Arch Linux

ZankerH

Member

Registered: 2009-02-06

Posts: 95

No luck writing .img to USB stick

So I try writing the bloody thing using dd. Read the manual, unmount the thing before writing, using device name and not partition name, the lot. It appears to write the image normally, but upon mounting the partition on the USB stick, it's empty. If I try booting it, all I get is a black screen with a blinking unresponsive text cursor. So I drag out my old windows box, try dd for windows and flashnul. Both finish writing successfully, but the same thing happens afterwards. The sha1sum of the downloaded image file matches (not that I haven't tried to download it anew a couple times anyway), and the error is consistent across three different USB sticks. My PC is properly configured to boot from USB and does so without issues.

zenlord

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2006-05-24

Posts: 1,223

Website

Re: No luck writing .img to USB stick

Is your / on the USB-key flagged as boot-device?

If yes: what filesystem are you using?
Do you have another USB-key to try out?

Zl.

ZankerH

Member

Registered: 2009-02-06

Posts: 95

Re: No luck writing .img to USB stick

Yes, it's flagged as boot. I delete all the partitions on it before writing the image file, and dd automatically creates an etx2 partition exactly the size of the image file. As I've said, the problem is consistent on the three sticks I've tried.

Now, I'm fairly sure I'm doing something wrong, since this appears to be an isolated accident.

Jamben

Member

Registered: 2009-02-11

Posts: 5

Re: No luck writing .img to USB stick

Maybe it's the computer? Try booting off of it on diffrent systems and see if it works on them.

ZankerH

Member

Registered: 2009-02-06

Posts: 95

Re: No luck writing .img to USB stick

Maybe it's the computer? Try booting off of it on diffrent systems and see if it works on them.

I've tried it on a friend's laptop today, and it didn't work either.

Jamben

Member

Registered: 2009-02-11

Posts: 5

Re: No luck writing .img to USB stick

It's not the computer, drive, or the install... The only thing I can think of would be a corrupt download. If that doesn't work, I'm out of ideas

ZankerH

Member

Registered: 2009-02-06

Posts: 95

Re: No luck writing .img to USB stick

It's not the computer, drive, or the install... The only thing I can think of would be a corrupt download. If that doesn't work, I'm out of ideas

The sha1sums match, not that I haven't tried to download it again a few times anyway.

jarda-wien

Member

Registered: 2008-03-13

Posts: 104

Re: No luck writing .img to USB stick

same here with me and the 2009.02 img!!! tried two sticks, sha1sums ok, partition marked as boot, the only thing I see is a blinking underscore... I have a ibm t41, which I remember to have booted from usb sticks often in the past.

Runiq

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2008-10-29

Posts: 1,053

Re: No luck writing .img to USB stick

Confirmed with the ftp i686 .img. I'll try with the other images.

EDIT: All images work, except the ftp i686 one.

Last edited by Runiq (2009-02-17 15:01:32)

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Dotfiles

jarda-wien

Member

Registered: 2008-03-13

Posts: 104

Re: No luck writing .img to USB stick

so I have tried it with even more flash disks as well as a Dell D630 laptop. Always the same symptoms.... the next thing I tried was the 2008.06 image and voila, everything booted fine, so it is obviously an img issue (specifically the i686 ftp img, don't know about other ones)

GerBra

Forum Fellow

From: Bingen/Germany

Registered: 2007-05-10

Posts: 215

Re: No luck writing .img to USB stick

Confirmed, we are sorry for that. See also: http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/13335

dolby

Member

From: 1992

Registered: 2006-08-08

Posts: 1,581

Re: No luck writing .img to USB stick

You first need to restore the USB stick. Did you do that? See http://downloads.archlinux.de/iso/archb … bstick.txt for an example how to do that.

Last edited by dolby (2009-02-17 15:37:18)

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Dieter@be

Forum Fellow

From: Belgium

Registered: 2006-11-05

Posts: 2,001

Website

Re: No luck writing .img to USB stick

Like GerBra said, there is a problem with that particular file (all others should be fine though), we are rebuilding it as we speak.
See http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/13335

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< Daenyth> and he works prolifically
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jarda-wien

Member

Registered: 2008-03-13

Posts: 104

Re: No luck writing .img to USB stick

thanks for working on the issues, great community indeed!