Re: Failure to dd diskboot.img to pen drive

Rick Stevens wrote:

On Thu, 2007-11-15 at 18:08 -0200, Clodoaldo wrote:

I want to install F8 from a 1GB pen drive but dd does not work,
although I can mount it. dd shows it worked:

# dd if=/home/cpn/Desktop/Downloads/diskboot.img of=/dev/sdb1
24576+0 records in
24576+0 records out
12582912 bytes (13 MB) copied, 0.307408 s, 40.9 MB/s

But there is nothing in the directory:

[root@dkt ~]# ll /media/KINGSTON/
total 0

fdisk -l shows strange messages:

# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 158816 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1         203      102280+  83  Linux
/dev/sda2             204      158816    79940952   8e  Linux LVM

Disk /dev/sdb: 1027 MB, 1027604480 bytes
32 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1011 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1984 * 512 = 1015808 bytes

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   ?      966294     1813487   840415161   69  Unknown
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(612, 109, 33) logical=(966293, 30, 10)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(255, 97, 46) logical=(1813486, 20, 39)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb2   ?      976282     1834012   850868148+  ff  BBT
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(367, 115, 35) logical=(976281, 15, 17)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(80, 13, 10) logical=(1834011, 14, 55)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb3   ?      891259     1782449   884061367   6c  Unknown
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(355, 116, 37) logical=(891258, 2, 52)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(112, 97, 32) logical=(1782448, 31, 27)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sdb4   ?           1     1790834  1776506368    0  Empty
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
     phys=(10, 114, 13) logical=(0, 0, 1)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
     phys=(0, 0, 0) logical=(1790833, 1, 2)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order


When I try to enter fdisk the device can't be opened:

# fdisk sdb

Unable to open sdb

# ll /dev/sdb1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 12582912 2007-11-15 17:56 /dev/sdb1

Any workaround?

Redo the dd, but do NOT specify a partition, e.g.:

	dd if=/home/cpn/Desktop/Downloads/diskboot.img of=/dev/sdb

For it to be bootable, the image must be written to the raw device
(/dev/sdb), not to a partition on the drive (/dev/sdb1).

First slam the broken MBR shipped on most pen drives:

unmount any mounted partitions from the device

# cat /usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin >/dev/sdb

($ rpm -qf /usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin
syslinux-3.36-7.fc8)

Thirdly, format the second partition as FAT32

# mkfs -t vfat -F 32 /dev/sdb2 -n images

copy the Fedora DVD image to the second partition.

Now you have a pen drive that can do the entire install, not just the boot.

CAVEATS:

Good Luck!