Arch Linux

muckymouse

Member

Registered: 2010-05-07

Posts: 8

Installing via USB flash drive

Hi, I'm new to archlinux,
I've decided to to give arch a shot on my netbook as windows can be somewhat sluggish,
i have previous knowledge of using linux on my laptop (ubuntu) so i am familiar with terminal commands and how the file system works etc..

I used to unetbootin to mount the image, this appeared to work fine.
I'm having trouble starting the live session. grub loads and i select Arch Linux Live CD
then a series of commands are executed and the terminal returns: 'ERROR: boot device didn't show up after 30 seconds...'
i came across this thread http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=93645
i tried the work around in that thread using 'ln -sf /dev/sdb1 /dev/archiso' (no errors are returned) but this didnt work. im still stuck in ramfs.

I tried the other method by using 'sudo dd if=image.img of=path/to/device' in ubuntu, when i tried booting i got the error 'missing operating system'

the usb drive was formatted in fat32 so i thought i would try reformatting to ext3 in gparted and tried the dd command again.

to check there was data on the stick i reopened gparted to find it was no longer listed as ext3 but as an unknown file system.

im not sure where im going wrong, can anyone spot some obvious mistakes?

thanks

hokasch

Member

Registered: 2007-09-23

Posts: 1,461

Re: Installing via USB flash drive

did you use the official arch usb images with the "dd" method?

muckymouse

Member

Registered: 2010-05-07

Posts: 8

Re: Installing via USB flash drive

yes i did, i downloaded the core usb image from the downloads section, to check it hadn't corrupted i downloaded it again and tried a second time

hokasch

Member

Registered: 2007-09-23

Posts: 1,461

Re: Installing via USB flash drive

hmm. you could try the testing builds:
http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=94687&p=1

just dd the iso to the usb key. file system doesn't matter, everything gets overwriten anyway.

muckymouse

Member

Registered: 2010-05-07

Posts: 8

Re: Installing via USB flash drive

ok, thanks for your help, i will give them a shot now

muckymouse

Member

Registered: 2010-05-07

Posts: 8

Re: Installing via USB flash drive

tried the latest 2010 build, got the same problem: 'missing operating system' and again in ubuntu the flash drive is an unknown filesystem.
tried again on a different computer and got the same error.. how frustrating!

edit: just to clarify i used the following command 'sudo dd if=path/to/image.img of=/path/to/device' i also changed directory to where the image file is and tried again without absolute referencing the path for 'if=' both of which returned that the command had been completed successfully in terminal.

edit: tried using again with a different USB stick (Maxell 4GB), again terminal returned 'x amount of files successfully copied to sdc1'.
.. something different happened this time, i didn't get the same error as before, instead the text 'grub' appears with a blinking cursor. nothing else.

Last edited by muckymouse (2010-05-07 23:54:10)

hokasch

Member

Registered: 2007-09-23

Posts: 1,461

Re: Installing via USB flash drive

watch the syntax: of=path/to/device means /dev/sdc, not /dev/sdc1 (this would be the path to the first partition). all the bootmagic comes within the iso and must  end up in the mbr somehow, writing it into a partition won't work.

cl10k

Member

From: Germany

Registered: 2008-12-24

Posts: 92

Re: Installing via USB flash drive

deleted

Last edited by cl10k (2010-05-08 15:21:35)

muckymouse

Member

Registered: 2010-05-07

Posts: 8

Re: Installing via USB flash drive

watch the syntax: of=path/to/device means /dev/sdc, not /dev/sdc1 (this would be the path to the first partition). all the bootmagic comes within the iso and must  end up in the mbr somehow, writing it into a partition won't work.

oh right, ok, trying this now

edit: yep this worked! thanks a lot

Last edited by muckymouse (2010-05-09 11:05:12)