Software :: Using Flash Drive As Root FS At Boot Time Fails
Nov 29, 2008
I have a flash drive that I want to mount as my root filesystem at boot time. When I'm in linux, I can run `mount /dev/sda1 /mnt`, and the kernel will mount the ext3 FS on the flash drive at /mnt with no problems. From this I assumed I could boot my system with the kernel option 'root=/dev/sda1', but this doesn't work. My kernel has no initrd, and is booted directly by a bootloader. It has no modules, so I know that's not the issue.
The current setup that works consists of a ramdisk that the bootloader loads into RAM before booting the kernel. The kernel detects this ramdisk and the current kernel root option ('root=/dev/ram') mounts the ramdisk as the root fs with no problems.I can see where the kernel detects the flash driveat startup, and I can't think of a reason why I couldn't just mount it as root. I can copy/paste startup logs here if necessary.
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Dec 4, 2010
I have a 1.0 ghz G4 eMac running Tiger. Using Ubuntu 10.04's Live-CD I installed 10.04 on a 8-gig USB flash drive and it worked very well despite spending nearly five hours to download its files via DSL and a pokey USB 1.1 port. The flash drive's 10.04 installation worked just fine on my eMac and 900mhz G3 iBook except for Airport wireless non-connecting issues.(I like Ubuntu 10.04 because unlike Mint for PPC, you're not hassled or barred from accessing your Mac HD and its files.) THEN, to resolve my wireless issues, I decided to upgrade to 10.10 which took nearly 12 hours, and it seemed to've installed well until I tried booting the flash drive and it doesn't work. I get the Ubuntu icon in the Startup Disk screen but it keeps returning to it even after I select Ubuntu. The error screen I get reads code...
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Mar 20, 2010
I have minor problem with upgrading a hard drive. I am running an old pentium lll with two hard drives. On the first hard drive I have two partitions of around 90GB each. On the first partition is installed winXP and on the second partition I have Suse 10.3, both booted by grub and living happily side by side. My second hard drive (which is formatted for windows is only 4GB.
My problem arises when I try to replace the 4GB with a 80Gb hard drive. When I disconnect the 4GB drive the system fails to boot up and complains with error 21.
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Aug 2, 2010
I need to make my root partition bigger to add more free space. Is there a Linux version that will fit on a small usb flash drive that has the tools I need? I plan to boot a Linux distro from a flash drive in order to resize the partition.
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Sep 16, 2010
I took some videos off a usb flash drive, then went and selected " safely remove usb" and the light continued to blink on the flashdrive, I pulled it out any way, and the root folder turned red... everything seems ok, but how do you know when it's ok to safely remove a usb devise ?
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Jun 11, 2011
Back in Febuary, my wife bought a Toshiba Satilite from Wal-Mart and a few days ago the hard drive got toasted. So now I'm using an 8gig usb drive as the boot drive. I also have 2 other flash drives for downloads and such but overall I am very pleased.
I'm running 11.04 32 bit and was wandering if 64 bit made a difference. I've got 4 gigs of ddr3. It's slow to boot, but once it's running, it's faster then Windows 7. Very nice.
Is there anything I should chage, use, since I'm running it off a flash drive??
I have 3 seperat drives, 2 x 16 gigs and an 8 gig, and was wandering which one would be best for booting off of? What do I look for??
Here's what I got:
00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS880 Host Bridge
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Toshiba America Info Systems Device 9602
00:06.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] RS780 PCI to PCI bridge (PCIE port 2)
[Code]....
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Nov 13, 2010
I've a flash drive that it's partitions formatted as fat32, ex4 and encrypted ext4. It works fine on the system that I've formatted it on, but when I try to use it on my other Linux distributions I get these problems:
* ext4 partition accessible by root only.
* after entering my pass-phrase I get
Code: /dev/mapper/udisks-luks-uuid-***** uid1000 is mounted What I'm asking for is a way to create the ext4 file system without being attached to some UID and to be accessible by any user.
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Jul 20, 2010
I have a flash drive that I use to sync my work- and home-computers. Rsync has occasional issues syncing between FAT32 (which I use on my flash drive b/c it's universal) and EXT3.
I decided to create an EXT3 partition on the flash drive in an attempt to alleviate the rsync woes. My problem is that when I create the partition using GParted, Ubuntu auto-mounts it with Root as the owner. I had GParted check the drive, and it found no errors to repair.
One other weird thing is that the EXT3 partition shows 84.7MB being used immediately after creating the new partition.
The FAT32 partition mounts fine, is read/write, and only shows 4KB used after the new partition scheme.
I tried doing new partitions a number of times, with EXT2, EXT3, and EXT4 just to see if that mysteriously made a difference. Each time that partition would mount w/ Root as owner.
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Mar 6, 2010
Arpwatch is failing to start at boot time. I got this message:
arpwatch: bad interface eth0: eth0: no ipv4 address assigned
Once I login into my account, I can (as root) run the arpwatch demon, but it is suppose to run at boot time. After I installed aprwatch, it was working correctly. I do not have an idea of what happens or since when the problem start to happen. I just realize, after a while , that arpwatch was not running. I am running Fedora 12 - 2.6.32.9-67.fc12
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Dec 6, 2010
I am building a 10.04.1LTS server. I am putting the /root filesystem into a Software RAID1 partition. I want to keeo my /boot partition outside of RAID.Is there a way to have a boot partition on both sda and sdb so if one drive fails the second boot partition will work away - or should this be kept in with RAID also.
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Oct 27, 2010
I am trying to replace an old, smaller, and dying laptop hard drive with a newer one, using a USB external drive. I first tried cloning disk to disk with Clonezilla, but it failed after cloning my root, swap, and /home directories it froze when it tried to reinstall grub. After 2x trying, I switched to dd, which I have never really used (I am fairly new to Linux in general). The actual command I used was:
Quote:
dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb bs=4096 conv=notrunc,noerror
All seemed ok and after approximately 2 hours my 80GB drive had been cloned onto my new 250GB, with dd giving what appeared to be a satisfactory closure summary. I tried to mount and access the drive from my external USB enclosure but could not view it, though the data is there, I believe, as the size and bytes show... The error that Dolphin is giving me is:
Quote:
error - wrong fstype, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb1 Missing codepage or helper program or other error. When I installed the new drive directly into my laptop, it begins to boot (Sabayon 5.4, 2.6.35 kernel) but almost immediately I get (handwritten down, but this is close):
Quote:
detected real_root
mounting /dev/sda1 on /newroot failed: input/output error
!! Could not mount specified ROOT, try again
!! Could not find the root block device in .
[code]....
I am assuming that my issue has something to do with grub, and maybe specific UUIDs that don't match (?) but I'm not really certain. I have both Grub Legacy 0.9x and the newer Grub 2 installed (Sabayon is already moving over) but I still boot with Legacy, not with the new 2, as I don't know how to switch, and am not sure if I should yet. I thought that dd copied bit for bit, and I added the noerrorï just to try to get it all transferred, so I don't know what went wrong exactly, though something seems wrong with grub and the bootloader, I guess...
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Feb 21, 2010
After creating a new JFS root file system, boot (actually /etc/rc.d/rc.S ?) fails when checking it with:
Code:
fsck 1.41.8
/sbin/e2fsck: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open /dev/sda7:
[code]....
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Jun 20, 2011
I've installed squeeze and wheezy on an old Toshiba Satellite 210 CS laptop with 48MB RAM and a 20GB IDE harddrive.Grub2 won't boot at all and stops with a "error: cannot allocate real mode pages". The solution to that is to use the grub-legacy package.The boot then fails with "waiting for root device" and drops to an initramfs shell.
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Dec 27, 2010
From one day to the other my system stopped booting properly. Since I (finally) fixed it, I wanted to share my solution. It runs on a fakeraid pair of SSD's of 60 GB each (actually a single Revodrive device, but it shows up as two devices). When Ubuntu 10.10 boots, I'm dropped to a shell.During boot, when I removed "silent splash" from the kernel's command line, I got these messages:
Code:
[ 4.960240] scsi 6:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA OCZ-REVODRIVE 1.20 PQ: 0 ANSI: 5
[ 4.960425] sd 6:0:0:0: [sdg] 117231408 512-byte logical blocks: (60.0 GB/55.8 GiB)
[cod]....
I doubt that this is what was needed (as I had that already when it didn't work, but I might be required in addition to installing dmraid)
# update-initramfs -a
After installing this, the problem was solved!! This is strange since I don't recall uninstalling this package or changing anything important, for that matter (perhaps did apt-get upgrade, but that's about it!). [URL]
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Apr 21, 2011
Fsck is not check any file system which are not root file system at boot time.
Normally it run: /sbin/fsck -A -R -C -a
But this command doesn't do anything.
I've tried to strace it, and looks like this:
Code:
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Feb 23, 2011
Having an issue I've been unable to resolve for for a week now. I've 2 drives, SATA1 for OS and operating files, SATA2 for media storage. came home last week to an update manager window present and error in Transmission stating unable to second drive due to "Read Only" status. the drive was never set to read only status but following the update manager a reboot was needed. once rebooted, the GRUB menu came up (dual boot system), selected Ubuntu then booting stopped. blank black screen with blinking cursor. rebooted several times, checked bios recognition of both drives, replaced cables, switched power to drive to separate cables, used different SATA ports but nothing worked. finally removed the second media storage drive and Ubuntu booted normally. now any time i connect the second drive and reboot it fails to boot into ubuntu or XP. i removed the media drive and installed it in another computer and it worked normally. have searched everything i can but no answers have been found so far. wondering if anyone here has had similar trouble or has idea for what to try.
I'm using Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit with current 3.6.32-28 kernel
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Apr 9, 2010
I am trying to use a Sandisk 2 GB USB flash drive to boot this system but the system is ignoring the drive. The system boots fine from the CD or from the first hard disk.
Here are some details:
ASUS P6T SE mother board
Cooler Master HAF case
Ubuntu v 9.10 64 bit
Sandisk 2GB USB flash drive
I have plugged the flash drive into a convenient front panel USB connector, right next to where the floppy drive is plugged in. I used the USB Startup Disk Creator to copy a disk file containing Ubuntu 9.04 Live CD onto the flash drive, then I used install-mbr on that drive. I can use the usual tools such as nautilis to examine the contents of the flash drive, and for fdisk -l I get:
Quote:
Disk /dev/sdh: 2000 MB, 2000682496 bytes
64 heads, 63 sectors/track, 969 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 4032 * 512 = 2064384 bytes
[code]...
which seems to say that the flash drive is bootable. I am suspecting that the problem is in the mother board and/or BIOS. The BIOS is set up to boot in the following order: CDROM, removable device, first hard disk. I thought that "removable device" included USB drives but the system seems to ignore that drive. There are lots of USB connectors in this system. There is a keyboard, a mouse , a loudspeaker set, a floppy drive, and the aforementioned USB flash drive plugged into various USB connectors on both the front and back sides of the cabinet.
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Mar 25, 2011
Would it be possible, and would it make sense, to copy the whole utuntu file system to a portable flash drive, and then plug it into another computer and run ubuntu on that computer?
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Jun 25, 2010
I have been playing around with a Ubunto 10.04 live cd (32bit) on my mac. I want to be able to boot this OS (or similar) on my Mac, and on any other computer (PC or Mac). I also want it to remember changes and files. From looking around this is possible from a USB (with a Casper RW loop file I think). I have used the Live CD to create a bootable flash drive, which works on PC's but not my mac. Using these instructions: [URL] I was able to get my Mac to see the Linux at boot but once I clicked the Tux icon it would hang/ freeze. I let it sit for 10+ min and nothing happened. I started over (with a fresh formatting) and got the same results. I have reformatted the flash drive and am ready to try over. I think that I am goofing up in terminal steps as I am not use to doing that. After the last step in the terminal I get an error, something like invalid number or similar, it is not the one mentioned in the instructions.
I know that this for advanced users, I am not yet but working that way. I an a (retired) power windows user, moderate Mac user and a new Linux user. I want to learn which is why I am asking. I am not in a spot to install Linux directly on my Mac, so I I am seeking help to do it on a flash drive. I want the ability to run off any computer and I see this as I way to get there.
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Jul 19, 2010
I have a 2GB usb flash drive and I wanted to boot a linux distro from it. My dilemma is that I'm having a hard time balancing size with quality.I've been going the virtual route so far in my linux studies but the variety with hardware is so limited. If I had a bigger flash drive it wouldn't be a concern but I need to make do with what I have.So what's a good learning distro that has good features but can be installed onto a 2GB flash drive? I'm sure there is more than one but I'd like to get some different input from more seasoned users.
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Dec 22, 2010
I follow the RHEL6 installation guide to make a USB minimal boot media. The document told me the only thing i need to do is:
Code:
dd if=boot.iso of=/dev/sdb
Where boot.iso is a 200MB ISO image i downloaded from the Red Hat Customer Portal and /dev/sdb is my USB flash drive. But i failed to boot. The USB flash drive's size is 2GB, and my PC's bios supports boot from USB.
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Oct 31, 2010
We have a SuSE/SLES 9 server that boots from a fibre channel card, using volumes from a NetApp filer.
We previously had the server booting from the LUNs on the filer, but after some tinkering around with the fibre channel BIOS, we have the situation where the LUNS seem to be mounted, the OS boots, starts to initialise everything but then stalls, saying:
We have tried loads of combinations of settings in the BIOS and fibre channel BIOS without any success or any idea what may have caused the error.
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Sep 22, 2015
Debian 8 "Jessie"
AMD CPU
EFI motherboard
System was working reliably. Moved components into a new case. Now system will not boot. Either gives error that the disk is not bootable or displays the motherboard configuration screen.
I am able to boot Debian with a USB drive and have attempted fixes in "rescue mode".
I confirmed that the system is booting to EFI mode.
I have tried re-installing the grub-efi package and re-creating the Grub config file with update-grub.
When re-installing Grub I receive "Discarding improperly nested partition ..." warnings but the installation succeeds. I have searched this warning message and the forums seem to say that it can be ignored.
I have tried re-setting the motherboard NVRAM using the jumper block.
The computer shows "debian" as a boot choice in addition to the usual raw drive model listing. However, neither of the choices will boot successfully.
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Apr 19, 2011
I'm very new to Linux and recently setup a desktop PC with Puppy 5.2.5. only. I chose to have a permanent install on the hard drive and loaded additional PETS and utilities as I thought needed for my use. Last night after immediately booting up the PC I had a power cut lasting a few minutes. When power returned and I repowered the PC, I found during Puppy's boot sequence it reported an error and remained in what appeared to be a console mode - did not carry through and load my desktop. So I inserted the Puppy CD and booted from that but I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with Linux to understand how I can get back my original desktop setup and run once again from my hard drive without having to go back to scratch.
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Jan 11, 2010
How do I get a computer to boot from a USB flash drive with a bootable image when the computers bios does not have a USB device as a boot choice ?
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Apr 30, 2010
i am trying to make a windows XP boot flash drive for one of my copmputers. i delete all the partitions on my flash drive and run "dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/dev/sdb" and ubuntu can read it and its got all the contents of the CD but windows machines say i need to format it and no computer can boot off of it. did i do something wrong?
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May 12, 2010
I am trying to make an iso boot from a 8GB SanDisk Cruzer USB drive through UNetBootin, and it's just not happening. I have tried several times, but always had the same disappointing result. It looks like when UNetBootin goes through the process of putting it on the flash drive, it completely skips aking it bootable. Any suggestions? Maybe it is just UNetBootin.
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Aug 24, 2010
I have a linux server running ubuntu 10.04, kernel Linux server 2.6.32-22-generic #33-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 28 13:28:05 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux. A few months ago I installed ubuntu to a USB flash drive (Patriot 16GB) and was able to successfully boot off it, and everything was running fine. Then all of a sudden I noticed that the root filesystem was read-only, and I saw errors in the kernel log:
[ 725.528732] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Unhandled sense code
[ 725.528742] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE
[ 725.528750] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Sense Key : Medium Error [current]
[ 725.528759] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] Add. Sense: Unrecovered read error
[ 725.528768] sd 2:0:0:0: [sdc] CDB: Read(10): 28 00 00 1e 00 cc 00 00 d0 00
I tried reading the drive to see if there was a problem with the drive itself:
root@server:~# dd if=/dev/sdc of=/dev/null
dd: reading `/dev/sdc': Input/output error
1966184+0 records in
1966184+0 records out
1006686208 bytes (1.0 GB) copied, 2.12427 s, 474 MB/s
But the strange thing is that if I put that usb stick in a different linux server, I'm able to read the whole drive. If I run fsck, it fixes a bunch of errors, but when I put the drive back in the original PC it will work for a while and then fail with the same type of I/O error (not at the same offset though). I had this same problem occur on a different USB stick in the same server, I had thought it was bad media so I replaced it, but now the same problem is happening on a different usb drive. I have backups of the data, but I would really like to figure out what is causing this before I throw in the towel and buy a new PC.
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Oct 23, 2010
After many failed attempts, I finally got Ubuntu on my Flash Drive (16gb). This was completed by downloading Ubuntu Desktop Edition (ubuntu.com), and using The Universal USB Installer to put the .iso on my Flash Drive.
When I try to boot my PC from the flash drive, I get a black screen saying...
"No DEFAULT or UI configuration directive found! Boot:"
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Mar 28, 2011
I am trying to install Xubuntu from a flash drive on my PC. I used UNetBootin to get it on my flash drive. When it boots up I get to the Pre Splash screen and I choose Install Xubuntu, it goes to the Xubuntu Splash screen and just hangs there and hangs and hangs. Even if I click Try before Install, it just hangs.
I have a Pentium 4
20GB Hard Drive
512MB of Ram...
Is there a Text install? If so if I install that way will it install the desktop to or just command line? I figured maybe something went wrong when I put it on the flash drive so I am trying again.
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