[ale] making a usb thumb drive bootable from a dvd install disk

[Jeff Lightner]

Not sure what you mean by "no BIOS" but I'm not familiar with Mac.
Maybe they call it "firmware" or something else but I'm talking about
what the hardware uses to initialize itself and its devices BEFORE the
OS.

Also I think the links Mike posted earlier were specifically for your
USB thumb drive.   My post was asking if your original problem (DVD
won't boot) was possibly because the DVD itself was also USB.  It was
the USB DVD question I was asking about as that is what had been
discussed at AUUG.   

But my main point was that "booting from the DVD" is done by whatever
initializes the hardware be that bios, firmware or black magic.
However, AFTER that boot has been done what is occurring is Linux is
creating an install ramdisk to do everything else from.   It is this
ramdisk that is having the issue.   In my case it was specifically
because the ramdisk doesn't have the USB drivers that would allow it to
recognize the DVD.

I had posted that question last month and noted I had seen the same
behavior on a system that booted from a Fedora Core 4 CD but its ramdisk
didn't see the CD - the fix for that was to tell it not to use dma for
ide but the basic problem was what I described above.  i.e The hardware
boots the disk but the Linux ramdisk doesn't have what it needs to
recognize it.

It does NOT matter whether the initial boot works - the issue is what
happens when the Linux ramdisk takes over.  You are likely missing
drivers or configuration options as noted in my DVD and CD issues.



-----Original Message-----
From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-bounces at ale.org] On Behalf Of
Geoffrey
Sent: Friday, March 28, 2008 4:08 PM
To: ale at ale.org
Subject: Re: [ale] making a usb thumb drive bootable from a dvd install
disk

Jeff Lightner wrote:
> If the DVD drive is itself USB based that may be why you can't boot
from
> it.   
> 
> I saw this on RHEL5 DVD.  Essentially what happens is the system's
BIOS
> does the original mount of DVD but after the boot the RHEL5 Ramdisk is
> what is trying to mount/read from the DVD and it doesn't have the
> drivers.

No bios, it's a Macbook pro.

The box obviously can read the disk, as it boots from it.

> At AUUG early in the month Mike Warfield (I think) said he could tell
> what drivers to use for USB mount but I hadn't had a chance to follow
up
> since then.  Maybe he will share since he's already reading this
thread?

Mike did post some links to creating a bootable usb device, but it did 
not work for me.  I'm thinking I might look for an external dvd reader.

Weird thing is, I installed Fedora 8 fine.  That is why I think it might

be something with the particular kernel on the rh.

-- 
Until later, Geoffrey

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
  - Benjamin Franklin
_______________________________________________
Ale mailing list
Ale at ale.org
http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
----------------------------------
CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail may contain privileged or confidential information and is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s). If you are not the intended recipient, any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the contents of this information is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please reply immediately to the sender that you have received the message in error, and delete it. Thank you.
----------------------------------