UNSOLVED - Remaster on usb stick gives "boot error"

[wedgetail]

Maurice

But on my machine - no dice. The Minime menu just did not appear. Only the normal Pclos menu.

I understand this quote as you are saying: Nothing happened apart from the PCLOS menu showing and I assumed you had the stick plugged in so your computer now would run from the stick ( and not the internal hard drive )

Is that not what your are trying??? 

[Just17]

Maurice,
               The fact that your machine does not boot a USB stick without your intervention is not uncommon.

For instance the machine I am presently using will not do so .....  UNLESS I press the 'magic' key (F12 on this machine) during the initial boot BEFORE it gets to the Grub choice screen.

I don't know what key might be the one for your machine.

On pressing F12 I get a black screen with a list of boot options. The USB stick here is listed under HDDs on this machine and on another PC it is listed separately.

The BIOS determines how it gets listed.

I had to (many times) boot to the installed Grub screen, and use Ctrl Alt Del to do reboots, pressing a selection of keys before I hit on the correct one to give me the display.  (F1, F2, F8, F10, Del, Esc were all tried). F2 brings me into the BIOS setup here.

Have you succeeded in displaying such a list?

(Of course this may not be the way your BIOS does it .....  but worth trying if you cannot seem to get what you need in any other manner)

[Maurice]

Maurice

But on my machine - no dice. The Minime menu just did not appear. Only the normal Pclos menu.

I understand this quote as you are saying: Nothing happened apart from the PCLOS menu showing and I assumed you had the stick plugged in so your computer now would run from the stick ( and not the internal hard drive )

Is that not what your are trying??? 

I'm sorry I'm not making myself very clear. Let me try again.

I plugged the stick into my machine and it was not recognized. The machine booted to PcLinuxos2011 as it normally does. The remaster had not succeeded.

I plugged the stick into my wife's machine and it was recognised. The machine booted to Minime on the stick. The remaster had succeeded.

Off to bed now,  

[wedgetail]

Maurice

Ah, that makes sense. You win that round    I am not quite out of ideas though.   What Just18 has written is a good item to get solved.  Does your pc have one of these custom booting schemes. I will go looking for the manual for your machine.    Also getting to the sleep time here soon. 

[wedgetail]

Maurice

DG33 do you have any extra characters like FB  or BU or ... after the DG33   

[Just17]

If this is the manual for the motherboard then F10 is the 'magic key'

http://www.nor-tech.com/rohs/dox/DG33BU-tps.pdf

See section 3.8 ....

[Maurice]

I had to (many times) boot to the installed Grub screen, and use Ctrl Alt Del to do reboots, pressing a selection of keys before I hit on the correct one to give me the display.  (F1, F2, F8, F10, Del, Esc were all tried). F2 brings me into the BIOS setup here.

Have you succeeded in displaying such a list?

(Of course this may not be the way your BIOS does it .....  but worth trying if you cannot seem to get what you need in any other manner)

I've just tried all the keys you specify without success.

[Xenaflux]

I've just tried all the keys you specify without success

on the off-chance that you have a Microsoft Natural ( multimedia or not ) keyboard, you maybe have to press the " F-Lock key " first before the F keys start working. ( the F typed here does not stand for F...g ) .They have double functions in normal operation.

[luikki]

i just had a similar problem.
culprit: a defective pen drive working intermittently...

[wedgetail]

Maurice

This is from the manual that Just18 referred to. The extract from D33BU

3.8.4
Changing the Default Boot Device During POST
Pressing the <F10> key during POST causes a boot device menu to be displayed. This
menu displays the list of available boot devices (as set in the BIOS setup program’s
Boot Device Priority Submenu). Table 32 lists the boot device menu options.

[Maurice]

Without requoting - in reply to Just18, Xenaflux, wedgetail and luiki.

My mb is DG33FB. I took all your notes and suggestions on board and F10 is actually the magic key and that gives me that magic menu ---

DVDRAM
HARD DRIVE
IBA GE SLOT
LEXAR JD FIRE - the usb stick.

So I chose LEXAR but, once again, it didn't work and I was taken to my normal PcLinuxos 2012 screen.

After all this one would assume that the stick was defective but that is not the case as it works in my wife's machine. I'm beginning to wonder if all this is worth the effort all of you very helpful guys - and melodie - are putting into it and whether I should just call it quits. It's so near and yet so far.

[Just17]

Some PCs are very picky about the USB device structure they will boot ......  I had to redo the partitioning on one of my sticks because this PC would not boot it .......  but all others I tried did.

Partitioning with KDE Partition Manager seemed to solve the problem, but I have not since confirmed what I think was the problem.

[Xenaflux]

and whether I should just call it quits

The problem with quitting is that it later may interfere with your sleeping patterns

Xena

[wedgetail]

Maurice

We ain't done yet  but I must say this is challenge. I am now back thinking you may have a USB port that while it can boot from it it only will do so from a FAT partition. I am not sure but I think you have proved it will not boot from a FAT32.

The last fdisk -l you reported was one that conforms to the new fdisk (it started at 2048) and if you use Dolphin or Konqueror you can see what is on the USB key. I think we can say that as a storage element there is nothing wrong with the USB key.  It seems there is something funny in the boot process, from what I have stumbled upon on the internet when looking for USB oddities some people have reported that they needed a FAT partition at the beginning of the USB key else no working.  At the time I was not interested int that, so I did not make a record of where I saw the information.

If you have the time and inclination I would like to try and prove or disprove the FAT theory ?? Even if tht fails I am not done yet  (but close)

As you don't have an 'ordinary' USB key to hand it will require you reformat your 16 GB USB key so there is a FAT partition at the beginning. I have no idea what size is required. I will suggest about 1 GB and make it FAT16 then make the rest ext3

At this stage don't bother installing anything to the drive.  Just try to boot to it and see what message you get if any.  I am hoping it will complain about a missing OS but it may also go back to your normal PCLOS menu if it does that will make it tricky.

Before you do though I will outline my backup strategy.  I think it could be tested with your USB key as is.  The thinking goes, there is nothing wrong with the Linux system on the stick and therefor it can be kickstarted manually with GRUB. Because I am a bit dim in the GRUB area I have made a special GRUB only boot disk, I think it is about 5 MB with that disk I can go and find all my 15 OS and point to the one I want started. Something similar I would think can be done on yours.

I think that using a liveCD and with the USB key installed the OS on the USB can be started but I have not yet tested this but I will as I have an old zen boot USB key. This will tell us that your port is capable. Really is belts and double braces trying to figure it out.

First though let us know if you still have the energy and spirit to keep going would be very nice to see if we can get to the bottom of this.  Then we will go from there

Any one else get better suggestion? ( Apart from handing in the towel)

[Maurice]

Thanks Just18 and Xenaflux - my sleeping patterns are shot anyway.

And wedgetail - surely you must have others things to do than go to all this trouble? But I sure appreciate it.

And, I've just repartitioned the usb to a 1gb fat32 partition at the front and the remainder formatted as ext3. And it worked - it was rejected and I had to reboot..

So now, after a ploughman's lunch of my own just this morning home-baked crusty bread, I shall install the remaster on the usb and hope for the best.