[SOLVED] Problem making installation USB stick, please help

[wormey]

Hi.

I'm trying to make a Linux install USB stick, and am having problems
making the last bit work.

I have these partitions on a 32GB stick:

# fdisk -l /dev/sdd

Disk /dev/sdd: 32.3 GB, 32308723712 bytes
5 heads, 32 sectors/track, 394393 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 160 * 512 = 81920 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000d7569

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdd1   *           1       13108     1048624    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdd2           13109      394393    30502800    5  Extended
/dev/sdd5   *       13109       45877     2621504   83  Linux
/dev/sdd6   *       45878       78646     2621504   83  Linux
/dev/sdd7   *       78647      117969     3145824   83  Linux
/dev/sdd8   *      117970      157292     3145824   83  Linux
/dev/sdd9   *      157293      203168     3670064   83  Linux
/dev/sdd10  *      203169      262151     4718624   83  Linux
/dev/sdd11  *      262152      314581     4194384   83  Linux
/dev/sdd12  *      314582      380118     5242944   83  Linux

GRUB is installed on partition 1, and I've used UNetBootIn to copy the
various DVDs from RedHat and CentOS 4.7 and 5.2, 32-bit and 64-bit to
partitions 5-12.

This is the head of the GRUB menu.lst I'm using:

default 0
timeout 800

title Red Hat 4.7 32-bit
  root (hd0,4)
  kernel /images/pxeboot/vmlinuz
  append initrd=/images/pxeboot/initrd.img ramdisk_size=8192

title CentOS 4.7 32-bit
  root (hd0,5)
  kernel /images/pxeboot/vmlinuz
  append initrd=/images/pxeboot/initrd.img ramdisk_size=8192

title Red Hat 4.7 64-bit
...

I get the selections menu to come up, select the first entry to boot from.
It does the hardware probing thing, then gets to:

...
md: ... autorun DONE.
EXT2-fs: unable to read superblock
isofs_fill_super: bread failed, dev=md1, iso_blknum=16, block=32
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(9,1)

So, what bit of magic am I missing, trying to get from a GRUB selection to
a running installation process?

Thanks,
Steve

[wormey]

I fixed the menu.lst (grub.conf) file to remove the 'append' from in front of the initrd.
Now it reads:

default 0
timeout 800
serial --unit=0 --speed=9600 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1
terminal serial console

title Red Hat 4.7 32-bit
  root (hd0,4)
  kernel /images/pxeboot/vmlinuz console=tty0 console=ttyS0,9600n8 debug
  append ramdisk_size=8192
  initrd=/images/pxeboot/initrd.img

title CentOS 4.7 32-bit
  root (hd0,5)
  kernel /images/pxeboot/vmlinuz
  append ramdisk_size=8192
  initrd=/images/pxeboot/initrd.img

....

It boots into the installer, then asks for an installation medium. If I select a partition with CD images (not a DVD image, nor a filesystem from CD/DVD), it'll start the installation process.

What I want is when the installer first runs, it automatically goes into the installation process without need to select a partition. (It's hard to know which installation is on /dev/sda7, for example). Order of preference for the contents of the partition is: filesystem, DVD, CD. I can do a custom job on any of those, but they're listed in order of easiest to hardest to work with.

How do I get from here to there?

Thanks,
Steve

[wormey]

Well, it seems this topic must be too advanced for people on this forum; there's been a number of views of my posts but no suggestions (I add to this post so that in the future it may be of use to somebody so they don't have to do as much searching and experimenting as I have). But I forge on anyway...

I have found a way to get almost to where I want: run kickstart to get some basic values entered (most importantly, where to find the installation. The head of menu.lst:

default 0
timeout 800
serial --unit=0 --speed=9600 --word=8 --parity=no --stop=1
terminal serial console

title Red Hat 4.7 32-bit
  root (hd0,4)
  kernel /images/pxeboot/vmlinuz console=tty0 console=ttyS0,9600n8 debug ramdisk_size=8192 ks=hd:sda5/ks.cfg
  initrd=/images/pxeboot/initrd.img

The partition holding the installation media still must hold CD ISOs, not a DVD nor an extracted filesystem.

The kickstart file looks like this:

#platform=x86, AMD64, or Intel EM64T
# System authorization information
auth  --useshadow 
# System bootloader configuration
bootloader --location=mbr
# Partition clearing information
clearpart --none
# Use graphical install
graphical
# Firewall configuration
firewall --disabled
# Run the Setup Agent on first boot
firstboot --enable
# Use interactive kickstart installation method
interactive
# System keyboard
keyboard us
# System language
lang en_US
# Use hard drive installation media
harddrive --dir=/ --partition=sda5
#Root password
rootpw --iscrypted $1$w3dHrrx8$f8JDUlzD8Xgg8wPyQEs2.1
# SELinux configuration
selinux --disabled
# System timezone
timezone  America/Los_Angeles
# Install OS instead of upgrade
install
# X Window System configuration information
xconfig  --defaultdesktop=GNOME --depth=8 --resolution=800x600 --startxonboot
# Probe for devices?
deviceprobe
# Disk partitioning information
part swap --asprimary --bytes-per-inode=4096 --fstype="swap" --size=4096
part / --asprimary --bytes-per-inode=4096 --fstype="ext3" --grow --size=1

The "interactive" keyword allows to step through the installation as one normally would, and change things on the way. Of course, this is the way I want things, others will probably want something different. The only important part here is the "hard drive installation media."

So, it actually gets into the installation, but then fails because it cannot find a hard disk to install onto. I see in the debug log that it is probing the IDE interfaces, but it doesn't list any devices. There should be a CDROM and a hard disk.

If anyone has any ideas on how to get past this one last hurdle, I'd appreciate hearing them.

Thanks.

[wormey]

As it turns out, the machine I was testing on doesn't seem to like RedHat or CentOS 4.7, it won't even recognize the CD drive after the initial installer boot. (Testing from a CD install to see if it would recognize the HD that way.) It does work OK with RedHat/CentOS 5.2, and my install stick does what it is supposed to.

I would say my mission is complete, and there's enough info in the above posts that a knowledgeable person would be able to build their own USB install stick. (Note that this is not intended to be a tutorial for newbies, nor do I intend to write one, but if someone wants to take the information above and run with it, be my guest. (If someone does, it would be nice if I were given some props for having figured this out -- Steve Allen, wormey at gmail dot com.))