[SOLVED] Can't boot from livecd iso on USB

[Shador]

...
Syslinux is v4.04. No additional error messages.

Well, there you go. Unfortunately, the tutorial in the wiki is not clear enough about this particular detail. You need the exact same version of syslinux that the ISO includes, and I don't think v4.04 is the adequate one at this point.

Note: There is nothing wrong with Syslinux 4.04. The point is that the installer of syslinux needs to be the same exact version as the one in the ISO.

I still don't see how this should matter. Please try an USB installation yourself. I just did one to specifically check this.
Explode the Salix ISO image to the USB. Then check the file structure. You won't notice ANY syslinux files or com32 whatever modules for a specific syslinux version. The only file is syslinux.exe which is the syslinux installer binary for Windows.
Now do an installation through the install-on-USB.sh script. The only files related to syslinux that are CREATED are syslinux.cfg and ldlinux.sys. So I don't see how any incompatibilities should arise when all files are created by the same version of syslinux that is used to install it. Maybe the .cfg file, but their syntax is extremely stable and the feature set used by us is absolutely minimal, so that can't be a problem either.

I think that confirms that we can strike this out. I guess we've just got some messed up metadata on those sticks which is tidied up by zeroing the beginning of the stick. If somebody with that issue which is solved by zeroing the beginning of the device could mail me a disk image, I could possibly say more. But if it is what I believe it is, I doubt much can be done about it. Anyway, I would definitely take a look at it.
Maybe hybrid images are the way to go?

[Adys]

@Shador,

You raised a couple of very valid points. I'm looking into it and I may open a separate topic to comment on this.

@lazerbeem,

After working on the USB drive, have you closed all related windows (for example a file manager window) and unmounted the drive? Some situations may need for you to disconnect the USB drive and reconnect it again before you reboot with the USB drive (and unmounting the external media is generally recommended before unplugging it). I don't know if this is your specific case, but I though I should mention it.

In addition, do you use a "traditional" BIOS or (U)EFI?

Could you post the exact "dd" command you used (so to know how much of the drive you zeroed)?

It would be useful to receive feedback from you, whichever the result you had with unetbootin 575.

[Tim CowChip]

Maybe hybrid images are the way to go?

Code: Select all

dd if=salix64-13.37.iso of=/dev/sdb

seems like a trouble-free way to go.

[lazerbeem]

Thanks Tim Cowchip the creating a new table and partition with gparted fixed the problem. After doing that I just followed the wiki instructions for the live cd.

[lazerbeem]

I want to mark the thread Solved but I can't find it here, it's different than other forums.

[Tim CowChip]

I want to mark the thread Solved but I can't find it here, it's different than other forums.

Just edit your first post in this thread and add [SOLVED] to the subject line.

Glad it worked for you and hope you enjoy Salix. As you can see there is a lot of terrific support in this forum.
Salix has a really great team making it the best slackware based distro available.

[Shador]

Maybe hybrid images are the way to go?

Code: Select all

dd if=salix64-13.37.iso of=/dev/sdb

seems like a trouble-free way to go.

Not necessarily, that's only the "shiny" outside. But you get fixed size read-only partitions. So you can't use the stick for anything else anymore. And all previous data is deleted. Finally if you get something a little wrong in that command, you can suffer from serious data loss e.g. on your hard disk.