[SOLVED] USB Installer img dd problem

[plip]

Hello,

This is just a notification of a problem I had installing via USB following the software installation guide.

Using linux to "dd" the image to the USB drive seemed to work fine, at least fdisk -l showed two partitions (in my case /dev/sdc4 and /dev/sdc4p4). However, booting from it was not possible; just a blank screen with a spinning cursor, no text of any kind. I confirmed that the hash of the bz2 file matched the checksum provided on the mirror, so a dodgy download couldn't be the problem.

I tried with a second USB drive from a different manufacturer, again same result.

So I tried a third time to dd the image, this time I didn't specify the "bs=16k" option, I just removed that. To my surprise, I was able to boot and install without any issues!

I have no idea if this is some sort of quirk with my particular system or not, just thought a heads up would be in order in any case.

Thanks!

[lucifercipher]

Hello plip,

If you happen to have a Windows PC then the easiest way to do it is use http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/ . Simply select your flash drive as the target and flash it.

Have a good day.

[plip]

Thanks for the tip lucifercipher, if I need to do this in Windows at some point I'll know what to use.

I just wanted to raise a flag as to the blocksize used in the dd command specified in the install guide; perhaps 16k isn't optimal? Maybe others are having/have had the same problem, maybe it's just me.

[franco]

I always use bs=1m, but that's on OSX. No block size is terribly slow, good workaround nevertheless, yet shouldn't matter. Data layout remains consistent unless the writing is screwed up on the hardware (may be the controller or linux driver), definitely not the usb stick. Do you have a different PC with different hardware to crosscheck?

[plip]

Do you have a different PC with different hardware to crosscheck?

Yes! I dd'd the USB stick again, using bs=16k and plugged it into an old laptop, and booted without any issue. 

[franco]

Wait, now I'm confused. Was the USB stick written on different hardware or booted on different hardware?

[plip]

The stick was written on the same hardware, booted on different hardware.

[franco]

That makes less sense than the other way around. Either the stick is written incorrectly or there was a temporary glitch. Is this new stick still not bootable on the original hardware?

(This is more out of interest, feel free to disregard.)

[plip]

Yes, that same USB stick that previously wouldn't boot on the original hardware now boots correctly. It was a full moon a couple of days ago, that must have been it  Thanks anyway 

[franco]

Yeah, that's been known to happen. Thanks for taking the time to report back.