UNSOLVED - Remaster on usb stick gives "boot error"

[wedgetail]

Maurice

Yes I have many other things but this item got too intriguing for me, a few times I 'left' thinking it was all over.  I like to get to the bottom of problems at some time and I have recently done battle with USB keys which in the past I think has cost me untold trouble. So I am a bit sensitised at the moment to USB keys.

What do you use to partition the USB-key?
For my use, can you show the fdisk -l too when you get a chance? 

[Maurice]

Maurice

What do you use to partition the USB-key?
For my use, can you show the fdisk -l too when you get a chance? 

gparted

 
Disk /dev/sdb: 16.0 GB, 16039018496 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1949 cylinders, total 31326208 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0009869e

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1            2048     2136644     1067298+   b  W95 FAT32
/dev/sdb2         2136645    31310684    14587020   83  Linux

I'm now about to install the remaster.

[Maurice]

And yet another failure whilst trying to install the remaster.

Error occurred
extraction of files from iso failed

This is getting beyond a joke but I'll give it one more try.

[Crow]

And yet another failure whilst trying to install the remaster.

Error occurred
extraction of files from iso failed

This is getting beyond a joke but I'll give it one more try.

Yes, it is fascinating 

[wedgetail]

Maurice

Steady now, we are in another set of conditions and must take it carefully.

You are meaning PCLinuxOS live USB creator when you say install the remaster I need to get that clear in my head as to me this means I am making a myliveCD.  Sorry you know I can be 'thick'  (and you are using the minime.iso downloaded yesterday)  

Also you did make sure at aiming the install at  /dev/sdb2 I am just making sure once again.

Crow

Am I getting an education here intriguing to the end.  I am checking out the heavy dude stuff now ready to fire at the problem.  

[Maurice]

Maurice

Steady now, we are in another set of conditions and must take it carefully.

You are meaning PCLinuxOS live USB creator when you say install the remaster I need to get that clear in my head as to me this means I am making a myliveCD.  Sorry you know I can be 'thick'  (and you are using the minime.iso downloaded yesterday)  

Also you did make sure at aiming the install at  /dev/sdb2 I am just making sure once again.

Crow

Am I getting an education here intriguing to the end.  I am checking out the heavy dude stuff now ready to fire at the problem.  

Sorry but my explanations can be a bit loose. Yes, when I talk about a remaster I mean using Live USB Creator. And I am now using the PcLinuxos2011.iso for installation. And yes I did point it to the sdb2 partition.

So - I have just tried again and I got another error message near the end. So I tried again and this time it worked. But, when I replaced the usb to reboot I got the error message "Not a bootable disk" and it refused to boot. I tried again with the same result.

Talk about trial and error.....

[Maurice]

Here is he /boot/grub/menu.lst from the usb - it might help.....?

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,1)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0


title   KDE
kernel (hd0,1)/KDE1/vmlinuz livecd=/KDE1 fromusb root=UUID=cf668e00-3a3b-43ab-b7b0-1c3388dacf74 acpi=on vga=791 quiet splash=silent vmalloc=256M
initrd (hd0,1)/KDE1/initrd.gz
 
title  KDE with Persistence
kernel (hd0,1)/KDE1/vmlinuz livecd=/KDE1 fromusb root=UUID=cf668e00-3a3b-43ab-b7b0-1c3388dacf74 changes_dev=UUID=cf668e00-3a3b-43ab-b7b0-1c3388dacf74 acpi=on fstab=rw,noauto vga=791 quiet splash=silent vmalloc=256M
initrd (hd0,1)/KDE1/initrd.gz
 
title   KDE with Copy to RAM
kernel (hd0,1)/KDE1/vmlinuz livecd=/KDE1 fromusb copy2ram root=UUID=cf668e00-3a3b-43ab-b7b0-1c3388dacf74 acpi=on vga=791 quiet splash=silent vmalloc=256M
initrd (hd0,1)/KDE1/initrd.gz

[wedgetail]

Maurice

The stanza looks fine to me and we should be able to boot that manually. Here I will call on help from the people who really know. I tried my way and nothing happened.

It does seem odd that you have trouble with getting through the install process.  It sounds like the install process is marginal, just on the limit of being able to write successfully.  

Ok, the next step is fairly simple. FAT16 maxes out around 2 GB so we should be safe to format the first partition to FAT16.  Without deleting anything just use Gparted and format the partition FAT16 instead of 32.  Then try and see if this makes any difference.  

[Maurice]

Maurice

Ok, the next step is fairly simple. FAT16 maxes out around 2 GB so we should be safe to format the first partition to FAT16.  Without deleting anything just use Gparted and format the partition FAT16 instead of 32.  Then try and see if this makes any difference.  

Did that, got the same error message "Not a bootable disk" and it refused to boot. I tried again with the same result.

[djohnston]

Sorry but my explanations can be a bit loose. Yes, when I talk about a remaster I mean using Live USB Creator. And I am now using the PcLinuxos2011.iso for installation. And yes I did point it to the sdb2 partition.

So - I have just tried again and I got another error message near the end. So I tried again and this time it worked. But, when I replaced the usb to reboot I got the error message "Not a bootable disk" and it refused to boot. I tried again with the same result.

The system does, indeed, need to be installed to the second partition on the drive. But, the GRUB boot record has to be installed to the MBR of the USB.

[wedgetail]

Yes I will wait and see the answer to above post 

[Maurice]

The system does, indeed, need to be installed to the second partition on the drive. But, the GRUB boot record has to be installed to the MBR of the USB.

That is where I did install it -

'Select the grub option you wish to perform'

I chose the 3rd item

Install grub to the mbr of the usb drive

[wedgetail]

Maurice
This is a bit tricky but should be safe, I have a USB boot Key in my position /dev/sdd, yours is in /dev/sdb I am checking if I have grub installed on my /dev/sdd

[root@localhost gert]# dd if=/dev/sdd bs=512 count=4 | hexdump -C |grep grub
4+0 records in
4+0 records out
2048 bytes (2.0 kB) copied, 3.4684e-05 s, 59.0 MB/s
00000420  2f 67 72 75 62 2f 73 74  61 67 65 32 20 2f 62 6f  |/grub/stage2 /bo|
00000430  6f 74 2f 67 72 75 62 2f  6d 65 6e 75 2e 6c 73 74  |ot/grub/menu.lst|
[root@localhost gert]#

If you copy this line into your root konsole and run it you should get the same as I have above, you just copy/paste this line into root console

dd if=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=4 | hexdump -C |grep grub

But if you have any concerns about doing this don't

This will only give us an idea if GRUB go on the stick, and I can not see why not.

The last remaster have you tried it on the Dell

[Maurice]

Maurice
This is a bit tricky but should be safe, I have a USB boot Key in my position /dev/sdd, yours is in /dev/sdb I am checking if I have grub installed on my /dev/sdd

[root@localhost gert]# dd if=/dev/sdd bs=512 count=4 | hexdump -C |grep grub
4+0 records in
4+0 records out
2048 bytes (2.0 kB) copied, 3.4684e-05 s, 59.0 MB/s
00000420  2f 67 72 75 62 2f 73 74  61 67 65 32 20 2f 62 6f  |/grub/stage2 /bo|
00000430  6f 74 2f 67 72 75 62 2f  6d 65 6e 75 2e 6c 73 74  |ot/grub/menu.lst|
[root@localhost gert]#

If you copy this line into your root konsole and run it you should get the same as I have above, you just copy/paste this line into root console

dd if=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=4 | hexdump -C |grep grub

But if you have any concerns about doing this don't

This will only give us an idea if GRUB go on the stick, and I can not see why not.

The last remaster have you tried it on the Dell 6d 65 6e 75 2e 6c 73 74

[root@localhost ~]# dd if=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=4 | hexdump -C |grep grub
4+0 records in
4+0 records out
2048 bytes (2.0 kB) copied, 2.1892e-05 s, 93.6 MB/s
00000420  2f 67 72 75 62 2f 73 74  61 67 65 32 20 2f 62 6f  |/grub/stage2 /bo|
00000430  6f 74 2f 67 72 75 62 2f  6d 65 6e 75 2e 6c 73 74  |ot/grub/menu.lst|

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yes this last remaster did appear on the boot menu, took about 10 minutes to start but finally just hung.

[luikki]

Here is he /boot/grub/menu.lst from the usb - it might help.....?

timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
gfxmenu (hd0,1)/boot/gfxmenu
default 0

------------------------
title   KDE
kernel (hd0,1)/KDE1/vmlinuz livecd=/KDE1 fromusb root=UUID=cf668e00-3a3b-43ab-b7b0-1c3388dacf74 acpi=on vga=791 quiet splash=silent vmalloc=256M
initrd (hd0,1)/KDE1/initrd.gz
 
title  KDE with Persistence
kernel (hd0,1)/KDE1/vmlinuz livecd=/KDE1 fromusb root=UUID=cf668e00-3a3b-43ab-b7b0-1c3388dacf74 changes_dev=UUID=cf668e00-3a3b-43ab-b7b0-1c3388dacf74 acpi=on fstab=rw,noauto vga=791 quiet splash=silent vmalloc=256M
initrd (hd0,1)/KDE1/initrd.gz
 
title   KDE with Copy to RAM
kernel (hd0,1)/KDE1/vmlinuz livecd=/KDE1 fromusb copy2ram root=UUID=cf668e00-3a3b-43ab-b7b0-1c3388dacf74 acpi=on vga=791 quiet splash=silent vmalloc=256M
initrd (hd0,1)/KDE1/initrd.gz

not sure if the extra empty  line on your menu.lst has something to do with the problem...