how long to make a live usb?

[wunderbra]

How long should I give the program to create a live usb stick? It has been running for 15 minutes now. I'm using 2011.8 openbox loaded into ram on a 3 gigherz pC with 2 gigs ram. The message on the USB creator script says it can take a very long time.

It took almost 15 minutes to create the ext3 partition on the stick using gparted.

It is a new 16 gig pny drive.

[Just17]

I don't know what is going on ......  but I would suggest you boot without 'copy to ram' and then try it again.

[wunderbra]

It finally got done. Will not boot. Tried a few more times, with/without grub and the usb is not being picked up, although I regularly boot this PC with USB several distros made with unetbootin., including PClinux OS

I formatted the key to ext 3 according to the instructions, but not luck.

Any ideas?

[scoundrel]

you might try and hit F10 or other boot key to pick the usb to boot from  .. I have to do so on a few puters ..

[Just17]

I don't understand what you mean by trying "with/without grub " ....  explain please?

Have you checked what files are on the USB device?

[wunderbra]

The USB install script asks if/where you want grub installed.  Have you used it?

[Just17]

The USB install script asks if/where you want grub installed.  Have you used it?

Yes.

That does not explain what you meant by "It finally got done. Will not boot. Tried a few more times, with/without grub "

Have you chosen to write Grub to the MBR of the device?

[wunderbra]

sorry, by finally got done, I was referring to making the usb key. It finally finished the install after around 35 minutes.

I did install grub to the MBR( my third guess) as I didn't even think grub should be needed on a single disk install. Couldn't find anything in the wiki or instructions about whether or not or where to install grub on a USB key.

[djohnston]

The USB install script asks if/where you want grub installed.  Have you used it?

That's funny. Yes, he has used it. He wrote it. I've used it, too. I tested it. Several times. All possible configurations.

[Just17]

1.   Have you checked what files are on the USB device?

2.   Is there a  /boot/grub/menu.lst  file present?

3.   When you created the partition, did you format it?

4.   What application/s did you use for this purpose (create & format)?

5.   What is the output of the following command?

fdisk -l   <that is minus lower case L>

6.   What OS are you using to run Live USB Creator from?

7.   What are you using as the source files for the USB live install?

8.   "I'm using 2011.8 openbox loaded into ram" - does this mean you are running 2011.8 liveCD from a "copy2ram" boot option? If not please explain what you meant. If yes, please try booting it normally (not copy2ram) and then using the Live USB Creator. Do you get different results - speed of completion the same? - does it boot?  etc etc


***

I didn't even think grub should be needed on a single disk install.

Unless there is a boot manager (in this case Grub) written to the MBR (Master Boot Record) of the disk, that particular disk is not bootable.

Unless the files that it (Grub) needs are where it expects to find them, Grub cannot do its job.

So the first thing to do is to check that the disk structure is what it should be by using the fdisk command and also to check that the files we expect, are present.

Please respond to the above questions as best you can.
If you need explanation about how to get the answers please ask.