SOLVED Boot from ubs-memorystick

Hi out there, hope someone can help me with this problem. I have made a regular dos-boot-disc on a usb memorystick, have tried 2 different, sandisc and a noname.
I have a pt880 motherboard and when i press F11 during bootup i've got the bootmenu and the stick is shown there. I choose it, but after all bios checks it says something like "search for boot records on usb bla bla bla". And there it hangs, the whole computer hangup. :(
Anyone got an idea what i have missed? I mean if the bootdisc is wrong done (but its not) it should say it cant find any boot record of boot files.
???

you might find this useful - it is good
https://forum-en.msi.com/index.php?topic=57971.0
what happened to Danny? he solved my first problem.

Similar Messages

My PowerMac G5 will not read my Leopard disc, dual layer dvd, how do I force boot from UBS DVD drive to install?? Or is there another way. It just keeps spitting out the disc!!

I have a power mac G5. Ir originally had Tiger on it. When I reinstalled for some odd reason the disc decided to install Panther, no clue why!! Either way I got a hold of a Leopard disc for this computer. It is apple certified and bought from Amazon and works for this computer.
Hoever, for some odd reason it keeps spitting it out. Discs under 4.7 GB is reads fine but the bigger discs it wont seem to read. What I need is to know how to get, or force, it to boot from an extrenal dvd drive. Or any other methods to get it to install.

I do not believe you can "Upgrade" directly from the "Panther" installed on your computer to "Leopard". You have to have at least "Tiger" installed already Before you can install Leopard. Thus your Mac is not recognizing the Leopard Install disk.

[SOLVED]Booting from external hard drive

Hi,
My SATA controller seems to be dead, I put my hard drive in an external USB bay. I would like to boot from it so that I still have exactly the same system running, but I'm facing a few issues with grub :
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 resume=/dev/sda4 root=/dev/sda2 ro quiet
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
I was surprised to see grub show up right after power on, and starting boot sequence. It then stopped complaining that /dev/sda2 was not found, and I was left in a minimal shell environment.
I tried replacing sda by sdb, since I was this was the new designator for my partitions since they are now mounted in USB, but with no luck.
Does anyone knows what do I need to change in the menu.lst, or elsewhere ?
Thanks in advance !
Last edited by willy9 (2010-01-20 16:17:38)

1. you need to rebuild your initramfs with adding the usb hook after 'autodetect'. You might need to chroot into your installation from ubuntu (for example) and then perform the rebuild.
2. add rootdelay as gusar suggested.
3. Hint: Due to you're booting from a external hard drive, I strongly recommend you to set labels to your drives. In this way, you can tell to /etc/fstab which are the proper partitions of your system avoiding the not-so-friendly-for-the-reader uuid string. This will help you to keep away udev messing with your drive's nodes.
in my case, I have a /etc/fstab which looks like this
LABEL="IOMEGA" / ext3 noatime,nodiratime 0 1
for extX filesystems, you can set its label with tune2fs -L label. For other filesystems, RTFM.
Last edited by kjon (2010-01-17 00:19:03)

[solved] booting from usb

Hello, I'm not sure if this post should go here but this board seemed the most "generic".
I have an acer aspire one with 8GB of SDD and no swap partition. That's ok for webbrowsing and some of the tasks I would like a netbook for. When I want to compile large programs boot from an arch installation in an external 500GB HD wich I use to bloat and install programs I will probably use once. This worked for me untill I upgraded to HD to 2.6.27 which I needed in order to use it in the AAO (hardware support). Now the USB won't boot.
I start the computer with the HD plugged and puch F12, choose to boot from the external drive and grub appear. Now no matter if I choose the first or second option it will start to boot but won't finish. It complains of the partition not existing. It suggest to add rootdelay=8 or greater to menu.lst, which I tried and doesn't work. When in ramfs$ I do
cd dev
echo *
there is no sdb4 which is the root partition nor any sdb? . When I boot my local install it boots ok and I can se /dev/sdb4.
Any idea?
Last edited by ore (2009-03-23 17:00:51)

when grub comes up hit "e"
then edit initrd line to read like this
initrd /boot/kernel26-fallback.img
if that doesnt work try boot of install cd
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Boo … recovering
once in you id say you need to edit /etc/mkinitcpio.conf make sure usb is in hooks. if you have sata or ide drive inside notebook make sure usb hook is after sata or ide hook otherwise usb gets sda & internal drive gets sdb
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Con … mkinitcpio
then run
mkinitcpio -g /boot/kernel26.img
reboot should do it

[Solved]Boot from USB HDD - Root device doesn't exist. Major/minor

My problem is that the kernel seems (or starts) to load, but then I get an error:
Root device 'UUID=1234 . . .' doesn't exist.
Attempting to create it.
ERROR: Unable to determine major/minor number of root device "UUID=1234 . . .'
You are being dropped into recovery shell
I found a few links on the web and in the forums, but nothing that really solved it for me. The solved ones usually downgraded the kernel. I haven't done that yet. I thought I'd try here first.
I have a 320GB USB HDD that I have been using to experiment with different linux distros. I have a few working successfully (OpenSUSE,Mint,Ubuntu,Debian,Fedora,etc). I'm very new at this but have been reading a lot and putting a lot of time into it. I have legacy grub loaded on the MBR and use the menu.lst on my openSUSE partition to boot everything. Because the partitions for some of the distros are so far into the disk I needed to create directories on openSUSE's /boot directory to contain the kernel and initrramfs files (like /boot/fedora). This seems to work for the other distros. I did the same thing for Arch.
So when I installed Arch I haven't used the bootloader section of the installation.
I'm using the 2011.08.09-netinstall-i686.iso Live CD.
I tried a few things including:
1. changing the HOOKS in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
a. adding usb to the "HOOKS"
b. removing and adding autodetect
c. adding and removing "sata_sil" (although I'm not even sure if my device uses it)
2. changing the kernel line:
a. from using "UUID=" to (hd0,1) to sdb1.
b. added rootdelay=8
3. repartition all of my arch partitions using cfdisk from my Live CD and reinstall. I used gparted on OpenSUSE to do it the first time.
This may be connected. When I fdisk -l from the Arch Live CD I get extra data and an error for each of my arch partitions (and only my arch partitions):
Disk does't contain a valid partition table
When I fdisk -l from OpenSUSE I don't get the data paragraphs or errors about the arch partitions?
Here is my /etc/fstab:
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs nodev,nosuid 0 0
UUID=0e7556ef-b832-43e9-a8ba-c68dd2cd6143 /var reiserfs defaults 0 1
UUID=510bb601-13c1-46ec-87c0-a800dd2efb8b / ext4 defaults 0 1
UUID=cd78ab04-742d-4ba5-9727-90727de2dd14 swap swap defaults 0 0
UUID=dc5685e3-35b0-46d4-b259-61f2530ff36a /home ext3 defaults 0 1
And my HOOKS:
HOOKS="base udev autodetect pata scsi sata usb filesystems usbinput"
And my menu.lst:
1
default 0
timeout 32
gfxmenu (hd0,1)/boot/message
###openSUSE on sda2 - legacy grub
title openSUSE 11.4 - Celadon - gnome
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.37.6-0.7-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Seagate_FreeAgent_GoFlex_NA0E702X-0:0-part2 resume=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Seagate_FreeAgent_GoFlex_NA0E702X-0:0-part1 splash=silent quiet showopts nomodeset vga=0x314
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.37.6-0.7-default
###openSUSE failsafe on sda2 - legacy grub
title Failsafe -- openSUSE 11.4 - 2.6.37.6-0.7
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.37.6-0.7-default root=/dev/disk/by-id/usb-Seagate_FreeAgent_GoFlex_NA0E702X-0:0-part2 showopts apm=off noresume nosmp maxcpus=0 edd=off powersaved=off nohz=off highres=off processor.max_cstate=1 nomodeset x11failsafe vga=0x314
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.37.6-0.7-default
###floppy###
#title Floppy
# rootnoverify (fd0)
# chainloader +1
###Fedora on sda5 - legacy grub
title Fedora 15-Lovelock gnome
root (hd0,4)
configfile /boot/grub/grub.conf
###Mint on sda6 - grub2
title Mint 9 Lucid Lynx gnome
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/grub/core.img
savedefault
boot
###PCLinux on sda7 - legacy grub
title PCLinuxOS 2011.6 KDE
root (hd0,6)
chainloader +1
###Ubuntu on sda8 - grub2
title Ubuntu 10.04.2 gnome
root (hd0,7)
kernel /boot/grub/core.img
savedefault
boot
####arch on sda10 - legacy grub
title ARCH
root (hd0,1)
#root UUID=XXXXXXXXXX44c5a3cd-dcb5-4cf1-933e-7a8ebac2a992
kernel /boot/arch/vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=510bb601-13c1-46ec-87c0-a800dd2efb8b ro rootdelay=8
#kernel /boot/arch/vmlinuz-linux root=(hd0,9)
#kernel /boot/arch/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/sda10
initrd /boot/arch/initramfs-linux.img
savedefault
boot
###Debian on sda11 - grub2
title Debian 6.0.2.1 squeeze gnome
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/debian/vmlinuz-2.6.32-5-686 root=UUID=2b6052e2-ecdf-4796-81c8-b9e9142ca159 ro
initrd /boot/debian/initrd.img-2.6.32-5-686
savedefault
boot
###Mandriva on sda12 - legacy grub
title Mandriva 2011 KDE
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/mandriva/vmlinuz-2.6.38.7-desktop-1mnb2 root=UUID=5033f7fb-cac7-4db5-920c-c8bd2b51365f ro
initrd /boot/mandriva/initramfs-2.6.38.7-desktop-1mnb2.img
savedefault
boot
Here is my fdisk -l from OpenSUSE. I'm not quite swift enough to mount the hard drive and use the script utility from the Live CD yet, at least not tonight:
Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072932864 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142447 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000c3bbb
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2048 4208639 2103296 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2 4208640 46153727 20972544 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 46153728 87113727 20480000 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 87115770 614031755 263457993 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 87115776 128075775 20480000 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 128077824 169037823 20480000 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 169039872 209999871 20480000 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 210001920 250961919 20480000 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 250963968 291923967 20480000 83 Linux
/dev/sda10 291924031 332886015 20480992+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda11 332888064 373848063 20480000 83 Linux
/dev/sda12 373848678 414992383 20571853 83 Linux
/dev/sda13 414994432 435474431 10240000 83 Linux
/dev/sda14 435474495 455956829 10241167+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda15 455958528 578881535 61461504 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sda16 578881599 614031755 17575078+ 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdb: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x95aa95aa
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 * 63 294889139 147444538+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2 294889140 312576704 8843782+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
That's it for now.
Last edited by newbie55 (2011-09-23 22:19:58)

I'm IN! Thanks everyone for your suggestions!
The arch system didn't like the identifier I was using for the root partition. By looking at the /dev/disk/by-id while the arch system was running, I could see what the system wanted me to call the partition. So after the system error'd-out and I was in the recovery shell at the [ramfs /] prompt:
# ls -lF /dev/disk/by-id > by-id.txt
# vi by-id.txt
I could have used any of the identifiers listed in the by-id (there were 3), by-uuid(1), by-label(1) or by path(1). I tried them all. I had to write these down by hand because it is a ram filesystem.
The article that finally got me there is:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pe … ice_naming
Anyway my openSUSE grub menu.lst ended up like this:
####arch on sda10 - legacy grub
title ARCH
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/arch/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/510bb601-13c1-46ec-87c0-a800dd2efb8b ro rootdelay=8 rootfstype=ext4
initrd /boot/arch/initramfs-linux.img
savedefault
boot
It's easy once you: 1. beat your head against the wall
2. read further
3. repeat 1 and 2
Back to the "Beginner's Guide",4 Post-Installation. Yikes!

[SOLVED] Booting from Asus U3S6 SATA Controller fails

Since the SATA controllers on my mainboard stopped working yesterday, I bought a Asus U3S6 Controller in the hope to work around the problem in this way. The drive is detected by the BIOS and GRUB is invoked correctly. However, when I try to load the kernel, I get following message:
Waiting 10 seconds for device /dev/sdb3 ...
ERROR: Unable to find root device '/dev/sdb3'.
You are being dropped to a recovery shell
In the recovery shell I cannot find any disk device under /dev/. Is this kind of booting supposed to work? When is the PCI controller actually detected and activated by the kernel?
Any help appreciated!
Last edited by smyp (2014-02-01 07:53:22)

I solved the problem.
I used used the chroot guide to modify my environment:
I had to add ahci to the list of modules in /etc/mkinitcpio.conf and rebuild it with
mkinitcpio -p linux
This will then load the AHCI module at boot time and enable the SATA devices.

Boot from Arch ISO on USB with UEFI BIOS [SOLVED]

After following the instructions here, I a FAT32 formated USB "ARCH_201209" with the extracted ISO on it but have no idea how to actually boot from this USB. When entering the BIOS on my MB, I see nothing that would allow me to select the USB as a boot device. Do I need to drop into the UEFI shell to accomplish this?
EDIT: It seems this is a limitation of my MB which is actually perfect in every other regard including overclocking. The board for reference is an Asus P8Z77-V Pro running BIOS v1504. I really hope they fix this BS in a subsequent BIOS update.
Last edited by graysky (2012-09-09 13:31:59)

Wow, this MB pisses me off. Turns out that I had to completely powerdown, plugin the USB, enter the BIOS and ONLY then was the USB available as a boot option. I wanted to test that I could actually boot to the thing and do so. Arch booted flawlessly.
What I found after rebooting out of the live USB was that I couldn't boot my system at all. The BIOS just kept coming up in an endless loop as I would select the 'arch_grub' option that previously worked. The solution to this bullshit was to drop to the EFI shell and add an entry that points to 'fs0:\EFI\arch\grubx64.efi "Arch Linux MANUALLY ADDED"'
:angry:
...can someone tell me why in the world we are going to UEFI boards? I actually opened a thread that has yet to receive a reply on this very topic. I am making this as solved. Thank you all for the quick replies.
Summary of links that really helped me:
UEFI Related:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/EF … l_Commands
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Gr … fi_package
Arch USB Related:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UEFI#Archiso
Last edited by graysky (2012-09-09 13:33:22)

[SOLVED] can't boot from ssd after "reset" from recovery usb flash drive

I have a Twist s230u with the original Hitachi 500GB hdd, running Windows 8.1. I want to replace the Hitachi 500GB hdd in my Twist s230u with a PNY 240GB SSD that i've purchased.
While running Windows from the Hitachi HDD drive I followed the "create a recovery drive" procedure to create a recovery usb. Then I removed the Hitachi HDD from the s230u and installed the PNY 240 SSD in its place. I booted the s230u from the recovery flash drive that I made. I selected the "Reset Your PC" option and then the option to wipe all partition/files. After the Reset completes, I try booting from the SSD but am unable to do so. I just go back to the F12 boot menu.
I put the SSD in a drive dock attached to another computer. Disk Management shows the partitions as follows -
I've looked at the partitions on the SSD after the Reset - Disk Management console shows a 1000 MB Recovery partition, a 260MB EFI System partition, and a 221GB primary partition with volume label Windows8_OS. It is not marked as Boot, Page File, or Crash Dump.
Diskpart shows an an additional 128MB Reserved partition between the EFI partition and the primary partition.
I do notice that the 10.6 Lenovo Recovery partition is not present - but I did make sure that I included that partition on the recovery key - though the files on the recovery key only use 8.03 GB for some reason. Made the key on two different flash media.
Diskpart also shows the following for the SSD:
DISKPART> attributes disk
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : No
Pagefile Disk : No
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : No
Clustered Disk : No
(It also looks like this when I run DISKPART from the recovery media with the SSD inside the internal drive bay of the s230u.)
When I did the Reset on the SSD in the s230u, and when I tried to boot from it - I had the Secure Boot disabled, the "Legacy Boot first" option set, etc.
Can anyone point me in the right direction to be able to boot Windows 8.1 from this SSD in the s230u? I've been working on this for a couple of days.
(I also tried cloning the HDD to the SDD using Minitool Partition Wizard, Macrium Reflect, Clonezilla, Acronis, etc - the SSD wouldn't boot after those clone operations either, and I thought maybe I'd have better luck with a reinstall from the USB recovery media.
(I also tried installing from a Windows 8 iso I burned to a DVD. I got a product id mismatch message when I tried to install from that, and I was not allowed to proceed.)

well, I seem to have solved my own problem. Maybe someone will learn from my mistakes.
I went into System Setup, went to the Startup tab, and changed the boot setting from "Both" to "UEFI Only". After doing this I booted from my USB recovery drive, and Reset the PC. After the Reset, I booted the s230u from the ssd, and I booted into a fresh Windows 8 installation.
It seems that the Reset operation could not work properly while the boot setting was "Both" (UEFI and Legacy) and "Legacy First."
I got a clue when I looked at the contents of the EFI System Partition and there was nothing there except a Temp folder. The EFI System Partition had not been properly written by the Reset operation. I got some helpful hints on how to see the contents of the EFI System Partition here - http://www.fixedbyvonnie.com/2013/12/how-to-repair-the-efi-bootloader-in-windows-8/#.U-Qz2_ldW7q
I've also buggered up my original HDD now, so that it won't boot to Windows now. Now to fix that!

[SOLVED] MS-7125 boot from SATA

I have an MS-7125 whose IDE drive just died. I installed a SATA hard drive and successfully installed Ubuntu 9.10 on it but it doesn't show up as bootable in the BIOS.
Is there a BIOS setting which will allow me to boot from the SATA hard drive?
Thanks.
[SOLVED] See my last post. [/SOLVED]

Quote from: Grayone on 17-November-09, 12:54:47
Can you set it as a boot device in Advanced Bios Features -Boot Sequence. Also check to see if the onboard SATA Controller is enabled in Integrated Peripherals -Ide Devices Configuration.
In Advanced Bios Features->Boot Sequence I chose Hard Disk. Under Hard Disk Boot Priority the SATA drive simply doesn't show up. The only choice there is Bootable Add-in Cards. The BIOS doesn't seem to recognize the SATA drive.
Under Integrated Peripherals->IDE Devices Configuration everything is enabled, including SATA1/SATA2 and SATA3/SATA4.
My BIOS is "W7125NMS V1.5B2 052005 15:18:27 provided by MSI & [email protected]" which has worked perfectly for all the hardware we have on these boxes, including the previous IDE drive.
Thanks for your help with this.

[SOLVED] Attempting to boot from USB key in UEFI mode

I am attempting to boot from a USB Key in UEFI mode to dual boot windows 8 and arch linux. I'm unsuccessful in getting the USB key to boot in UEFI mode.
I am following the guide on page: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Un … _Interface due to the fact that I am receiving error " No loader found. Configuration files in /loader/entries/*.conf are needed."
I am attempting to use the archiso media and have created refind.conf according to https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/31894#comment102233 in (USB)/EFI/boot/refind.conf
However, I'm stuck on the initial step from the wiki: Install refind-efi pkg. In the usb's filesystem, overwrite the file EFI/boot/bootx64.efi with /usr/lib/refind/refind_x64.efi.
My question is: How do I install the refind-efi package onto the USB key using an arch linux host machine and the USB plugged into the machine.
Last edited by tonysoprano (2013-02-13 04:09:56)

swordfish wrote:1. Might be possible, that the uefi integration is pretty bad. Have you already looked for an update of the uefi bios?
This is my thought, too. The "memory map has changed" message sounds like the firmware is messing with the way memory is laid out in the middle of the boot process. A firmware update, if available, is likely to be the best way to deal with this problem. If not, trying Fedora's patched GRUB Legacy and GRUB 2 are also worth doing; it's conceivable that one of them includes a workaround for the problem.
2. In your first posting you mention Windows 8 on this machine. Is W8 starting in uefi mode?
This is important, but if the disk uses GPT partitioning, then Windows is starting in EFI mode.
3. If W8 is starting in uefi mode, are you sure that secure boot is disabled?
It is; if it weren't, neither rEFInd nor ELILO could start -- or even if they were configured to start in Secure Boot mode, ELILO doesn't launch its kernels in a way that respects Secure Boot, so the ELILO failure can't be caused by Secure Boot. Also, when launched with Secure Boot active, rEFInd returns a clear error message about a security violation and then returns to its main menu; it doesn't hang the computer.
One possible workaround occurs to me if all else fails: Have rEFInd launch a BIOS version of GRUB. The setup procedure, in outline, is as follows:
Create a BIOS Boot Partition on the disk.
Install the BIOS version of GRUB 2.
Configure rEFInd to include a scan for BIOS-mode boot loaders by uncommenting the "scanfor" line in refind.conf and adding "hdbios" to it.
Thereafter, you'll see a new "generic" icon, which should launch GRUB, which should launch Linux in BIOS mode, even though Windows launches in EFI mode. This will work on most modern UEFI-based computers with a single hard disk, but things get trickier with multiple disks and with some UEFI implementations that lack the necessary firmware features. If a future firmware update fixes the problem, or if a future kernel's EFI stub loader includes a workaround, the EFI-mode booting will become an option once again.

[solved] Boot installer from hard disk, but install from external DVD.

Hi!
I have an old notebook with broken cd-rom and without support to boot from USB disks (only "USB-FDD"). I want to install on this notebook Arch Linux! I bought an external DVD writer and I would like to only boot Arch linux, but install from external drive. How can I do it?
Last edited by gienekr (2011-12-07 14:58:49)

Mavirick wrote:Have you tried burning the ISO to a disk, putting it in the external drive and powering on the laptop? If yes and that did not work have you gone into the bios to see what your boot options are for the laptop with the external device plugged in?
Yes. My laptop does not support booting from usb-cd and usb-hdd
But I installed Arch by grub4dos to boot from iso, connect external dvd and start installation. System successfully detected the dvd drive so I could install a new system!

[Solved] Installing on a system that does not boot from cdrom or usb

I have a very old and stuborn gateway solo 5300 laptop that refuses to boot form the disk I burned for arch linux, as well it refuses to boot from the usb disk I made with dd acording to Usb Flash Installation Media on the wiki
I also tryed UNetbootin: Install Arch Linux Without a CD From FTP.
It currently boots to windows xp, has two partitions and I wish to overwrite the entire hardrive. Do you have any sugestions?
Last edited by meschael (2014-06-27 02:03:56)

ewaller wrote:... Even a fully loaded machine (512MB) would be of little (if any) use
Really? I have a netbook with a total of 1G, and I never get anywhere close to using even half of that. Certainly this depends on the programs used - but for terminal only, 512MB would be more than enough IMHO. On my 1GB, I boot into X with a simple WM, and can use lightweight (but fully functional graphical) web browsers like luakit and dwb without getting anywhere near half RAM use.
If it is just 128MB, I agree that may be more of a problem. I wonder if Slitaz is still going - that was my favorite "micro" distro, but I have not kept track of the development in some time.
As for the main problem of the thread, I've reread your OP a couple of times, but I'm not sure I'm fully clear on your steps. First, unetbootin is expected to not work for arch. Have you made an iso using `dd`? Can you boot other live cds or usbs on the machine? In other words, is it a limitation of your hardware, or have the isos you've tried for arch just not worked yet?
Last edited by Trilby (2014-06-22 23:41:36)

[Solved] Grub errors 18 and 22 when booting from SSD

Hello community,
recently I purchased an SSD drive and am now having trouble doing an Arch install on it. Before that a 2TB HDD was in use. After building in the SSD I partitioned it (msdos partition table) creating partitions for swap, / and /home. Then I copied the files from the old /home partition on the freshly created one and installed Arch on the new / partition. Here's the partition setup:
$ LANG=C sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0003a234
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2048 3907028991 1953513472 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 16065 4192964 2088450 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 4196352 65720319 30761984 83 Linux # old /
/dev/sda7 65722368 577720319 255998976 83 Linux # old /home
/dev/sda8 577722368 3907028991 1664653312 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdb: 128.0 GB, 128035676160 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 15566 cylinders, total 250069680 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000a9841
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 51863552 241582079 94859264 83 Linux # new /home
/dev/sdb2 241582080 250068991 4243456 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3 2048 51863551 25930752 83 Linux # new /
Partition table entries are not in disk order
The problem is: booting from the SSD fails as follows: On the first try to select some Grub entry I get an error 22 "No such partition.". On any further try I get error 18 "Selected cylinder exceeds maximum supported by bios".
What works is to boot up the new system from the Grub residing on the HDD. So the problem is just the new Grub install in the SSD's MBR. Also it's not a thing of Grub's configuration, since copying the working menu.lst from the HDD install and reinstalling grub via grub-install /dev/sdb gives the correct Grub entries but selecting them results in the same errors.
So currently I'm booting from the HDD and selecting the boot entry for the freshly installed SSD system there, which works fine. But of course I'd like the SSD to be able to boot without "help" on the part of the HDD.
I tried to activate AHCI in the Bios but it didn't make any difference. The SSD is a Crucial M4 128GB.
Thanks for any hints,
PhotonX
Last edited by PhotonX (2012-07-26 06:04:53)

I created a /boot partition now:
$ LANG=C sudo fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sdb: 128.0 GB, 128035676160 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 15566 cylinders, total 250069680 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000a9841
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 51863552 241582079 94859264 83 Linux # /home
/dev/sdb2 241582080 249831423 4124672 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb3 2048 51863551 25930752 83 Linux # /
/dev/sdb4 * 249831424 250068991 118784 83 Linux # /boot
Partition table entries are not in disk order
Disk /dev/sda: 2000.4 GB, 2000398934016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243201 cylinders, total 3907029168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0003a234
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 2048 3907028991 1953513472 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 16065 4192964 2088450 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 4196352 65720319 30761984 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 65722368 577720319 255998976 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 577722368 3907028991 1664653312 83 Linux
Then installed Grub on this partition: "grub-install /dev/sdb4". Then placed the SSD on the first position in the Bios, booted but got the same errors in Grub. So it doesn't matter where exactly Grub is installed, if it's somewhere on the SSD, it fails...
edit: Concerning using UUIDs: I couldn't find any howto regarding Grub (legacy) configuration with UUID's. Could you point me to some example config?
edit2: I now put the SSD on the first place in the boot list and started PartedMagic. But fdisk still recognizes the SSD as sdb and the HDD as sda. I think, the sdX identifier can be changed only by plugging the SSD in the first SATA port and the HDD in the second (while now it is the other way around).
edit3: I tried to install Grub from the HDD installation on the SSD (executed "grub-install /dev/sdb4" from the HDD system) and found out that, though I created a /boot partition on the SSD, the Grub files installed directly on /dev/sdb are used. So I tried to install Grub from the HDD system onto /dev/sdb (executed "grub-install /dev/sdb" from the HDD system) and got error 22 even before Grub's boot list was shown. But maybe it's really a bad idea to install Grub on another drive than the system it belongs to is located.
Last edited by PhotonX (2012-05-18 21:54:56)

[SOLVED]Hanging after booting from installation media

Yesterday I booted from a rw-DVD got to the terminal and could execute commands, connect to the internet and use elink etc no problem. I didn't go through with installation as I wanted to read up more on partitioning my drives for dual booting before actually doing so.
Trying the same thing today, and it hangs soon after I boot, regardless of whether I do anything. Printing the following:
nouveau E[ DRM] failed to idle channel 0xcccc0000 [DRM]
pci_pm_runtime_suspend(): nouveau_pmops_runtime_suspend+0x0/0xf0 [nouveau] returns -16
INFO: rcu_preempt detected stalls on CPUs/tasks: { 6} (detected by 1, t=18002 jiffiess, g=974, c=973, q=604)
This is without me typing anything. If I try to execute a command quickly after booting it sometimes works, but after a couple of minutes it will complain of a soft lockup.
I've tried burning another disk, and using a USB installation media, but the same thing happens. Any thoughts?
Edit: Trying to run it on a laptop with i7-4700MQ, 16GB ram, and Intel(R) HD Graphics 4600 / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770M
Second Edit: Booted with nomodeset, which worked and allowed me to install. Just trying to sort out the sodding boot loaders now...
Last edited by glfharris (2014-07-11 22:42:31)

Welcome to the forum.
First of all, you should get in the habit of using [ code ] tags when posting code, not [ quote ] tags (well, unless you want to apply some styling to it, like bold, italic, etc).
This is wrong:
# umount /dev/sdc
This is correct:
# umount /dev/sdc1
You were trying to unmount the drive as a whole, which obviously isn't mounted, instead of the first (and probably only) partition. Had you followed the advice from the note to use blkid and check if it's mounted, this wouldn't have happened. But the fact that a DVD produced that error puzzles me... I have no experience with UEFI, but I think you need to press F10, F11, or something like that, to able able to get to a UEFI boot menu, and choose the optical unit as source.
I hope you used a BitTorrent client when downloading the ISO, and not some direct link (which are prone to CRC errors). If you used a direct link, then check the MD5 and make sure that it matches the one from the Download page. For future reference, torrents are checked while they're being downloaded.

[SOLVED] UEFI system booting from MBR partition table and GRUB legacy

I'm trying to understand once and for all the process by which Arch can be booted from a system with UEFI firmware and an MBR partition table. Some of the information on the wiki seems conflictual / non-nonsensical at times. Apologies in advance if this has been answered time and time again, but I did search around and all I found was fixes to get Arch to boot rather than comprehensive explanations of the boot process.
Now, the way I would imagine it works is that it's just completely identical to the way it would work with a BIOS firmware. The UEFI firmware detects an MBR partitioning scheme (or is configured to know it's an MBR partitioning scheme), activates some "legacy" mode and executes the MBR boot code, just like a BIOS firmware would.
The wiki however, says different. From the Macbook article: "Do not install GRUB onto /dev/sda !!! Doing so is likely to lead to an unstable post-environment."?
So what is there in the MBR boot sector? Nothing?
How does the firmware know what to boot if there's no 0xEF BIOS boot partition and no Grub stage 1 in the MBR boot sector?
Also, how does installing Grub stage 1 to a partition work? Does it have to be at the beginning of the partition? Wouldn't that overwrite some existing data?
I'm especially puzzled since many guides to installing Vista on a macbook recommend simply formatting as MBR, and installing as normal, which I suppose entails having the Windows installation process write its boot code to the MBR, ie the equivalent of installing grub stage 1 to /dev/sda rather than to the /boot partition, as the Macbook article suggests.
Any input is appreciated.
P.S. I realize it's probably simpler, if I just want to dual boot Windows and Arch, to install Windows 7 in UEFI-GPT mode, let it create the EFI System Partition, and then install GRUB 2 to that partition, but I'm still curious about the UEFI-MBR boot process.
Last edited by padavoine (2012-06-06 09:35:10)

padavoine wrote:
CSM in UEFI firmwares do the exact same job as normal BIOS firmware.
So it's something specific to the Mac that it's able to boot from a partition's VBR while ignoring the MBR?
The reason that warning is given is because grub-legacy modifies more than just the MBR boot code region. It can overwrite some parts of GPT header.
Not true, the instruction is given in the context of an MBR format, not in the context of a GPT format, so there's nothing to overwrite and Stage 1.5 should be safely embeddable in the post-MBR gap.
In BIOS boot (normal case in non-UEFI firmwares or CSM in UEFI firmwares) does not read the partitition table (atleast it is supposed to be dumb in this regard), it simply launches whatever boot code exists in the 1st 440-byte of the MBR region.
So again, you're saying it's specific to the Mac UEFI that it lets you choose a partition whose VBR to load, regardless of what's in the MBR?
I haven't used Macs so I can't comment on Mac firmware behaviour. But normal BIOS firmwares (legacy and CSM) launch only the MBR boot code and not the partition boot code. We need some chainload capable boot manager in the MBR to launch the partition VBR.
grub-legacy does not know anything about GPT. So when you install grub-legacy to /dev/sda, it install the MBR boot code (stage1) and stage 1.5 code to the (supposed) post MBR gap. Since there is no actual post MBR gap in GPT (which has been taken over by the header and partition table), grub-legacy does not check for GPT and it assumes the post MBR gap actually exists which is invalid in case of GPT. grub-legacy embeds the stage 1.5 code in GPT header and table region (which grub assumes to be unused post MBR gap) and thus corrupts it.
0xEF is the MBR type code for UEFISYS partition. grub stage 1 (used in grub-legacy, not in grub2) is the 440-byte boot code stored in MBR for use in BIOS boot.
That's precisely my point: with neither proper executable code in the MBR (since grub was installed to a partition, not to the MBR) nor a UEFI system partition, what does the firmware default to, and how does it know what partition to boot from?
In that case it might fallback to UEFI Shell (if it exists) or give an error similar to the case where BIOS does not find any bootable code in 440-byte MBR region.
So even with bootcamp/CSM, the disk also needs to be MBR partitioned. So Macs use something called "Hybrid GPT/MBR" ( http://rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html ) where the MBR table is synced to match the first 3 partitions in the GPT table.
I know what Bootcamp does, and that's not what I was referring to. I was referring to standalone Vista installs. I wasn't puzzled at the fact that they were using MBR, I was puzzled at the fact that contrary to the recommendations for the standalone Arch install on the wiki (with MBR partitioning, not GPT), they didn't do anything to try and prevent Windows from writing to the MBR.
You can't prevent Windows from overwriting the MBR region. You have to re-install the bootloader (grub2/syslinux etc.) after installing Windows. That is the reason why it is recommended to install Windows first and linux later.
Thats not true. I actually find it is much easier to install Windows UEFI-GPT using USB rather than a DVD.
I haven't done it since the only UEFI system I own has no DVD drive, but I was under the impression that it was simply a matter of choosing DVD UEFI boot in the firmware's boot menu.
format the USB as FAT32 and extract the iso to it. That it.
No, thats not it, precisely, it doesn't work out of the box with a standard Windows install USB, you need to fiddle around:
2.3 Extract bootmgfw.efi from [WINDOWS_x86_64_ISO]/sources/install.wim => [INSTALL.WIM]/1/Windows/Boot/EFI/bootmgfw.efi (using 7-zip aka p7zip for both the files), or copy it from C:\Windows\Boot\EFI\bootmgfw.efi from a working Windows x86_64 installation.
2.4 Copy the extracted bootmgfw.efi file to [MOUNTPOINT]/efi/microsoft/boot/bootmgfw.efi .
Most of the Windows isos already have /EFI/BOOT/BOOTX64.EFI file, so no need to extract the bootmgfw.efi file.
There is no difference between in BIOS booting in UEFI firmwares and BIOS booting with legacy firmware.
There has to be a difference, at least in the Mac firmware (sorry, I keep switching), since legacy firmware, AFAIK, cannot chainload a bootloader in a partition's VBR without there being some sort of "stage1" code in the MBR.
No idea about Mac EFI. Apple made a spagetti out of UEFI Spec. To actually understand how Mac firmwares work, read the blog posts by Matthew Garrett of Redhat, about his efforts in getting Fedora to boot in Macs.

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