On 20/12/2013 16:38, Brian Candler wrote:
Hello,
I have some 8GB USB keys and I wish to put a bootable Debian installer
image AND a bunch of other files (documents, Virtualbox, more ISO
images etc).
I've got it to work, but it could have been easier :-)
I started by following the instructions at 4.3.3
http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ch04s03.html.en#usb-copy-flexible
("Manually copying files to the USB stick - the flexible way") - that
is, make a new msdos filesystem, install mbr and syslinux.
It then said to copy vmlinuz and initrd.gz files, but not where to get
them from. Thinking I should get them from the CD-ROM, I poked around
and found them under /install.amd/, copied them onto the USB, and
created syslinux.cfg
This booted OK, and put me straight into the text installer. But after
detecting language and keyboard, it aborted: "Incorrect CD-ROM detected.
The CD-ROM drive contains a CD which cannot be used for installation"
Logs on the 4th virtual console showed:
cdrom-detect: Devices: '/dev/sr0'
cdrom-detect: CD-ROM mount failed: device=/dev/sr0 fstype=iso9660
cdrom-detect: CD-ROM mount failed: device=/dev/sdb1 fstype=iso9660
kernel: [] FAT-fs (sdb1): utf8 is not a recommended IO charset for FAT
filesystems, filesystem will be case sensitive!
cdrom-detecet: CD-ROM mount succeeded: device=/dev/sdb1 fstype=vfat
cdrom-detect: The CD in /dev/sdb1 is not a Debian CD!
Much later, I discovered that I should have taken the kernel and initrd from
http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/dists/wheezy/main/installer-amd64/current/images/hd-media/
(actually the kernel is bit-for-bit identical, but the initrd is different)
This starts the text installer, correctly probes sdb1, finds the ISO
image within it, and loopback-mounts it.
Prior to that, I made it work by combining parts of 4.3.3 and 4.3.2:
* Create an empty USB stick with msdos filesystem, mbr and syslinux
* Uncompress and loopback-mount the "hd-media/boot.img.gz" disk
* Copy all the files from this onto the USB stick
* Copy the installer ISO image onto the USB stick
Running from this I got the full Debian splash screen, with choice of
text or graphical installer.
So for the benefit of dumb people like me, it might be good if the
instructions at 4.3.3 could say which kernel and initrd to use!
Regards,
Brian.
