From: Rogelio <scubacuda at gmail.com> > I'm having problems installing CentOS via a USB drive. Here's how I did my USB key (minus the kickstart part) but you need a linux (in a VM or from the live CD)... And you will have to change devices names! 1. Create a small VFAT partition, then a big linux one: fdisk /dev/sdg Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sdg1 * 1 3 23126 6 FAT16 /dev/sdg2 4 1023 7873380 83 Linux mkfs.vfat -n BOOT /dev/sdg1 mkfs.ext2 -m 0 -b 4096 -L DATA /dev/sdg2 Unplug/plug => /media/BOOT and /media/DATA 2. Install syslinux on the VFAT partition: syslinux -s /dev/sdg1 cd /media/BOOT cp -rv /mnt/cdrom/isolinux syslinux mv syslinux/isolinux.cfg syslinux/syslinux.cfg rm -f syslinux/isolinux.bin vi syslinux/syslinux.cfg append method=hd:sda2:/centos 3. Copy the CentOS ISOs to the linux partition (I had to use the CD ISOs because the DVD ones would get corrupt on my USB key for some reason): mkdir /media/DATA/centos for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6; do cp -v CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-${i}of6.iso /media/DATA/centos/; sync; done for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6; do diff /IOL/CENTOS_repo/CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-${i}of6.iso /media/DATA/centos/CentOS-5.3-i386-bin-${i}of6.iso; done 4. Optionaly (?), to be sure that it boots: dd if=/usr/share/syslinux/mbr.bin of=/dev/sdg JD