Yet another LiveUSB creation manual.

[tuxman]

Hi! Don't found this method in forum, but found it pretty good. Hope it will be usefull for somebody.
All we needed are: runing PCLinuxOS (installed or LiveCD), any iso of pclos and USB flash-drive. Now I have runing pclinuxos-e17, iso pclinuxos-openbox-mini and Transcend v30 2Gb flash drive.

Lets begin. Open your terminal:
1. And go where your iso is:`cd /location/of/your.iso
2. next time type `isohybrid your.iso`
3. insert your flash-drive and login as root `su`.
4. type `fdisk -l` and found your flash-drive device like /dev/sdX1.
5.next type `dd if=your.iso of=/dev/sdX` (!) not /dev/sdX1!
6. waiting for some time when it finished and run cfdisk `cfdisk /dev/sdX`.
7. Select a Free Space and create new partition, then save changes and ru `mkfs.vfat (or ext2) /dev/sdX2`.
8. Now you can reboot and enjoy your new LiveUSB with PCLinuxOS onboard.
9. Don't forgot setup your BIOS boot for USB as first.
Used link: http://syslinux.zytor.com/wiki/index.php/Doc/isolinux#HYBRID_CD-ROM.2FHARD_DISK_MODE

And some screebshots:












Thats all! Enjoy!

[Was_Just19]

Thanks for the post ........  I was not aware of isohybrid previously.

It does seem to help overcome some of the limitations of isolinux   

regards.

[tuxman]

There was a problem with detecting flash-drive in windows. For avoiding this trouble command looks:

Code: [Select]

isohybrid -entry 2 pclinuxos*.isoit's insert our iso to /dev/sdX2 and partition which will be created is sdX1.

Code: [Select]

mkfs.vfat /dev/sdX1and it will be detected normaly from windows.

[Was_Just19]

[/quote]

Windows?   What's that?     
 

[tuxman]

Windows?   What's that?

I don't know

Code: [Select]

bash: windows: command not found

[Was_Just19]

I finally got around to trying this today ........  unfortunately it failed to load the loop image.

Yes the USB stick did boot .......  just the OS did not load ......  not sure why ........  maybe a stick problem I guess ......

EDIT:
            I had best clarify what was happening .......
One of my Data partitions did not liked being probed when the system was looking for the loopimage.
I have no idea why. After the probing the partition always showed that it had not been unmounted cleanly.
Doing an fsck on the partition afterwards finds nothing except the unclean unmount, BUT, it takes an inordinate amount of time.
I have saved off all the data, reformatted + badblocks, and hopefully that will fix the problem whatever it was.

When using a flash stick set up with Grub etc, this problem did not appear.
The partition never misbehaved, nor did I ever lose data from it.
Rather strange.

Anyway .......  apparently that was the reason for my initial failure using this method.

regards.

[Was_Just19]

tuxmies,
               if you are still watching this thread can you please let me know if you succeeded in adding Persistence to it, and if so how did you add the boot option for persistence to the config file?

I had persistence working, but had to manually add the persistence boot code at each boot.

I suppose I could have broke open the ISO before using it and put in extra boot options .....  but that seems like a lot of work and pre-planning just to get persistence.

thanks.

[smcs_steve]

[owner@localhost ~]$ isohybrid
Usage: /usr/bin/isohybrid [options] filename.iso
Options:
  -h          Number of default geometry heads
  -s          Number of default geometry sectors
  -entry      Specify partition entry number (1-4)
  -offset     Specify partition offset (default 0)
  -type       Specify partition type (default 0x17)
  -id         Specify MBR ID (default random)
  -forcehd0   Always assume we are loaded as disk ID 0
  -ctrlhd0    Assume disk ID 0 if the Ctrl key is pressed
  -partok     Allow booting from within a partition
[owner@localhost ~]$

[Was_Just19]

[owner@localhost ~]$ isohybrid
Usage: /usr/bin/isohybrid [options] filename.iso
Options:
  -h          Number of default geometry heads
  -s          Number of default geometry sectors
  -entry      Specify partition entry number (1-4)
  -offset     Specify partition offset (default 0)
  -type       Specify partition type (default 0x17)
  -id         Specify MBR ID (default random)
  -forcehd0   Always assume we are loaded as disk ID 0
  -ctrlhd0    Assume disk ID 0 if the Ctrl key is pressed
  -partok     Allow booting from within a partition
[owner@localhost ~]$

You got some reference to an explanation of those options?
What has  -partok  got to do with adding persistence?
Why would you need to change the  -type ?
In what units is the  -offset  to be specified?

etc etc.

I can find no info so will be happy to read what you can link to. Thanks.

regards.