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#1 2011-12-01 00:37:59

brianbourke75
Member
Registered: 2010-07-30
Posts: 19

Issue creating the USB installation disk

I have been attempting to create the USB installation disk and have been running into quite a lot of trouble.  Every time I try to create the usb disk using the standard method (being dd if=./arch.iso of=/dev/sdb) it always creates a disk with a recursive partition on /dev/sdb.  Perhaps it's my laptop which cannot handle this but my system cannot boot off a disk with this characteristic.  This happens regards of using the net or core install (or archboot for that matter).

I had a small amount of success by manually installing the arch files onto a manually partitioned disk but the process started failing when attempting to mount some of the sfs files.

I have been trying to bend my brain to this problem all day and would very much like any feedback or solution people could offer.  Unity is annoying me and I really want to get back into Arch world :-(

Thanks!
Brian

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#2 2011-12-01 01:10:38

djgera
Developer
From: Buenos Aires - Argentina
Registered: 2008-12-24
Posts: 723
Website

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

Thats true, isohybrid is a hack that does this "recursive" thing.

All you need to do using the better method (non-dd) is:

Create the partition sdX1 on /dev/sdX, mark as active, format with FAT or EXT2/3/4 then:

dd bs=440 count=1 conv=notrunc if=/usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin of=/dev/sdX # Or just: cat /usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin > /dev/sdX
dosfslabel /dev/sdX1 ARCH_201108 # If sdX1 is FAT
e2label /dev/sdX1 ARCH_201108 # If sdX1 is EXT2/3/4
mount archlinux-2011.08.19-netinstall-i686.iso /mnt/iso
mount /dev/sdX1 /mnt/usb
cp -r /mnt/iso/arch /mnt/usb
extlinux -i /mnt/usb/arch/boot/syslinux #This works for FAT too :)
umount /mnt/usb
umount /mnt/iso

Last edited by djgera (2011-12-01 01:11:25)

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#3 2011-12-01 01:18:20

brianbourke75
Member
Registered: 2010-07-30
Posts: 19

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

I tried the above method and had some success but I ran into trouble when loading the arch install environment.  The process froze when attempting to mount the "root-something.fs.sfs" at which point I threatened my computer with a thousand lashes and still it refused to unfreeze.  Any thoughts on what could be causing this?

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#4 2011-12-01 01:29:37

djgera
Developer
From: Buenos Aires - Argentina
Registered: 2008-12-24
Posts: 723
Website

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

Weird, can you provide an screenshot? how is your machine, CPU/RAM?

Do you try any of latest testisos? http://releng.archlinux.org/

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#5 2011-12-01 01:35:40

brianbourke75
Member
Registered: 2010-07-30
Posts: 19

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

I will go ahead and try it again and take a snapshot but I just discovered that the HP BIOS does not handle isohybrid images so that offers some insight but not a work around.

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#6 2011-12-01 02:28:21

brianbourke75
Member
Registered: 2010-07-30
Posts: 19

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

Ok, so I tried the above method (plus remembering to mark the partition with the bootable flag) and this time it failed while attempting to mount the cowspace thingy.  I think I am going to try to use my CD bay tomorrow when I return to work to hopefully get around these issues, but I am not optimistic since I also tried using a USB CD drive and ran into the same problem presumably due to the fact that the BIOS still cannot work with a isohybrid CD.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/1128 … 3665206770

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#7 2011-12-02 09:37:40

brain0
Developer
From: Aachen - Germany
Registered: 2005-01-03
Posts: 1,382

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

brianbourke75 wrote:

Ok, so I tried the above method (plus remembering to mark the partition with the bootable flag) and this time it failed while attempting to mount the cowspace thingy.  I think I am going to try to use my CD bay tomorrow when I return to work to hopefully get around these issues, but I am not optimistic since I also tried using a USB CD drive and ran into the same problem presumably due to the fact that the BIOS still cannot work with a isohybrid CD.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/1128 … 3665206770

I don't see an error here.

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#8 2011-12-02 11:48:52

brianbourke75
Member
Registered: 2010-07-30
Posts: 19

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

It does not report any errors, it simply locks up and does not continue beyond the point in the snapshot.

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#9 2011-12-02 13:23:57

brianbourke75
Member
Registered: 2010-07-30
Posts: 19

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

Just for the record, I grabbed my CD bay from work and burnt the iso to an actual CD and tried that and got a bit further although it still fails, only this time it hangs a couple of lines further down when mounting a different sfs file.

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#10 2011-12-02 14:04:55

brianbourke75
Member
Registered: 2010-07-30
Posts: 19

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

The saga continues.... Just for to go through the motions, I just installed arch on a virtual machine without any issues so I am sure that the iso can work under the some circumstances.

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#11 2011-12-02 14:05:23

djgera
Developer
From: Buenos Aires - Argentina
Registered: 2008-12-24
Posts: 723
Website

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

maybe something goes bad between your hardware/firmware vs kernel. You have tested any of latest testisos?

Also try booting with bootparam: ignore_loglevel

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#12 2011-12-02 14:38:37

brianbourke75
Member
Registered: 2010-07-30
Posts: 19

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

Downloading the lastest and greatest test iso now, I will let you know.

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#13 2011-12-02 15:25:53

brianbourke75
Member
Registered: 2010-07-30
Posts: 19

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

Ran the 2011.12.01 and it hung up on the command i2x_register_adapter if that means anything to you.

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#14 2011-12-02 17:34:01

djgera
Developer
From: Buenos Aires - Argentina
Registered: 2008-12-24
Posts: 723
Website

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

kernel panic? i2c_register_adapter

Try bootparm:

modprobe.blacklist=i2c-core

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#15 2011-12-02 17:40:21

brianbourke75
Member
Registered: 2010-07-30
Posts: 19

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

Any thoughts on how to set a boot parameter?

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#16 2011-12-02 18:17:50

djgera
Developer
From: Buenos Aires - Argentina
Registered: 2008-12-24
Posts: 723
Website

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

Press [Tab] to edit options in syslinux then add it in such line

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#17 2011-12-02 18:43:07

brianbourke75
Member
Registered: 2010-07-30
Posts: 19

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

It exhibits the same behavior at the same point.

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#18 2011-12-02 21:57:31

brianbourke75
Member
Registered: 2010-07-30
Posts: 19

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

Alright, so I have gotten some progress.  I have figured it is the display which is not working.  When I assume that we are at the command prompt and type "reboot" it does so, so clearly there is something going on with the display drivers.  So now I suppose I have to get into Kernel Mode Setting which I know next to nothing about so I guess it is time to educate myself.

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#19 2011-12-03 00:25:22

brianbourke75
Member
Registered: 2010-07-30
Posts: 19

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

I am happy to say that I have made this post from a working arch install.  The issue was an with the nouveau driver which I blacklisted and everything else was straightforward.  So the issue was the video framebuffer crapped out mid boot and yielded a red herring situation.

Thanks for all the help!

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#20 2011-12-21 15:31:15

zhangxiao
Member
Registered: 2011-12-19
Posts: 4

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

brianbourke75 wrote:

I am happy to say that I have made this post from a working arch install.  The issue was an with the nouveau driver which I blacklisted and everything else was straightforward.  So the issue was the video framebuffer crapped out mid boot and yielded a red herring situation.

Thanks for all the help!

Maybe I am having the same problem... how did you exactly resolve it?

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#21 2011-12-21 15:34:03

karol
Archivist
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

zhangxiao wrote:
brianbourke75 wrote:

I am happy to say that I have made this post from a working arch install.  The issue was an with the nouveau driver which I blacklisted and everything else was straightforward.  So the issue was the video framebuffer crapped out mid boot and yielded a red herring situation.

Thanks for all the help!

Maybe I am having the same problem... how did you exactly resolve it?

Check if you're not blacklisting the graphics driver.

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#22 2011-12-21 15:40:30

zhangxiao
Member
Registered: 2011-12-19
Posts: 4

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

karol wrote:
zhangxiao wrote:
brianbourke75 wrote:

I am happy to say that I have made this post from a working arch install.  The issue was an with the nouveau driver which I blacklisted and everything else was straightforward.  So the issue was the video framebuffer crapped out mid boot and yielded a red herring situation.

Thanks for all the help!

Maybe I am having the same problem... how did you exactly resolve it?

Check if you're not blacklisting the graphics driver.

Hmm... how to do that tongue

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#23 2011-12-21 15:46:53

karol
Archivist
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

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#24 2011-12-21 19:24:35

zhangxiao
Member
Registered: 2011-12-19
Posts: 4

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

karol wrote:

Thanks... I read the Wiki page. However what i don't get is how should I check the blacklisting before boot up? I did not add any bootparam so there is no blacklisting i guess...?

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#25 2011-12-21 19:41:31

karol
Archivist
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: Issue creating the USB installation disk

You can boot a liveCD and inspect the configs.

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