On Thu, 2007-08-09 at 20:58 -0400, Greg Smith wrote: > I want to create a bootable hard drive to start the Fedora 7 install > similar the the F7/images/diskboot.img. The hard drive will be created > as a USB hard drive on another computer and then installed into the > machine. Using fdisk to format this drive and dd to copy diskboot.img > to the first partition doesn't work (boot results in a blinking cursor). You need to set the partition created via the "dd" as "bootable" using fdisk. Assuming it's /dev/sda: [root@prophead ~]# fdisk /dev/sda The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 14593. There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024, and could in certain setups cause problems with: 1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO) 2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK) Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/hda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 1 261 2096451 83 Linux /dev/sda2 262 5483 41945715 83 Linux /dev/sda3 5484 8094 20972857+ 83 Linux /dev/sda4 8095 14593 52203217+ 5 Extended /dev/sda5 8095 8616 4192933+ 83 Linux /dev/sda6 8617 8877 2096451 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda7 8878 14593 45913738+ 83 Linux Command (m for help): a Partition number (1-7): 1 Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/hda: 120.0 GB, 120034123776 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 14593 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 261 2096451 83 Linux /dev/sda2 262 5483 41945715 83 Linux /dev/sda3 5484 8094 20972857+ 83 Linux /dev/sda4 8095 14593 52203217+ 5 Extended /dev/sda5 8095 8616 4192933+ 83 Linux /dev/sda6 8617 8877 2096451 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda7 8878 14593 45913738+ 83 Linux Command (m for help): w That should do it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- - Rick Stevens, Principal Engineer rstevens@xxxxxxxxxxxx - - CDN Systems, Internap, Inc. http://www.internap.com - - - - IGNORE that man behind the keyboard! - - - The Wizard of OS - ----------------------------------------------------------------------
