[CentOS] Installing CentOS 6.2 *TO* a USB drive, not installing from USB.

[m.roth at 5-cent.us]

Emmanuel Noobadmin wrote:
> On 4/10/12, Patrick DERWAEL <patrick at derwael.be> wrote:
>> Emmanuel,
>> I used a totally different approach by using VMware: the trick is to
>> install on a physical device which is the USB drive.
>> When the installation requests a reboot, simply boot on your USB and off
>> you go!
>
> That is pretty much what I did. Boot DVD 1 with a USB DVD drive,
> install to /dev/sda which is the USB flash drive. When the
> installation requests a reboot, shutdown, remove as well as leave the
> DVD drive around and reboot... and only grub prompt or Error 21.
>
> Maybe there's a minor but critical step I'm missing so I'll appreciate
> it if you could outline in greater details how you did it.
>
> I've tried installing grub to both MBR i.e. /dev/sda as well as first
> partition /dev/sda1 but neither works.

Two questions: a) are you sure that the USB key is /dev/sda, and b) does
your system offer a boot menu, or only go into setup to tell it to boot
off the USB key?

Oh, and in fdisk, is the partition flagged bootable?

        mark