Knoppix 7.2 USB Flash Installer issue

[secdroid]

Knoppix 7.2 (CD EN) works nicely on both my Dell Inspiron 530 and Acer Aspire netbook.

The USB Flash Installer produces a flash drive that will boot the Acer, but which fails on the Dell.

Procedure: Booted CD Knoppix live on Dell. Invoked the Flash Installer and it wrote the 8 GB flash. When I booted the Dell and selected the flash drive, the Dell BIOS reported it as "USB-ZIP0" and gave "Boot error" when I tried to boot it. (Same with either the "p" or "i" options for overlay.)

I then booted the same flash drive successfully on the Acer netbook. The Acer BIOS saw it as "USB HDD".

This Dell BIOS is notoriously picky about flash drive formats, but I am running the latest BIOS. I have never successfully booted a USB-ZIP flash drive on the Dell.

I then tried using the same procedure I use to create bootable CrunchBang linux flash drives for the Dell. Dell BIOS reported seeing it as "USB-HDD0" but gave "No boot device available"

Here's how I wrote the flash device --

root@Dell:/home/xxx/iso/KNOPPIX_V7.2.0CD-2013-06-16-EN# ls *.iso
KNOPPIX_V7.2.0CD-2013-06-16-EN.iso
root@Dell:/home/xxx/iso/KNOPPIX_V7.2.0CD-2013-06-16-EN# dd if=KNOPPIX_V7.2.0CD-2013-06-16-EN.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=4M;sync
175+1 records in
175+1 records out
734937088 bytes (735 MB) copied, 94.0435 s, 7.8 MB/s
root@Dell:/home/xxx/iso/KNOPPIX_V7.2.0CD-2013-06-16-EN#

Suggestions as to how I might create a bootable Knoppix 7.2 USB drive for my Dell?

[Werner P. Schulz]

If your Dell is unable to boot from USB, you cannot create a bootable stick for it. Sorry. But you can use a bootonly CD to boot and after this proceed with the stick.

Your attempt with "dd" doesn't work because CD/DVD uses Isolinux and flash devices uses Syslinux.

[secdroid]

Thank you, Werner.

I did some more searching and testing, resulting in a bootable flash drive.

First test was to use the Knoppix Flash Installer again ("p" option) and note the characteristics of the install. Knoppix (CD boot) Gparted said that there was an MSDOS partition table, /dev/sdc1 was 904 MB FAT32, /dev/sdc2 was 6.58 GB resiserfs. Result was unbootable on Dell.

I then booted Windows Vista. Looking at the flash drive, I noted that there was /boot/isolinux directory created by the Knoppix (CD boot) Flash Installer!

Using pendrivelinux.com Universal USB installer tool, I specified the distro as Knoppix and pointed to my Knoppix .iso file. I chose the "format" option for a new FAT32 format. It wrote the first partition, but ignored the second partition. The resulting partitions appeared identical to those created by the Knoppix Flash Installer, but with one important distinction -- /boot/syslinux instead of /boot/isolinux (as done by the Knoppix Flash Installer). The result was a bootable flash drive, recognized by the Dell BIOS as USB-HDD0.

A few minor points --
Acer was also happy to boot the new flash drive

The Dell docs say boot devices should be plugged into front panel USB. Both front & rear worked fine.

Knoppix (flash boot) Gparted saw the same partition info on the Pendrive Universal Installer flash drive as reported after the Knoppix Flash Installer. Difference appears to be contents of the /boot directory, as created by the two different installers.

There was a boot prompt that indicated that no file had been specified for saving personal information, but that could be specified later. Bypassed it and used the system.

[Werner P. Schulz]

I then booted Windows Vista. Looking at the flash drive, I noted that there was /boot/isolinux directory created by the Knoppix (CD boot) Flash Installer!

I think, this can only happens, if you have not partioned your stick once again after your attempt with "dd". The script "flash-knoppix ask you:

Repartition and format device?
CAUTION: All data will be erased!
No = Exit program"

Do you really want to do this?
WARNING: ALL DATA ON WILL BE ERASED!"

If you really select "repartition", the script creates '/boot/syslinux' and not '/boot/isolinux' for the flash device and also the file 'ldlinux.sys'.

Please check

Microknoppix:~$ md5sum /usr/bin/flash-knoppix 
5b534dc8f5376a2d4b5dcf82727ef6ff  /usr/bin/flash-knoppix

[secdroid]

I checked flash-knoppix md5sums on both live boots of my flash drive and my CD -- both correct.

I tried re-installing to flash using the live CD flash-installer, but answered "no" when prompted to format. As you said, it exited. Therefore, I assumed user error on my part.

To test this, I used Gparted to remove both partitions from my working Knoppix flash drive and created a whole-device ext2 partition for a clean test.

I then invoked the flash-knoppix installer script, selected the "p" option, approved the "format" option, and declined the encryption option. The script indicated that it had completed successfully.

The Dell boot saw the result as USB-ZIP and refused to boot.

Using Gparted to inspect the flash drive, I get /ldlinux.sys and /boot/syslinux

xxx@dell:~$ ls /media/KNOPPIX
boot  efi  KNOPPIX  ldlinux.sys
xxx@dell:~$ ls /media/KNOPPIX/boot
syslinux
xxx@dell:~$ ls -l /media/KNOPPIX/boot/syslinux
total 7196
-rw-r--r-- 1 xxx xxx 1474560 Jul  8 16:27 balder.img
-rw-r--r-- 1 xxx xxx     172 Jul  8 16:27 boot.msg
-rw-r--r-- 1 xxx xxx    1481 Jul  8 16:27 f2
-rw-r--r-- 1 xxx xxx    1567 Jul  8 16:27 f3
-rw-r--r-- 1 xxx xxx     256 Jul  8 16:27 german.kbd
-rwxr-xr-x 1 xxx xxx  210445 Jul  8 16:27 grub.exe
-rw-r--r-- 1 xxx xxx 4486912 Jul  8 16:27 linux
-rw-r--r-- 1 xxx xxx   18508 Jul  8 16:27 logo.16
-rw-r--r-- 1 xxx xxx   26140 Jul  8 16:27 memdisk
-rw-r--r-- 1 xxx xxx  164504 Jul  8 16:27 memtest
-rw-r--r-- 1 xxx xxx  953120 Jul  8 16:27 minirt.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 xxx xxx    2153 Jul  8 16:27 syslinux.cfg
xxx@dell:~$

[Werner P. Schulz]

Using pendrivelinux.com Universal USB installer tool, I specified the distro as Knoppix and pointed to my Knoppix .iso file. I chose the "format" option for a new FAT32 format...
The resulting partitions appeared identical to those created by the Knoppix Flash Installer,..
The result was a bootable flash drive, recognized by the Dell BIOS as USB-HDD0.

I've tried this by myself and I've found only one difference:
Knoppix formats the first partition as W95 FAT32 but Pendrive against it as W95 FAT32 (LBA).

With my old Laptop I can neither boot with the USB stick formatted by Knoppix nor by Pendrive. Perhaps this is the difference with your Dell.

[secdroid]

Thanks for testing, Werner.

I verified my failed USB format (done via Knoppix EN CD) before retesting.

gparted gave FAT32 with boot & lba bits set
fdisk gave "Id c" "W95 FAT32 (LBA)"
cfdisk gave vfat with boot & NC flags set

cfdisk man page says:

The flags can be Boot, which designates a bootable partition or NC, which stands for "Not Compatible with DOS or OS/2". DOS, OS/2 and possibly other operating systems require the first sector of the first partition on the disk and all logical partitions to begin on the second head.

OK, So I booted my Knoppix CD, ran the flash installer again and got another unbootable USB.

I checked the partition specifications with Gparted, fdisk, and cfdisk and got exactly the same partition information as the previous test.

I then used Pendrive's Universal USB Installer under Windows Vista to write the Knoppix .iso to USB. I got the normal 704 MB FAT32/6.6 GB reiser fs partitioning, and the USB was bootable.

What was most interesting was that the partition info under Gparted, fdisk, and cfdisk were exactly the same as the previous 2 tests.

Therefore, the difference between bootable and non-bootable boot records and/or partition 1 information is not something I can see with any of the three tools.

FWIW, the flash device is a Crucial 8 GB.

[secdroid]

The problem is not Knoppix-specific.

Tested with the unetbootin USB installer on Crunchbang -- Debian Wheezy. The unetbootin tool insisted on a FAT32 formatted USB drive, so I used gparted to format. Then I used unetbootin to burn an Android 4.0 X86 .iso to the USB. Same problem as previously.

I then used the Windows Vista universal USB installer after re-formatting the FAT32 USB on Windows. Success.

If I ever get the time, it would be useful to see whether the issue is the FAT32 formatting done by Linux or the USB installers on Linux.