[CentOS] Building an install disk on a USB key, solved

Thu Apr 29 17:19:56 UTC 2010
m.roth at 5-cent.us <m.roth at 5-cent.us>

Ok, there's been discussion, including, I think, on the wiki web page,
that syslinux is not correct. At any rate, after enough experimentation, I
have a working install on a USB key. The procedure is:

Using fdisk, partition your key: one partition, VFAT (type b, and toggle
the bootable flag), about 9M or 10M, and a second partition big enough to
hold a DVD. That should be type 83 (Linux native).

mkfs -t vfat <the DOS partition)
mkfs <the Linux partition

liveCD-iso-to-disk <.iso, w/ full path> /dev/<USB DOS partition>
mount <USB Linux partition> /mnt
cp <CentOS.iso> /mnt/

You're done. You do have to tell it "install from hard disk", and then
point it to the Linux partition.

I just did this and tested it (or at least as far as the "searching for
existing CentOS installations).

         mark