[syslinux] Locally attached disk is seen, 40 gig PATA in USB enclosure is not.
Chris Miller
Chris at infogreat.com
Sat Apr 4 10:30:08 PDT 2009
Hi Folks,
When I boot ISOLinux, the locally attached disk is visible but the PATA
40 Gig in a USB attached enclosure is not. The locally attached disk
has no bearing on what I am doing and to avoid confusion will not be
mentioned again. Everything is happening on the 40 Gig.
Let me explain.
The goal is: Copy an installation iso to the disk, boot the disk and
install it on that disk. I have done this using GRUB to call ISOlinux
and it works, but there are problems with GRUB and I decided to design a
straight SYSLINUX solution. Here is a list of the steps I took:
Initialize the USB disk (I will call it /dev/sdg until farther notice)
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdg bs=512 count=63
cat /usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin /dev/sdg
fdisk – create one partition of consuming the full disk
mount /dev/sdg1 /mnt/p1
mkdir -p /mnt/p1/boot/extlinux
extlinux -i /mnt/p1/boot/extlinux
At this point qemu -hda /dev/sdg demonstrates that things are working
and that extlinux doesn't know what to do, which is correct, since I
haven't yet said. I have more bootloader configuration to do but that
comes in a little bit. So far do good...
Configure the installation image:
mkdir -p /mnt/p1/boot/Fedora-10
cp <iso image> /mnt/p1/boot/Fedora-10/F10.iso
mount -o loop -t iso9660 /mnt/p1/boot/Fedora-10/F10.iso /mnt/iso
cd /mnt/p1/boot/Fedora-10/
cp -prv /mnt/iso/isolinux . (This is referenced by extlinux in
extlinux.conf)
cp -prv /mnt/iso/images . (The installation procedure wants this.
Complete the boot loader setup:
cd /mnt/p1/boot/extlinux
cp /usr/lib/syslinux/*.c32 .
cp /mnt/p1/boot/Fedora-10/isolinux/*.msg .
cp /mnt/p1/boot/Fedora-10/isolinux/splash.jpg .
And finally, extlinux.conf (included later in this message) At this
point qemu -hda /dev/sdg demonstrates that things are working perfectly.
I get a splash screen with two choices, just like extlinux.conf
describes.
When I attach this disk to my Dell Imspiron 9100, it works brilliantly.
I get language and keyboard “dialogs” the anticipate the installation.
Then I am asked where the installation image is. At this point I know
from previous experience I should have TWO disks as choices -- /dev/sda1
and /dev/sdb1. /dev/sda1 is the locally attached disk that I promised I
would not mention again and the erstwhile and notably
invisible /dev/sdb1 is the 40 Gig PATA in the USB enclosure. Needless
to say, installation from and invisible image is a bit tricky.
I have no USB choices in the BIOS and despite the other problems I had
with GRUB, this did work and I have successfully installed Fedora Ten to
at least one other USB attached disk.
Can anybody advise me?
Chris.
DEFAULT /boot/extlinux/vesamenu.c32
#DEFAULT ins-F10
DISPLAY /boot/extlinux/boot.msg
F1 /boot/extlinux/boot.msg
F2 /boot/extlinux/options.msg
F3 /boot/extlinux/general.msg
F4 /boot/extlinux/param.msg
F5 /boot/extlinux/rescue.msg
menu title Kit
menu background /boot/extlinux/splash.jpg
menu color border 0 #ffffffff #00000000
menu color sel 7 #ffffffff #ff000000
menu color title 0 #ffffffff #00000000
menu color tabmsg 0 #ffffffff #00000000
menu color unsel 0 #ffffffff #00000000
menu color hotsel 0 #ff000000 #ffffffff
menu color hotkey 7 #ffffffff #ff000000
menu color scrollbar 0 #ffffffff #00000000
LABEL ins-F10
MENU LABEL ^Install Fedora-10 or Upgrade an existing system
SAY Booting the installation DVD for Fedora Ten
KERNEL /boot/Fedora-10/isolinux/vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=/boot/Fedora-10/isolinux/initrd.img ro
LABEL ins-F10-Rescue
MENU LABEL ^Rescue an existing system
KERNEL /boot/Fedora-10/isolinux/vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=/boot/Fedora-10/isolinux/initrd.img ro mode=rescue
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