LiveUSB install went wrong!!!

[gezza]

Hi to all,
I created a squashfs file of 10GB. Put it on a 32GB usb stick. All went well up to this point.
I then tried to install it on my HP Laptop.
When booted it would not format the install '/' partition.
I did format it with PCC.
Then the install appeared to go smoothly. It did not create a bootable disk!!!!
I then tried to redo the mbr from the 2012.08 1.3GB dvd iso.
No go it could not find redo-mbr.
Reinstalled 2012.08 (DVD) and all went well until I tried to find the emails....Not there.. no emails in my home folder.!!
So, having  created a squashfs of 10GB installed it, installed 20112.08(DVD) and found nothing in my /home/user folder, I gave up. What has gone wrong?
What happened to 600MB of emails? And the items in Documents and Downloads and Pictures?
Does Anyone have any ideas on what went wrong?
Added:---
Re-did the squashfs system, created a bootable usb stack, and installed it on another desktop machine.
All went reasonably well, I did have a problem with the install program running but doing nothing for about an hour so rebooted the system-by switching off and on again.
This time the install went well. rebooted after install, KDE would not start for user but ok in root.
checked permissions in /home/user and found that a lot of files, KDE ones, were set to 1000:1000 not 500:500
so I reset the permissions and set the .* files to 777. Then I logged in as user and all went well.
Kmail had all the emails were as well as  the Documents,Downloads and Pictures.
So What do you think went wrong?
End-Added----
Gezza

[Just17]

Hi to all,
I created a squashfs file of 10GB. Put it on a 32GB usb stick. All went well up to this point.

When you say 'all went well' do you mean you were able to boot the USB stick and everything you expected was present in that live session?

I then tried to install it on my HP Laptop.
When booted it would not format the install '/' partition.
I did format it with PCC.
Then the install appeared to go smoothly. It did not create a bootable disk!!!!

So the USB booted?
Were your personal files available to you when running this session?
Which disk? .....  the one in the Laptop?

I then tried to redo the mbr from the 2012.08 1.3GB dvd iso.
No go it could not find redo-mbr.

What is the 'it'?
Are you saying that redo-mbr is not present on the LiveDVD of 2012.08?

Reinstalled 2012.08 (DVD) and all went well until I tried to find the emails....Not there.. no emails in my home folder.!!

So you did a new installation of 2012.08 .....  presumably wiping out the previous installation.
Did you format the /home partition (if using a separate partition)?

If not have you checked that partition for more than one user ....  the original user and not the new one you might have created during the new install procedure?

So, having  created a squashfs of 10GB installed it, installed 20112.08(DVD) and found nothing in my /home/user folder, I gave up. What has gone wrong?

So you installed your personal remaster from a LiveUSB, then installed over that, an official release from a LiveDVD   

What happened to 600MB of emails? And the items in Documents and Downloads and Pictures?
Does Anyone have any ideas on what went wrong?
Gezza

It seems from what you posted that you installed over the LiveUSB install using a LiveDVD official release which of course would not contain anything of yours.

None of this is making sense to me so maybe you can give a better explanation of what you did and in what sequence to make it easier to follow 

[gezza]

OK,
1...Created the squashfs on a desktop machine.
Put it onto a 32Gb usb stick.
Booted the usb stick on the laptop (HP)
This attempt could not format the partition it was to be installed on. So formatted it with PCC.
installed it.
It did not install grub. so did not boot. It did go through the all the steps to produce a booting device.
2...So I installed 2012.08(DVD) not formatting the 'home' partition.
all went well, rebooted. I then found I had nothing in the home/user folder. No emails,nothing in Documents,Downloads or Pictures.
3........I created a second squashfs on the desktop machine, put the squashfs onto a usb stick.
Booted this usb stick on the laptop and it installed. All the mail was there as well as Documents,Downloads and Pictures.
I did try this usb stick on a desktop machine before trying it on the laptop.
So at this time all is working well on the laptop.
The question is, why did i have to jump through so many hoops to get to this point?
Many thanks for replying.
Gezza

[Just17]

OK,
1...Created the squashfs on a desktop machine.
Put it onto a 32Gb usb stick.
Booted the usb stick on the laptop (HP)
This attempt could not format the partition it was to be installed on. So formatted it with PCC.
installed it.
It did not install grub. so did not boot. It did go through the all the steps to produce a booting device.
2...So I installed 2012.08(DVD) not formatting the 'home' partition.
all went well, rebooted. I then found I had nothing in the home/user folder. No emails,nothing in Documents,Downloads or Pictures.
3........I created a second squashfs on the desktop machine, put the squashfs onto a usb stick.
Booted this usb stick on the laptop and it installed. All the mail was there as well as Documents,Downloads and Pictures.
I did try this usb stick on a desktop machine before trying it on the laptop.
So at this time all is working well on the laptop.
The question is, why did i have to jump through so many hoops to get to this point?
Many thanks for replying.
Gezza

It would appear that you either got a bad build the first time, or even more likely that the copy on the USB stick was not a true copy.
You could check the MD5sum of the squash file on the USB stick against the one it was copied from to confirm.

You did not answer the question about whether the personal files were accessible when you booted the first attampt from USB ....  before installing anything.

When you think about it .....  the first attempt you installed from a live session that apparently was not functioning correctly -- the installer could not format a partition and obviously did not complete correctly as Grub was not installed.

That would be my assessment from the info posted ..... the Live session was corrupted in some manner, resulting in a failed install.

Glad you have it sorted