UNSOLVED - Remaster on usb stick gives "boot error"

[Maurice]

I have decided that the remaster is at fault so am trying to make a new one.

However it stalls partway through. The hard drive was still flickering so I let it run for over an hour but I think my Pclos2011 is too large.

(The previous one I was trying to do was a Minime and much smaller).

My present system is 15gb in size on a 90gb partition. I've run bleachbit and bleachbit root. I don't have a home partition to exclude. The only other big file I could exclude would be LibreOffice which wouldn't make much difference.

Does this mean I can't, after all, make a remaster and that this whole thread has now become irrevelant.

[Crow]

I never make a separate home partition and I make a remaster from all my installs, you need to exclude your documents, music and all that.

[wedgetail]

Maurice

I think it means you have changed course, if your USB stick makes bad files then going to KDE will not help, anyway. I think we need to get some details from your latest try.

First just show us the output of df in root konsole, something like here, and this is not an indication that yours should look the same.

[root@localhost gert]# df
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2              28G  6.8G   20G  26% /
/dev/sdd1             200G   93G   98G  49% /media/USB465-1B
[root@localhost gert]#

Next we will ask Just18 if it is an idea to start your USB making process from konsole  

[Maurice]

Maurice

I think it means you have changed course, if your USB stick makes bad files then going to KDE will not help, anyway. I think we need to get some details from your latest try.

First just show us the output of df in root konsole, something like here, and this is not an indication that yours should look the same.


Next we will ask Just18 if it is an idea to start your process from konsole  

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2              97G   11G   82G  12% /
/dev/sda6             4.9G  183M  4.4G   4% /media/disk
/dev/sda7             3.9G   72M  3.6G   2% /media/disk-1
/dev/sda4              97G  188M   92G   1% /media/disk-2

Pclos is on sda2. It  gives a different Used figure every time I look at it.
sda1, 3 and 4 are not showing here. I think I unmounted them earlier.

[wedgetail]

Maurice

Approximately how much does the size increase after each time you look?  Is it after each attempt to make USB setup?  If the used size increases something probably being saved here.

You can try and run this, it will give an idea of where the space is used on /

[root@localhost gert]# du -sm /* | sort -nr | head -150
..
..

When the list is down to single figures just cut them off but post the 'big ones'  

Edit:  I should have said copy/paste  the red bits to konsole and that it may take a minute depends on how big your system

[djohnston]

I don't have a home partition to exclude.

It may well be true that you have no separate partition for the /home directory. But, you still have a /home/maurice directory. And if you have a lot of large files stored there, and you do not exclude them from the remaster, the iso file you are attempting to create will become too large. Do a trial run without fiddling with any parameters yet.

$ su -
# umount -a
# mylivecd test.iso
# ls -l test.iso
# exit

 First line is su (space) -. Second line is umount (space) -a. You will get an error that / partition cannot be unmounted. That is normal. See what results you get.

[Maurice]

Approximately how much does the size increase after each time you look?  Is it after each attempt to make USB setup?  If the used size increases something probably being saved here.

You can try and run this, it will give an idea of where the space is used on /

[root@localhost gert]# du -sm /* | sort -nr | head -150

..

I must be mistaken but the last time I checked in Gparted it showed 15gb.

du showed ...

4099    /home
2852    /root
2493    /usr

[DeBaas]

@just18

Quote from: DeBaas on Today at 01:36:21
Today I made a remaster with mylivecd about 1G
I used a new USB 4G and put, wih unetbootin, this iso on stick.
One machine perfect another boot problems.
I find out this problem machine wanted only fat16 as USB boot item (floppy ?)
So I formatted the 4G USB as bootable fat16, unetbootin again and problem solved.
Only, fat16 has a maximum file size.............

Quote from: just18 on Today at 01:51:03
I came across a 'somewhat' similar problem which was solved by putting a FAT partition first and the Linux OS on the second partition.

I never came across a situation like you have described.

Is it an old machine?  Make/model so I might look out for it, please?

Asrock K7S8XE BIOS P2.20
CPU   - Socket 462, supporting AMD Athlon, Athlon XP, Duron
- FSB 400/333/266/200 MHz
Chipset   - SiS® 748

Got this USB FAT16 boot behaviour on several older mobo's, but it's no problem to format (install from synaptic) with (KDE) partitionmanager or (Gnome) gparted (Not Windows). Do not forget to set the boot flag.

[Maurice]

It may well be true that you have no separate partition for the /home directory. But, you still have a /home/maurice directory. And if you have a lot of large files stored there, and you do not exclude them from the remaster, the iso file you are attempting to create will become too large. Do a trial run without fiddling with any parameters yet.

$ su -
# umount -a
# mylivecd test.iso
# ls -l test.iso
# exit

 

It stalled again whilst compressing files at 8.22% as before. So I couldn't do the ls.

Out of a total of 11gb I have about 4gb in my Home directory. Excluding that would leave 7gb for the iso.Is that still too large?

[Xenaflux]

11 Gb shouldn't be to much in my opinion, but then, I never made a successful remaster, so....can't talk much here 
Just a thought:
1--Move all your data out to another partition
2--clean out your /home/<name>/Tmp

My /home is 303.7 Mb as I always keep my data separate.

try again.......if you still feel fit

[Maurice]

11 Gb shouldn't be to much in my opinion, but then, I never made a successful remaster, so....can't talk much here 
Just a thought:
1--Move all your data out to another partition
2--clean out your /home/<name>/Tmp

My /home is 303.7 Mb as I always keep my data separate.

try again.......if you still feel fit

Only just, it's been a long drawn out thread.
But, near enough bed time now so I'm shutting down for a while..........

[Just17]

I suggest that Maurice uses a PCLOS Mini ISO, or any PCLOS ISO he may have on his HDD,  and puts it on the USB stick using LiveUSB Creator.
If that does not work then we know it is not the ISO that is at fault, and can look for the possible cause.

If it does work then the personal remaster can be added to the USB stick .....  a known good & booting USB stick. If the personal remaster fails then we know that it is either the copying process or the ISO that is at fault which brings us right back to where we were much earlier in the thread.

As for the mylivecd process stalling .......  yes it takes a lot of time to compress the amount of data Maurice has in his remaster. Patience is needed 


So, to Maurice ........  set up your USB device with at least one ext partition that is large enough to hold an ISO  (1GB minimum, but much larger needed for larger or multiple installs).
Install, using LiveUSB Creator, some version of PCLOS on the USB device .......  using a known good PCLOS original ISO. Be sure to check the MD5sum of the ISO before using it.

Be sure you know and understand the questions being asked while the script is running. If you don't, ask.
Also be certain you know whether you wish to do a new install or want to Add to an existing install.

regards

[melodie]

Hi,

A personal remaster to be successful needs to have a command line which excludes personal datas as well as the temporary directory and the iso being constructed.

Maurice, here is an exemple, which you could use, from within your directory:

Code: [Select]

mylivecd  --tmp=/home/maurice/tmp --nodir=^/home/maurice/tmp,/home/maurice/Documents --nofile=^/home/maurice/pclinuxos-maurice-some_date.iso
The directory Documents in this example is supposed to contain all your private documents. If you used Bleachbit and Bleachbit root to clean it's fine. Maybe could you also want to remove part or all of the files which are under /usr/share/doc as it can take a lot of space when you have used the distro a long time, installed many programs and done updates many times. You could take a look there, and keep only the docs you want to use (many directories contain only information about the program but no doc at all anyway).

If you move all personal files into one directory only (let's say "Documents") and look how large it takes, can you say how much will be left to compress ? Once all in "Documents", you can type "du -csh Documents" to get the human readable size of the directory.

[djohnston]

I suggest that Maurice uses a PCLOS Mini ISO, or any PCLOS ISO he may have on his HDD,  and puts it on the USB stick using LiveUSB Creator.
If that does not work then we know it is not the ISO that is at fault, and can look for the possible cause.

+1

[Maurice]

I won't attempt to quote the replies - they're rather overwhelming   - but many thanks for them all.

I have an lxde iso and tried that but no go. I  will take Just18's suggestion and download a Minime.iso, install it, add Firefox and a few personal files, then try to make a remaster. This will take some time as I have to catch up on things which have been neglected for the past days so I may be quiescent for a while. But, rest assured, as your General McArthur famously said, "I shall return"

Maurice