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

[m.roth at 5-cent.us]

Boweie wrote:
> m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
>> Bowie wrote:
>>> m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
>>>
>>>> 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).
>>>>
>>> Following these instructions, what iso do I use for the
>>> livecd-iso-to-disk step?
>
>> I used the full, one DVD .iso.
>
> That doesn't work for me.
>
>     # livecd-iso-to-disk /home/bowieb/CentOS-5.5-i386-bin-DVD.iso
> /dev/sda1
>     Verifying image...
>     /home/bowieb/CentOS-5.5-i386-bin-DVD.iso:
> 97c0b2ed5d08f0e24e1e516362059032
>     Fragment sums:
> 67686679ec95a9255099cbed11cc51d998abee91a1f91fc7a2361554e54e
>     Fragment count: 20
>     Percent complete: 100.0%   Fragment[20/20] -> OK
>     100.0
>     The supported flag value is 0
>     The media check is complete, the result is: PASS.
>
>     It is OK to install from this media.
>     Unable to fit live image + overlay on available space on USB stick
>     Size of live image: 3991
>     Overlay size:
>     Available space: 13
>     Cleaning up to exit...
>
> The DVD iso is 4GB and the DOS partition is only 10M (per your
> instructions).  Shouldn't the boot.iso or something else go here?

Not sure what's going on there. liveCD-iso-to-disk dd's (or whatever) a
bootable vfat (or is it fat?) filesystem, and *only* enough to boot the
installer. The full DVD .iso goes in the other partition, which you've
mkfs'd, just as a .iso.

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