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

Fri May 21 15:49:50 UTC 2010
Bowie Bailey <Bowie_Bailey at BUC.com>

m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
> 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.
>   

Maybe I'm using the wrong script.  I have livecd-iso-to-disk from the
livecd-tools-014-8 package.  Is liveCD-iso-to-disk a different script?

-- 
Bowie