[syslinux] "isolinux.bin missing or corrupt" when booting USB flash drive in old PC
Martin Str|mberg
ams at ludd.ltu.se
Sun Mar 19 21:42:44 PDT 2017
David Christensen wrote:
> This is how I prepared an ADATA USB Flash Drive 4 GB:
...
install-mbr /dev/sdb
...
[Rest of very clear description snipped.]
What's that? That desn't exist in the Debian I'm running.
Otherwise you gave a very good description of what you're doing.
>From another message:
> Please provide a URL for documentation that explains how to build a
> bootable USB flash drive equivalent to debian-8.7.1-i386-xfce-CD-1.iso.
x3!
Well it would be very easy to reply: why don't you ask Debian? How/Why
should/could we know what Debian has done?
But you gave a very good desription so here is what I do that I
wrote/pasted to a file while doing it. My case of 9GB is overkill for
you, 2GB should be plenty and the other_stuff can be ignored. In
hindsight it could be more clear. Slightly edited:
This was done from a Debian 7.1 live booted from an USB stick.
Make one VFAT partition of at least 9 GB, labeled X-install. If
there is any extra space, make another logical VFAT partition labeled
other_stuff.
Note that the USB stick that are being partitioned, formatted and
bootable in this instruction shows up as /dev/sdc (this isn't
necessarily so for another run):
root at debian:/# fdisk -lu /dev/sdc
Disk /dev/sdc: 32.0 GB, 32023511040 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 3893 cylinders, total 62545920 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: 0x8d63aff7
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 2048 32767999 16382976 b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdc2 32768000 62545919 14888960 5 Extended
/dev/sdc5 32770048 62545919 14887936 b W95 FAT32
user at debian:~$ df -HT
...
/dev/sdc5 vfat 16G 8.2k 16G 1% /media/other_stuff
/dev/sdc1 vfat 17G 8.2k 17G 1% /media/X-install
Copy contents of .iso install cd to X-install:
mount -o loop /media/OS/X-install.iso /mnt3
cp -R -L /mnt3/. /media/X-install/
Make the stick bootable:
mkdir /media/X-install/syslinux
cp /media/X-install/isolinux/* /media/X-install/syslinux/
mv /media/X-install/syslinux/isolinux.cfg /media/X-install/syslinux/syslinux.cfg
Edit syslinux.cfg (necessary?).
umount /media/X-install
syslinux -i -d syslinux /dev/sdc1
dd if=/usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin of=/dev/sdc
Done.
But note that if syslinux you're installing differs from the
isolinux/syslinux from the .iso, you should replace all and any
syslinux modules that were copied to the /media/X-install/syslinux
directory with the ones the syslinux you use is delivered with.
--
MartinS
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