1 Topic by crillew

  • crillew
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Topic: Suggestion to update instructions for bootable USB

Hello, just some comments about the instructions on how to make a Gparted bootable USB drive.
(http://gparted.sourceforge.net/liveusb.php).

I just tried all solutions for Windows and none of them work.
The both programs to automate the installtion failed, Live USB helper didnt make the USB drive bootable and Unetbootin booted but missed the kernel. And the latest Gparted ZIP (http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted … p/download) doesn´t contain the makeboot.bat so the manual solution failed aswell.

However, I did get it to work by following the manual solution AND some of Parted Magics instructions http://partedmagic.com/documentation/13 … usb.html).

2 Reply by cmdr

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Re: Suggestion to update instructions for bootable USB

Hello crillew,

crillew wrote:

However, I did get it to work by following the manual solution AND some of Parted Magics instructions

... and here is the clickable link :
http://partedmagic.com/documentation/13 … veusb.html
(The punctuation marks corrupted your link.)

Do you know "GParted's" new "isohybrid" feature ? The ISO-image is simultaneously an image for a bootable USB stick. You can prepare it without using Linux, but with Windows. Look here, alternative c) for a tutorial. In my eyes, this is the simplest way to stay uptodate without having to know kernel parameters. I think, it's even possible to create a VBScript to get it fully automatic.

Regards
cmdr

3 Reply by tjames

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Re: Suggestion to update instructions for bootable USB

crillew wrote:

Hello, just some comments about the instructions on how to make a Gparted bootable USB drive.
(http://gparted.sourceforge.net/liveusb.php).

I just tried all solutions for Windows and none of them work.
The both programs to automate the installtion failed, Live USB helper didnt make the USB drive bootable and Unetbootin booted but missed the kernel. And the latest Gparted ZIP (http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted … p/download) doesn´t contain the makeboot.bat so the manual solution failed aswell.

However, I did get it to work by following the manual solution AND some of Parted Magics instructions http://partedmagic.com/documentation/13 … usb.html).



Tried the instructions as per cmdr but got the following error running dd. "Error writing file: 1450 Insufficient system resources exist to complete the requested service."   Hmmm....
Not a very helpful message. It's amazing how something so simple and critical is so hard! I am working on a recent Windows XP machine and tried the instructions per the gparted site but to no avail. BTW option A no the gparted site using the DRBLiveHelper script and the gparted..zip file produced a USB drive that tried to boot but couldn't find the kernel.  It would seem that on the gparted forum there should be a topic on successful methods for creating the gparted-live USB drive. (or heaven forbid, the actual gparted site).

Any suggestions? (sorry for the whining, but we are partitioning drives...)
tjames

4 Reply by tjames

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Re: Suggestion to update instructions for bootable USB

Quick update to last post by tjames. Error 1405 is basically an "out of memory" error. Suspecting "dd" I looked at the site (chrysocome.net) and found the following.

The default block size is 512 which will work for most files and devices but the copy will be a lot faster if you use a larger block size. For example a floppy disk read with bs=1k count=1440 takes almost twice as long than if you use bs=1440k count=1. Don't make the block size too large because windows will run out of memory. 1M is probably a good size and upper limit. Most CD/DVDs have a 2k sector size and probably will not work with a block size which is not a multiple of that.

So.. I editted the command line suggested for dd with the appropriate parameters but reducing the block size parameter (bs) to 1M = (1048576) and increased the count size. This allowed dd to complete successfully.

tjames

5 Reply by tjames

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Re: Suggestion to update instructions for bootable USB

tjames wrote:

Quick update to last post by tjames. Error 1405 is basically an "out of memory" error. Suspecting "dd" I looked at the site (chrysocome.net) and found the following.

The default block size is 512 which will work for most files and devices but the copy will be a lot faster if you use a larger block size. For example a floppy disk read with bs=1k count=1440 takes almost twice as long than if you use bs=1440k count=1. Don't make the block size too large because windows will run out of memory. 1M is probably a good size and upper limit. Most CD/DVDs have a 2k sector size and probably will not work with a block size which is not a multiple of that.

So.. I editted the command line suggested for dd with the appropriate parameters but reducing the block size parameter (bs) to 1M = (1048576) and increased the count size. This allowed dd to complete successfully.

tjames


Yet another update. The procedure did not produce a bootable USB drive.
Used the latest gparted-live-0.4.6-1.iso from gparted site. USB drive is "consulted" first in boot sequence, but fails and falls through to the HDD and grub.

Peeking at the drive once windows is up says the drive is not formatted. I'm not sure if this an issue. There are no instructions of the boot device setting (USB-HDD, USB-CDROM,...). I tried both of those listed to no avail.

I'm missing something somewhere, perhaps it's the cold medicine...
Thoughts?

tjames

6 Reply by tjames

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Re: Suggestion to update instructions for bootable USB

The last post....
The USB drive as created above worked fine after figuring out the proper BIOS settings.
I have an Award BIOS on a Gibabyte GA-P35-DS3L motherboard.
For me, the proper setup was to.
1. insert the USB drive first and then reboot. (key to success)
2. enter the bios setup screen. (del on my setup)
3. The USB drive boots as a HDD! not a USB-<whatever>, so set the boot order to hit the HDD.
4. Enter the boot priority menu and since the USB drive was in the computer when it started up, it will be in the menu with the other hard disk drives. If the USB drive is not in yet, it won't appear in the list of devices. (and you will wonder what other posts on the net are talking about).
5. select the USB device and move it to the top of the list.
6. F10 to save and exit, and you are off to the races.

You can do a similar thing using the boot menu, F12 in this setup.
Good Luck,
tjames

7 Reply by cmdr

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Re: Suggestion to update instructions for bootable USB

Hello tjames,

well done !


Concerning "dd.exe"

1.The bigger the block size, the faster the copy process ( limit is RAM usage ).

2.The copy block size of "dd" has NOTHING to do with the logical block/sector size within a copied drive image or has any influence on functionality of the drive image as long as there are no copy faults.


Concerning "Isohybrid GParted Live" ISO

1. ISO image has a Master Boot Record (MBR) at sector 0 with a partition table, which does NOT match the values for legacy ZIP or LS120 drives. A CDROM has no MBR. Therefore the installed image is detected as harddisk.

2. Motherboard BIOS detects harddisks at boot, so they must already be present to be selectable.

3. You ALWAYS have to change boot sequence again, when you unplugged the stick meanwhile or shutdown the whole system. It's always kicked out as first boot device.

With the above post tjames  exactly describes step by step the setup of an Award BIOS for this purpose. The principle is the same for all BIOSes, the hotkeys may differ. Just consult your motherboards manual (RTFM!).

Regards
cmdr