[SOLVED] external USB HDD fails to install arch w/boot device ERROR

Question

I've been working on installing arch linux via an external USB harddrive (specifically seagate free agent go 320GB) for 1 week now, and everytime I failed - until TODAY! thankfully I found this post, where user Dieter@be references this link, which displays BUG ID#17231 at the top titled "Can't boot LiveCDs 2009.08 (/dev/archiso doesn't show up)". the bug report states ::
I can't boot the LiveCDs 2009.08, neither netinstall nor core.
When it tries to access /dev/archiso it shows these messages:
:: Waiting for boot device ...
Waiting 30 seconds for device /dev/archiso ...
ERROR: boot device didn't show up after 30 seconds ...
Falling back to interactive prompt
You can try to fix the problem manually, logout when you are finished
ramfs$
reading further thru this bug report, I found a very insightful post by Heiko Baums (cyberpatrol) where he says the following, and I quote ::
Problem found. The link /dev/archiso wasn't created.
After
ramfs$ cd /dev
ramfs$ ln -s sr0 archiso
ramfs$ exit
it continued booting correctly.
And sg was also loaded after this. ;-)
as you see, the bug report was for the CD version, not the USB version - yet, my issue with the USB bootdisk was the same, (no matter which boot disk I tried = netinstall, core, .img, .iso, etc) meaning I got the EXACT same error = "ERROR: boot device didn't show up after 30 seconds ..." ! well, I figured that I'd try one of the new fancy ISOs found @ http://build.archlinux.org/isos/ - specifically I use/used archlinux-2010.03.04-netinstall-x86_64.iso.
upon running Unetbootin from windows 7, and choose to install the ISO archlinux-2010.03.04-netinstall-x86_64.iso to my first partition on my USB harddrive (that first partition being FAT32, and had already been set as bootable previously), that completed successfully. I rebooted, and choose to boot from USB drive, the ISOlinux bootloader came up as normal, I choose DEFAULT and off it went.... sure enough, it errored out at the same place as listed in the bug report ::
:: Waiting for boot device ...
Waiting 30 seconds for device /dev/archiso ...
ERROR: boot device didn't show up after 30 seconds ...
Falling back to interactive prompt
You can try to fix the problem manually, logout when you are finished
ramfs$
this time though, I issued the following 2 commands ::
ln -s /dev/sdb1 /dev/archiso
exit
from there, EVERYTHING worked as it should!
to recap: the solution for me was create a symbolic link pointing /dev/archiso => to my partition which held the archlinux netinstall (which is where I told Unetbootin to install it to)! done and done. I felt this needed to be posted here, as I could not find this solution after MANY google searches, archlinux wiki searches, forum searches, etc. honestly, I think it would be prudent to have this tidbit of information added to the Install from USB stick archwiki page as a side note to those that may run into this issue.
this is not the FIRST time I have run into this problem with a USB install of archlinux, but this is the FIRST time I found a fix! thanks to all the great posts I reference here, without this information I dont think I would have been able to install archlinux on my new alienware m11x laptop.
-peace-
PS: no amount of rootdelay=XX  nor pmedia=usb  nor usbdelay=XX would work in my above attempts either.
Last edited by fnord0 (2010-03-12 04:54:26)

Answer 1

FAT16 here. Parted Magic sees my USB drive as sdd. I tried your way and surprise, surprise, it didn't work.
ln -sf /dev/sdd /dev/archiso
mount -t vfat /dev/archiso /bootmnt
mount : Invalid argument
I thought maybe you meant mount -f vfat /dev/archiso /bootmnt instead. I tried it too, it resulted in a kernel panic.
What else can I try besides installing from a IDE/SATA CD drive ? Because this issue is NOT solved. At least not for me. Wonder if "archlinux-2010.04.05-netinstall-i686.iso" from the here will solve it (really hope so).
SOLVED IT HERE (with yet another image): http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=93645
Last edited by DSpider (2010-04-17 14:21:27)