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Re: Problem installing Live USB on a USB key

Posted: 15. May 2011, 18:22
by pwatk
JRD wrote:This is working (and you don't need to wipe the disk to use this method). But it's not a supported method because the grub menu is not there and you should add any parameters by yourself.
I totally agree, I just find it convenient to do it this way sometimes!

Re: Problem installing Live USB on a USB key

Posted: 11. Jun 2011, 19:57
by maninashed
I hit the same problem as phayz.

To fix this I used fdisk (based on some instructions on pendrivelinux.com) on Ubuntu 10.10:

I. Format your USB flash drive to use a single partition:
  1. Open a terminal and type sudo su
  2. Type fdisk -l (and note which device is your USB drive)
  3. Type fdisk /dev/sdx (replacing x with your actual USB device)
  4. Type c (to switch on DOS-compatible mode)
  5. Type d (to delete the existing partition)
  6. Type n (to create a new partition)
  7. Type p (for primary partition)
  8. Type 1 (to create the first partition)
  9. Press Enter (to use the first cylinder)
  10. Press Enter again (to use the default value as the last cylinder)
  11. Type a (for active)
  12. Type 1 (to mark the first partition active "bootable")
  13. Type w (to write the changes and close fdisk)
II. Create a Fat32 filesystem on the USB flash drive:
  1. Type umount /dev/sdx1 (to unmount the mounted partition)
  2. Type mkfs.vfat -F 32 -n Salix /dev/sdx1 (to format the partition as fat32)
Hope this helps as it worked for me.

Re: Problem installing Live USB on a USB key

Posted: 13. Jun 2011, 11:09
by JRD
The step 4 is a really bad idea. Dos compatibility mode is a must have for installing grub2 on usb disk.

Re: Problem installing Live USB on a USB key

Posted: 13. Jun 2011, 13:04
by Shador
JRD wrote:The step 4 is a really bad idea. Dos compatibility mode is a must have for installing grub2 or usb disk.
It seems like 'c' enables dos compatibility mode. So it should say "to switch on dos compatibility mode"

Re: Problem installing Live USB on a USB key

Posted: 14. Jun 2011, 07:53
by JRD
Oh ok, so that's ok.

Re: Problem installing Live USB on a USB key

Posted: 14. Jun 2011, 20:25
by maninashed
Sorry, my mistake. Thanks for pointing that out. I've updated my earlier post.

To be honest I was a bit confused by the warning from the fdisk command (which appears after step 3):

Code: Select all

WARNING: DOS-compatible mode is deprecated. It's strongly recommended to
         switch off the mode (command 'c') and change display units to
         sectors (command 'u').
After I pressed 'c', I got the message: "DOS Compatibility flag is not set". If I then complete the formatting process, then install-on-USB.sh will work successfully.

However, if I do not press 'c' (or press it twice and get "DOS Compatibility flag is set"), then install-on-USB.sh will fail with the same error that started this thread.

Anyhow ... I'm up and running now.