Will only install to USB Drive in Superfloppy mode

[pandemonium]

Hey, I'm trying to install to one of the little PQI Intelligent stick usb flash drives. For a few days I was hassling with 2.10, not sure why it wouldn't boot after an install, then came to the website and saw that there was a bug with 2.10.

So, now I have 2.10R1. I burn the ISO, boot it, and when I go into the installer and select the USB drive from the list, the only option it gives me now is to install it in Superfloppy mode. The other button isn't there. I tried to use the partitioning tool that is in there (can't remember the name) and I deleted the partition on there and created a new one, but it didn't change it. I reformatted the drive in windows, but it didn't help. What happened? Did I somehow screw up the thumbdrive while I was futsing around with it a few days ago with 2.10? The drive seems to work fine in Windows.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank you!

[pandemonium]

Please, anyone? I'm desperate!

[BarryK]

Yes, install to and boot from superfloppy will be fixed in 2.11.

You should be able to use Gparted to create a fat16 partition (and set the 'bootable' flag for the partition, which can be done in Gparted), then the Universal Installer should recognise it.

[wonkocz]

Hi pandemonium,

I'm a newbie so not sure how much help I will be but I will tell you some options I found.

Boot off of live CD and open a terminal window

make a partition on your USB device using cfdisk.

For me the command was: cfdisk /dev/sda

note: be sure you have the right USB device so you don't nuke something else accidently.

You can create partitions on the USB device using cfdisk. I deleted all partitions and created one new parition and set it bootable. I read somewhere if you want the USB device to be automatically mounted and unmounted in windows, set the 'type' to WINNT.

remember to set it bootable above!

after you have created your partition do a 'write' to write the changes to your USB device before choosing 'quit'

now that you have created your partition, it should be called 'sda1'

you can create a vfat filesystem on the new USB partition by issuing the following command.

mkdosfs -F 32 /dev/sda1

note: be very careful with the above command, you can easily nuke harddrives with it.

After you have created the new vfat partition then you can put a needed OS loader ther by using the following command:

syslinux /dev/sda1

At this point the device is bootable and ready to go. Try doing the install to the USB card from Puppy and it should work.

If it does not boot then perhaps one other step would help.

Puppy should have written some files to the USB card.

Boot to windows and copy the contents of the USB card to a directory.

The go back and re-do the steps I mentioned above, execpt don't do the puppy USB install, in order to get a bootable sda1 partition.

Then reboot back into windows and copy all the files back onto the USB device.

Hope this helps,
wonk

[BarryK]

I just tried it in Gparted, convert a superfloppy to a drive with one partition.
Very easy, just a few mouse clicks.
Then I installed Puppy to the partition, and it booted fine.

[BarryK]

I just tried it in Gparted, convert a superfloppy to a drive with one partition.
Very easy, just a few mouse clicks.
Then I installed Puppy to the partition, and it booted fine.

[PaulBx1]

I have the same PQI I-stick, a 1GB one, and am also having difficulties (this is with Puppy 212).

I noticed the Universal installer choked on this, thinking it was superfloppy and then not being able to mount it:

Code: Select all

ABSOLUTE FINAL SANITY CHECK!
You are about to install Puppy to /dev/sdb, with boot parameter
PMEDIA=usbflash. The files vmlinuz, initrd.gz, pup_xxx.sfs, extlinux.conf
will be written to /dev/sdb and Extlinux will be used to make it bootable.

Press ENTER key to continue, CTRL-C to abort: 
mount: Mounting /dev/sdb on /mnt/data failed: Invalid argument
Making sdb bootable...
extlinux: cannot find device for path /mnt/data
Copying vmlinuz...
Creating extlinux.conf...
Copying initrd.gz...
Copying .sfs files...
umount: /mnt/data: Invalid argument
Finished, press ENTER key to continue: 

Anyway I tried "disktype" and got this result:

Code: Select all

sh-3.00# disktype /dev/sdb

--- /dev/sdb
Block device, size 980 MiB (1027604480 bytes)
DOS partition map
Partition 1: 972.7 MiB (1019902464 bytes, 1991997 sectors from 63, bootable)
  Type 0x06 (FAT16)
  FAT16 file system (hints score 5 of 5)
    Volume size 972.4 MiB (1019625472 bytes, 62233 clusters of 16 KiB)
    Volume name ""
Ext3 file system
  UUID D5608848-BCB0-46EC-9127-82D281088375 (DCE, v4)
  Volume size 980 MiB (1027604480 bytes, 250880 blocks of 4 KiB)

So disktype apparently thinks it's both FAT16 and ext3, if I'm reading this correctly. And that may be what's confusing the Universal installer. Anyway I tried this and that, finally I just sent zeros to the thing with dd, went into Gparted and created a primary partition, then added the bootflag, and disktype then gave this:

Code: Select all

sh-3.00# disktype /dev/sdb

--- /dev/sdb
Block device, size 980 MiB (1027604480 bytes)
DOS partition map
Partition 1: 972.7 MiB (1019902464 bytes, 1991997 sectors from 63, bootable)
  Type 0x06 (FAT16)
  FAT16 file system (hints score 5 of 5)
    Volume size 972.4 MiB (1019625472 bytes, 62233 clusters of 16 KiB)
    Volume name ""

I tried the Universal installer and now it still thinks it is a superfloppy. I also tried that syslinux command, didn't seem to change anything.

Is all this fuss about bootability just for booting directly off the USB device? I don't care much about that; I'm happy to kickstart it with a floppy or CD (in fact that is the only thing that will work on the machine I'm using). So, how is that done? Just by copying the usual Puppy files from CD over there, and the pup_save? And generating a boot floppy? I guess I will just try that and see what happens.

Perhaps if the universal installer printed out a page or two explaining all the options and the ramifications, this would work better. I feel like I'm in the dark about what it really is trying to accomplish...

[Gn2]

Then I installed Puppy to the partition, and it booted fine.

>> Works ?? (fine) > .Was all on a pre-existing, accurately probed & identified ..Microsoft partition !
Or if any explanation might be Req'd ?? - Such as -how to drop to CLI, or - use varied "busy-box" utilities >

How about - if installing to an existing ext2/3/Reiser etal- & What about the boot loader !

If/when a supplied utility doesn't work > User must take back control !

All require a bit of "generic" Linux CLI understanding & willingness to use.
Many usefull on-line explanations exist for all install routines
Better Puppy documentation would help greatly - so does research PRIOR to attempting any task.

Which - also applies to PRE -developing any "automated" install or supplied "feature"