[Solved]"win32-loader.ini not found" & "The downloaded release files can not be trusted" when installing Debian

RadinShirzad

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Hi!
Recently, I've been trying to revive an old machine of mine;
it has a Pentium 4 2.8(32bit) & 1.5 GB of DDR1 RAM and WindowsXP installed on it.

The motherboard is too old to support USB boot and I can't get it to boot from a DVD either(probably not supported)(The DVD I used was burnt using windows 10's own iso burning tool).

I tried a program called win32-loader.exe but that doesn't work, it works fine at first but when it starts to download files it gives the error "The downloaded release files can not be trusted. aborting!"
I tried extracting the contents of a Debian netinst iso and running setup.exe from there but that didn't work either as it gave the error "win32-loader.ini not found" although the .ini file is present in the same directory.

Are there any ways to solve the above problems?(win32-loader)
or is there any other way that I haven't tried already?


UPDATE:
on the first error, "The downloaded release files can not be trusted", I sadly found no proper answer
on the second one, "win32-loader.ini not found"; in contrast, I found that you need to copy the win32-loader.ini file present in the iso file and copy it to the following directories in windows:
C:\
C:\windows\system32
 
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Without knowing the exact product number of your P4, I would have to assume it's a 32 bit processor, IF your machine came with a DVD as standard then it should be DVD bootable,
so you will need a DVD-r to burn your ISO to, [do it at a slow speed for best possible burn]
you will need to know how to enter the one time boot menu [this will depend on the make of the machine]
you will need a 32 bit distribution [there are several available, debian-32 bit, peppermint 32-bit, MX-32bit, and puppy-32 bit being among the most popular] you will need time and patience as that is not a very fast machine,
see my How Do I guide [link under]
 
Without knowing the exact product number of your P4, I would have to assume it's a 32 bit processor, IF your machine came with a DVD as standard then it should be DVD bootable,
so you will need a DVD-r to burn your ISO to, [do it at a slow speed for best possible burn]
you will need to know how to enter the one time boot menu [this will depend on the make of the machine]
you will need a 32 bit distribution [there are several available, debian-32 bit, peppermint 32-bit, MX-32bit, and puppy-32 bit being among the most popular] you will need time and patience as that is not a very fast machine,
see my How Do I guide [link under]
My apologies for not specifying the architecture;
as I said I have tried booting from a DVD and I do know how to install an OS but thanks anyway,
the machine is ancient and many of its parts have been replaced including the DVD drive, that's the reason for my confusion.
My main intention is to get that win32-loader to work.
 
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There has been problems with the win32 loader on recent Debian releases, As I have never duel booted old Windows XP with Linux, I have never had this problem,
if you search win-32 loader not working, you should find a few results, including a few you-tube tutorials
 
There has been problems with the win32 loader on recent Debian releases, As I have never duel booted old Windows XP with Linux, I have never had this problem,
if you search win-32 loader not working, you should find a few results, including a few you-tube tutorials
Hello again, I managed to fix the issue with that ini file but it led to another error which I researched on and found no answers to; therefore, I am not going to look further into it as I am frustrated with this, alternatively, I shall rip out the hard drive, take it my friend's house, and install Debian onto it using his computer.
thank you so much for your time and advice.
 
Just make sure you download a 32 bit Linux build
if you are changing completely to Linux, I am running peppermint 32 bit on an old acer ZG5, and Debian 32 bit on an older still acer travel mate both distros installed using DVD-r burnt at 2x speed, both installed without any problems.
 

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