(Solved) Unetbootin overwrote my vmlinuz!

[Yankee]

I booted successfully! I'm now posting this from within my PCLOS-LXDE partition. Luckily it seems Unetbootin didn't overwrite anything besides vmlinuz. Then from Unetbootin, I uninstalled the Debian Frugal Install. Thanks for all your help Patrick013, Old-Polack, and Bald Brick!

Oh, by the way, do you guys have any recommendation on how to do either a LiveUSB or frugal install of Debian? I couldn't get a Unetbootin LiveUSB to work.(or,as shown by this thread, a Unetbootin frugal install )

Edit: Does PCLOS-LiveUSB work for other distros?

Sucess then, great.   Wow !
I by mistake thought you destroyed
your GRUB.    I put iso's via Unetbootin
on flash drives all the time.   Then you
can see Debian and install or not based on their parameters.
Can't remember Unetbootin used successfully for a multi OS hard drive.

The flash drive keeps it off the main system
and avoids the problem we had today, and is
really what Unetbootin is best all about.   

Ship Ahoy.

Patrick013

p.s want to cram a flash drive with unetbootin, let me know

[Aradalf]

I booted successfully! I'm now posting this from within my PCLOS-LXDE partition. Luckily it seems Unetbootin didn't overwrite anything besides vmlinuz. Then from Unetbootin, I uninstalled the Debian Frugal Install. Thanks for all your help Patrick013, Old-Polack, and Bald Brick!

Oh, by the way, do you guys have any recommendation on how to do either a LiveUSB or frugal install of Debian? I couldn't get a Unetbootin LiveUSB to work.(or,as shown by this thread, a Unetbootin frugal install )

Edit: Does PCLOS-LiveUSB work for other distros?

Sucess then, great.   Wow !
I by mistake thought you destroyed
your GRUB.    I put iso's via Unetbootin
on flash drives all the time.   Then you
can see Debian and install or not based on their parameters.
Can't remember Unetbootin used successfully for a multi OS hard drive.

The flash drive keeps it off the main system
and avoids the problem we had today, and is
really what Unetbootin is best all about.   

Ship Ahoy.

Patrick013

p.s want to cram a flash drive with unetbootin, let me know

I know what Unetbootin is primarily used for, and use it all the time for that purpose. But it can also be used to perform a frugal-install to a hard drive. Basically, Unetbootin lets you create a "Live-Hard Disk". The installer doesn't format your drive though, just adds the Live-CD onto your hard drive. From that, you can install a full distro.

[Was_Just19]

I booted successfully! I'm now posting this from within my PCLOS-LXDE partition. Luckily it seems Unetbootin didn't overwrite anything besides vmlinuz. Then from Unetbootin, I uninstalled the Debian Frugal Install. Thanks for all your help Patrick013, Old-Polack, and Bald Brick!

Oh, by the way, do you guys have any recommendation on how to do either a LiveUSB or frugal install of Debian? I couldn't get a Unetbootin LiveUSB to work.(or,as shown by this thread, a Unetbootin frugal install )

Edit: Does PCLOS-LiveUSB work for other distros?

Presently PCLinuxOS-liveusb only accepts PCLOS ISOs or files.

If you have an ISO of Debian, then there MAY be another way to do a LiveUSB install.
It depends on the files present in the ISO, but should be worth trying.

Essentially it goes like this

Code: [Select]

isohybrid   -partok   debian.iso
If the ISO is not suitable you will get an error. If no error then the original ISO is amended so you may wish to work with a copy.

If all is OK then you can write the ISO to a Primary Partition of the USB stick using the 'dd' command

Code: [Select]

dd   if=debian.iso   of=/dev/sdXY    ....  where X is the device number and Y is the partition number.

Use a primary partition slightly bigger than the ISO.
Mark it active or if using Grub then chainload the partition to boot it.

It might work for you ......  Debian is one I have not tested here .....

regards.

[Aradalf]

I booted successfully! I'm now posting this from within my PCLOS-LXDE partition. Luckily it seems Unetbootin didn't overwrite anything besides vmlinuz. Then from Unetbootin, I uninstalled the Debian Frugal Install. Thanks for all your help Patrick013, Old-Polack, and Bald Brick!

Oh, by the way, do you guys have any recommendation on how to do either a LiveUSB or frugal install of Debian? I couldn't get a Unetbootin LiveUSB to work.(or,as shown by this thread, a Unetbootin frugal install )

Edit: Does PCLOS-LiveUSB work for other distros?

Presently PCLinuxOS-liveusb only accepts PCLOS ISOs or files.

If you have an ISO of Debian, then there MAY be another way to do a LiveUSB install.
It depends on the files present in the ISO, but should be worth trying.

Essentially it goes like this

Code: [Select]

isohybrid   -partok   debian.iso
If the ISO is not suitable you will get an error. If no error then the original ISO is amended so you may wish to work with a copy.

If all is OK then you can write the ISO to a Primary Partition of the USB stick using the 'dd' command

Code: [Select]

dd   if=debian.iso   of=/dev/sdXY   ....  where X is the device number and Y is the partition number.

Use a primary partition slightly bigger than the ISO.
Mark it active or if using Grub then chainload the partition to boot it.

It might work for you ......  Debian is one I have not tested here .....

regards.

I would prefer not to use dd, as I have had problems with fixing the partition to its original state after using DD in the past. In addition, how would I chainload the partition if, for example, I have 4 PCLOS editions on sdc2 and I create a sdc3 to put Debian in. Could you provide an example? Thanks in advance for any help!


Update: I just tried isohybrid on my debian-507-i386-netinst.iso and I get the following error message:

Code: [Select]

/usr/bin/isohybrid: debian-507-i386-netinst.iso: bootloader does not have a isolinux.bin hybrid signature.Note that isolinux-debug.bin does not support hybrid booting.

So I guess this netinstall iso isn't supported by isohybrid. I'll try downloading a full Debian LiveCD and see if it works on that.

[Was_Just19]

Code: [Select]

title Debian_Hybrid
root (hd0,2)
chainloader +1
That should do it .....  if the ISO is suitable.

As mentioned previously, I have not tried a Debian ISO, but have for instance tested this with a Puppy ISO as well as a few of the PCLOS ISOs.

I would prefer not to use dd, as I have had problems with fixing the partition to its original state after using DD in the past.

I don't know what might have happened to you, but simply reformatting the partition should put it back to its original state.

regards.

[Aradalf]

If you have an ISO of Debian, then there MAY be another way to do a LiveUSB install.
It depends on the files present in the ISO, but should be worth trying.

Essentially it goes like this

Code: [Select]

isohybrid   -partok   debian.iso
If the ISO is not suitable you will get an error. If no error then the original ISO is amended so you may wish to work with a copy.

If all is OK then you can write the ISO to a Primary Partition of the USB stick using the 'dd' command

Code: [Select]

dd   if=debian.iso   of=/dev/sdXY    ....  where X is the device number and Y is the partition number.

Use a primary partition slightly bigger than the ISO.
Mark it active or if using Grub then chainload the partition to boot it.

It might work for you ......  Debian is one I have not tested here .....

regards.

I looked at the Squeeze RC1 release announcement and it says that Squeeze will support isohybrid. Here is the page, which says:

Using an isohybrid technique, it is now easier to prepare USB or hard disk based installations, as the netboot and business card ISO images can now just be raw-copied to such a device.