(SOLVED!) -- Unusual LiveUSB problem

trix · n00b Joined: 20 Nov 2005 Posts: 18

Hi, I'm having a problem and am pulling my hair out trying to solve it.

First, for reference, here's the stats:

CPU: athelon 64 x2 3800+
RAM: 2GB
HDD: 4 partitions, 200GB total

Ok, I'm trying to install an x86 livecd (and I hope that's not a problem) because the specific game server this computer is intended to be requires full 32 bit and I don't want to chroot.

I'm using Gentoo minimal install 2008.0 iso on a 123MB FAT16 formatted USB drive via unetbootin on my roomate's winxp machine. Booting from the USB fails with msg "invalid loop location /image.squashfs" when in fact a check of the USB stick from roomate's comp shows image.squashfs 55MB fine and dandy. Checking in the shell that it puts me in after failing does NOT show image.squashfs but livecd.squashfs oddly enough. Changing loop= to livecd.squashfs in the syslinux.cfg file gets me a little farther but fails on "mounting /dev/loop0 on /newroot/mnt/livecd failed: invalid arguement" then falls to the shell. hitting "return" then enter to ignore the error and continue yields further errors trying to copy read-write image contents to tmpfs, then fails completely with a kernel panic trying to boot initramfs.

I'm just lost. I've downloaded, redownloaded, reredownloaded, reformatted the USB, redid unetbootin stuff tons of times, I'm stuck.

Please help!

- trix

DONAHUE · Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:45 pm Post subject:

go get a system rescue cd iso from http://www.sysresccd.org/Download and put it on the usb stick per http://www.sysresccd.org/Sysresccd-manual-en_How_to_install_SystemRescueCd_on_an_USB-stick.
way better than the lame out of date Gentoo minimal install 2008.0 iso
gentoo based and directly usable with gentoo handbook. additionally you can have a GUI browser with the handbook in it next to the terminal install window

trix · n00b Joined: 20 Nov 2005 Posts: 18

That iso is over 200MB and my USB drive is 123MB.

Any other suggestions?

DONAHUE · Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 7:24 pm Post subject:

bigger usb :) {worth the $10}
weekly minimal cd iso from gentoo mirrors releases/x86/autobuilds directory 84 MB (also get current stage3 from autobuilds) ~120MB Adapt the sys resc cd directions for iso to stick.

trix · n00b Joined: 20 Nov 2005 Posts: 18

Just to clarify, I've since solved this problem.

The image I was using didn't pass md5sum, though the size was correct down to the byte which made me believe the download was successful.

Using a correctly-downloaded image and following gentoo docs on setup fixed this problem.

Thank you all for your help!
- trix