Dear Sirs,

I followed the tutorial step by step, and I did everything as it is described, but
when I boot from usb pendrive I get the message: Operating System not found.
I also did the last step of fixing the mbr with lilo but I always get the same message.
Can anybody help me?

Thanks
manolo83

Thanks so much for this really really helpful tutorial. I was looking around on the web and tried a number of tutorials. All are too complicated or have some errors. This one is simple to follow and it works!! I installed Edubuntu7.04 btw

I have the usbstick working, the system boots fine, and have both FS mounted (casper-rw and liveusb), but nothig is persistent, I create a new folder on the desktop and when I reboot is gone, I install a package and is gone too at reboot. Is this te way is supposed to be?. I'm using Ubuntu 7.04.

Tanks a lot!

P.D.: the tutorial is VERY good and straightfoward.

and copy at the root of your usb first partition

and copy TO the root of your usb first partition??
How?

Let positionned (you mean "position") yourself on the CD image directory (in my case: /tmp/ubuntu-livecd , but it might be /media/cdrom , and copy at the root of your usb first partition:

Does this mean highlight all the files in the cd and Edit/copy edit/paste into live usb?
I have no idea what you want me to do here.
I absolutely cannot figure out the /tmp thing so I have to use a liveCD. for the /tmp thing -- where do I move the iso file to. With your dirrections I always get "no such file or dirrectory". Do I put it on my desktop, in the /tmp file, on the other usb drive??

-----------------------------------------------------------
$ cd /tmp/ubuNNNNNNNtu-livecd
$ sudo cp -rf casper disctree dists install pics pool preseed .disk isolinux/* md5sum.txt README.diskdefines ubuntu.ico casper/vmlinuz casper/initrd.gz install/mt86plus /media/liveusb/
-----------------------------------------------------------

Obviously this code for the /tmp thing too, right? what do I type for the cd iso?
cd /media/cdrom0
?
If so, when it says
/media/cdrom0$
and I type:
sudo mv isolinux.cfg syslinux.cfg
I get:
mv: cannot stat 'isolinux.cfg' : No such file or directory

isolinux is not Adept manager in kubuntu either.

This is the point on every tutorial that falls apart... This is really, really frusterating.
The first half made more sense than most, the second half is worthless, check your spelling too.

I've tried many Ubuntu versions and I get the same problem: it boots fine for the first time and then when i try to boot again, the boot doesn't complete and it goes to an ash prompt with (initramfs) before the cursor. It also reports a problem with tty... :-(

Can anyone help me?

I've heard that i some cases it's better to use initrams and not anymore casper, 'cause the second is now obsolete...
Check this too before proceeding.

:)

Thought I'd share my experience. Install all went ok but syslinux complained about unknown keywords or something. Turned out that syslinux couldn't work with more than 1024 cylinders in the disk geometry. Before creating your partitions in fdisk, hit x for expert mode, then c for cylinders and change it to 1024 if it's more than that, then hit h for heads and change that to 256. Then proceed with the rest of the installation. (Think this'd only happen on a big flash disk and only if the manufacturer decided to use such a geometry.)

ok, so i have feisty fawn loaded into my usb drive and all is working. But when in persistent mode, the settings dont save and i have to redo everything when i reboot. for instance i set the background image and when i reboot it loaded a clean desktop with none of my settings. Some help would be appreciated.

I fallowed the tutorial and everything went swimmingly. Next i rebooted and chose the persistent boot image. everything loaded up and was going fine until it got to the screen with nothing but the desktop background and the rectangular window that usually shows the launching of a few things, among them nautilus. but at this window nothing happens it appears frozen. i restart the window manager by using the Ctrl+Alt+Backspace shortcut but it inevitably returns to the same place.

i have used Ubuntu on my 2 GB flash drive before using the tutorial at pendrivelinux.com and everything worked fine. but I'm using this tutorial because i wanted to upgrade from Ubuntu 6.10 to 7.04 which pendrivelinux.com has yet to make a tutorial for.

i am sort of new to Linux, I've been using it for 1.5 months.

This is really strange. Why does it have so many problems during copying at

# cp -vrf casper disctree dists install pics pool preseed .disk isolinux/* md5sum.txt
README.diskdefines ubuntu.ico casper/vmlinuz casper/initrd.gz install/mt86plus /media/liveusb/
`casper' -> `/media/liveusb/casper'
`casper/filesystem.manifest' -> `/media/liveusb/casper/filesystem.manifest'
`casper/filesystem.manifest-desktop' -> `/media/liveusb/casper/filesystem.manifest-desktop'
`casper/filesystem.squashfs' -> `/media/liveusb/casper/filesystem.squashfs'

and I get errors in /var/log/messages that look like:

Apr 20 22:49:17 kernel: [17180097.316000] scsi2 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
Apr 20 22:49:22 kernel: [17180102.320000]   Vendor: SanDisk   Model: U3 Cruzer Micro   Rev: 3.21
Apr 20 22:49:22 kernel: [17180102.320000]   Type:   Direct-Access                  ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Apr 20 22:49:22 kernel: [17180102.324000] SCSI device sda: 8027793 512-byte hdwr sectors (4110 MB)
Apr 20 22:49:22 kernel: [17180102.328000] sda: Write Protect is off
Apr 20 22:49:22 kernel: [17180102.340000] SCSI device sda: 8027793 512-byte hdwr sectors (4110 MB)
Apr 20 22:49:22 kernel: [17180102.340000] sda: Write Protect is off
Apr 20 22:49:22 kernel: [17180102.340000]  sda: sda1 sda2
Apr 20 22:49:22 kernel: [17180102.352000] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi removable disk sda
Apr 20 22:49:22 kernel: [17180102.352000] sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
Apr 20 22:53:57 kernel: [17180377.220000] usb 1-1.1.4: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 7
Apr 20 22:54:27 kernel: [17180407.420000] usb 1-1.1.4: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 7
Apr 20 22:54:57 kernel: [17180437.620000] usb 1-1.1.4: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 7
Apr 20 22:55:27 kernel: [17180467.820000] usb 1-1.1.4: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 7
Apr 20 22:55:58 kernel: [17180498.020000] usb 1-1.1.4: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 7
Apr 20 22:55:58 kernel: [17180498.136000] sd 2:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x50000
Apr 20 22:55:58 kernel: [17180498.136000] end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 81766
Apr 20 22:55:58 kernel: [17180498.136000] lost page write due to I/O error on sda1
Apr 20 22:56:28 kernel: [17180528.224000] usb 1-1.1.4: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 7
Apr 20 22:56:58 kernel: [17180558.408000] usb 1-1.1.4: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 7
Apr 20 22:57:28 kernel: [17180588.592000] usb 1-1.1.4: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 7
Apr 20 22:57:58 kernel: [17180618.792000] usb 1-1.1.4: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 7
Apr 20 22:58:29 kernel: [17180648.992000] usb 1-1.1.4: reset full speed USB device using uhci_hcd and address 7
Apr 20 22:58:29 kernel: [17180649.104000] sd 2:0:0:0: SCSI error: return code = 0x50000
Apr 20 22:58:29 kernel: [17180649.104000] end_request: I/O error, dev sda, sector 81767
Apr 20 22:58:29 kernel: [17180649.104000] lost page write due to I/O error on sda1

Those messages continue for the next four hours until things are finally copied over.

I can boot from the USB stick about 75% of the time. Sometimes my BIOS (and that of someone else's laptop I borrowed) seems to not really find a bootable partition, but most of the time it doesn't have a problem.

When I'm using my booted OS, about 30% of the time I will get wierd errors like the wtmp file not being writable (I'm assuming it was corrupted somehow), or the OS will have a problem finding other files necessary to launch applications. I end up having to use fsck to fix a number of problems -- which continue to occur on successive boots of the OS.

This is the second SanDisk Cruzer Mini 4GB that I've had this issue with. I replaced the first one with one from another store because I thought it might be the USB stick that was causing the problem. But nope, same errors.

I've also tried different USB ports when copying the files. Same problem.

The only thing that seems to work is mounting the Ubuntu CD and the USB stick under Windows XP, and copying the files there. No problems with copying.

Any ideas?

I followed the tutorial exactly except the last step.. I used grub instead of lilo.
Everything works fine.. i got the initial screen, I selected the live cd option.. then the system hung!!
I went on to the terminal and it just showed "Loading...". When I tried returning back to the graphics terminal, i got few error message saying that error reading block from squashfs?.. I am guessing that the new Feisty uses it somehow?

Just for other people to know, if you're having a long-loading time, and then just a cursor blinking without end (at least that's what I was facing)..

First of all check the partitions you've made. I didn't want to create the second partition so I've created one big partition and copied ubuntu onto it.

If you're like me and don't want to create an ext3 partition, just DON'T TRY TO BOOT INTO PERSISTENT mode, USE THE LIVECD mode.

Persitent mode won't work (6.10) if you haven't created the second partition.

Notice that 7.04 beta didn't have this problem...

the cp command should to to /tmp/liveusb and not to /media/liveusb

Hi all,

nice tutorial. I had already managed to boot from the pendrive; but still, the pendrive is mounted as /cdrom and the OS operates pretty much like a Live-CD. That is, I am not able to store anything. How can I solve this?
Thanx

M

Perfect! I just love this tutorial, however I am just wondering if the author can show us how to use extlinux instead?

Hi all,

I would like to say a big THANCK YOU for this how-to
I translate this in my blog (http://lpg.alfy.free.fr/?p=270) for french people ;)

Good Job Guy

after following all directions, and executing the lilo -M /dev/sdb command to make sure the mbr is fine, I can't seem to boot from the usb drive. my bios is set to boot from the usb drive as a first priority, but it boots right into grub from my hard drive, even though it seems to recognize the usb drive judging by the flashing light. does anyone know any workarounds I could try?

I'm on Ubuntu 6.10 and when I issue this command:

$ sudo syslinux -f /dev/sdb1

I get the following error:

sh: mcopy: not found
syslinux: failed to create ldlinux.sys

Until this error everything worked fine.

Can you help?

Kind regards,
Thierry

Hi,

You don't need LILO to install a new MBR. Ubuntu's repositories have a package named mbr. This package has an application called install-mbr that does it for you. :)

Nice article btw.