[SOLVED]Spooky LiveUSB creator

[Trio3b]

Maybe missed some forum notes. I have used LiveUSB creator in the past and have several pclos lxde/kde editions on SD card and flashdrive to prove I must have done something right, but have not used Live USB creator in a while and decided to try it recently to load pclos-lxde-2012.08 and vectorlinux 7.0 xfce on SD cards for use on netbooks. So used laptop - PCLOS 2010 / Live USB creator 0.8.0-2 and this results in:

Creator completes, showing that SD card/thumbdrive is ready for use but keeps installing a non-booting version of PCLOS even though I have loaded Vectorlinux, Mint and other variations of PCLOS on to the SD card or thumbdrive . All installations are using iso files. All installations to removable drives seem to complete with no errors.

Then when using this SD card to boot other netbooks, all splash screens are with pclos logo but the only thing that changes is text reference to the desktop (KDE, XFCE, LXDE, GNOME ) on the splash screen regardless of distro I try. This text seems to reflect the desktop version that I select during the Creator install process regardless of the distro being installed.. Then after splash I get  

"Error 15 File not found - Press any key to continue" this happens on several laptops and netbooks I've tried.

What I've tried:

I thought it was a not so old 2gb SD card so bought a new one. Same thing. Tried a known good thumbdrive - same thing.
All three removable devices have been tried formatted in PCC using the "how to format drive" on stickied notice with both ext3 and 4 and checked with fsck which shows OK.
All removable Drives transfer data fine.
Only loading one iso per device at a time
Always Reformatting between tries.
Always fsck'ing between tries


Thought it was the 2010 installation and older USB creator version so tried on desktop with Desktop - PCLOS 2012.02 / Live USB creator 0.9.7-2. SAME THING!?!! Maybe missed something in announcements?

All iso files check out with md5sums and burn OK to disc using K3b

Maybe here's a clue. After installing to SD card and booting on a netbook, the PCLOS splash screen came up with PCLOS logo splash but with "GNOME" as a selection. I don't have and have never downloaded a PCLOS GNOME .iso and I don't even know if one exists. However I did try   to load Mint 13 XFCE earlier so maybe it's mixing some files together.

I can't imagine two SD cards and a thumbdrive bad or several netbooks not booting right. It has to be the file. Also, one common piece of hdwr is the USB SD card adapter but then why the thumbdrive bad also. Also,. . I cannot upgrade these installations due to other issues.

fdisk -l of SD card that DOES boot:

Disk /dev/sdb: 1980 MB, 1980760064 bytes
64 heads, 63 sectors/track, 959 cylinders, total 3868672 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: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *          63     3866687     1933312+  83  Linux


fdisk -l of SD card that DOES NOT work:

Disk /dev/sdb: 1980 MB, 1980760064 bytes
64 heads, 63 sectors/track, 959 cylinders, total 3868672 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: 0x00000000

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *          63     3866687     1933312+  83  Linux


 Both of these show up properly as /dev/sdb1 in PCC

Something spooky up. Am I missing something when reformatting. Doesn't the creator automatically create a bootable partition? Any ideas appreciated.

[Just17]

but have not used Live USB creator in a while and decided to try it recently to load pclos-lxde-2012.08 and vectorlinux 7.0 xfce on SD cards for use on netbooks.

I have no idea what might happen when you try to use LiveUSB Creator to install a distro other than a PCLOS one. It is not designed to install other than PCLOS releases.

Doesn't the creator automatically create a bootable partition?

No, it does not create any partition, nor interfere with the structure of the partitions or the drive.


I cannot make any real comment on the rest of the post as there is too much going on to get any real idea what might be affecting anything.

I can only suggest one route to trouble-shoot this ........

take a 'spare' USB stick
using Gparted from the repo, delete the partition table, and create a new one
create a partition suitable for use (ext format)
Mark the partition with the boot flag (some hardware requires a boot flag set or it will not boot from the USB device)

When complete, close Gparted & extract the USB device.

Using a known good ISO of an official PCLOS release (2012.08 is a good candidate), and a reasonably up to date PCLOS install, run the LiveUSB Creator 0.9.7 and install from the ISO.

Ensure the application completes correctly.
Extract and reinsert the USB drive.
List the directories and files on the root of the device and post back if it will not boot.

Please do no more than install the PCLOS ISO and make no further changes to the device or its files, so that we might have definite knowledge of all that has been done, without any outside influence.

Report back the results of the above procedure.

Note:  For removable devices with more than one partition and which might be required for use with Windows, mark the Win formatted partition as the bootable one. Linux does not use the boot flag, but some hardware and Windows have this requirement.

[Trio3b]

Will give that a go and post back.  I may be trying to force this application to do something it was not meant to do.

Thanks

[UPDATE] Caught the part in WAS_Just19 post about the utility not being designed for use with any other host OS but missed the part about not being usable with the .iso of any other distro.

I thought I had used it some months ago to try a version of Mint but apparently not. SD cards, Diskdrake and LiveUSB creator appear to be working fine.

Shame it doesn't work with other distros. For some reason, it creates a bootable SD card wheras Unetbootin does work with other distros but the SD card is not bootable unless used with a USB adapter.

Thanks