Arch Linux

ldb88

Member

Registered: 2010-06-20

Posts: 6

Installing to USB

I'm trying to install to a USB stick with 3 partitions: 1st is NTFS so Windows can pick it up when plugged in (label usbntfs), 2nd is ext3 to be mounted as / (label usbarch), 3rd is swap.  The install went without any error messages, but it won't boot.

I get an error

Root device: '/dev/disk/by-label/usbarch' doesn't exist. Attempting to create it.
ERROR: Unable to determine major/minor number of root device '/dev/disk/by-label/usbarch'.
You are being dropped to a recovery shell
    Type 'exit' to try and continue booting
[ramfs /]#

From the recovery shell, I find that /dev/disk doesn't exist.

My hooks line in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf is HOOKS="base ide usb filesystems" (everything else is the default) as suggested here: http://usalug.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12377, and I have rebuilt /boot/kernel26.img.

My grub commands are

root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-label/usbarch ro
initrd /boot/kernel26.img

Does anybody have any suggestions?  Thanks.

abeowitz

Member

Registered: 2010-09-01

Posts: 8

Re: Installing to USB

Just figured this one out myself...

MODULES="ehci_hcd uhci_hcd usbcore usb_storage sg sd_mod libata usbhid hid"

BINARIES=""

FILES=""

HOOKS="base udev autodetect pata scsi sata usb filesystems"

Then:

You could do this as chroot:
mkinitcpio -c /etc/mkinitcpio.conf -k 2.6.35-ARCH -g /boot/kernel26.img

or reinstall and run the mkinitcpio command before you reboot.  Just adjust the paths in the above command.  Or make the changes before you run the last steps in another terminal...

EDIT:  Actually, I'm booting from a SD card.  The SD card controller is a RealTek device on the USB bus.  Not sure what's NOT needed above...

Last edited by abeowitz (2010-09-02 00:06:42)

tpowa

Developer

From: Lauingen , Germany

Registered: 2004-04-05

Posts: 2,322

Re: Installing to USB

Without udev in HOOKS array label cannot work at all!