboot the machine after installation but straight away continue 
working on the machine.
How should I probe the CD-ROM and Harddisk of the target machine if I just want to use a single 
kernel without the compiling all the drivers into it and try to install the modules needed upon probing?
How should I tell the current kernel its new root partition to install the hardware?  Is it somewhere in 
the /proc filesystem?

Thank you in advanced.

Yours truly,
Tan Wei Chong.






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