Bug 6112

Summary:	Mageia 2 ISO is not saved in USB pen disks as bootable
Product:	Mageia	Reporter:	Simple <simplew8>
Component:	Installer	Assignee:	Mageia Bug Squad <bugsquad>
Status:	RESOLVED INVALID	QA Contact:
Severity:	major
Priority:	Normal	CC:	davidwhodgins
Version:	2
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	i586
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Source RPM:		CVE:
Status comment:

Description Simple 2012-05-27 05:22:04 CEST

I have burned Mageia-2-x86_64-DVD.iso to a USB pen disk using dd:

dd if=Mageia-2-x86_64-DVD.iso of=/dev/sdb

it did saved the contents in the USB pen disk, but did not set it as bootable.
Thus when booting the USB pen disk never appears as a bootable device.

Comment 1 Dave Hodgins 2012-05-27 06:34:46 CEST

Please include the output of "/sbin/sfdisk -l -uS /dev/sdd|grep -e Dev -e Hid"
If you get command not found, install the package util-linux-ng, then
run the command.

CC: (none) => davidwhodgins

Comment 2 Dave Hodgins 2012-05-27 06:36:08 CEST

Sorry, that should be "/sbin/sfdisk -l -uS /dev/sdb|grep -e Dev -e Hid"
or replace sdb by the current device id for the usb stick.

Comment 3 Manuel Hiebel 2012-05-27 14:11:25 CEST

the flag 'boot' is set with the iso and then to the usb disk partition so this one is invalid...

Status: NEW => RESOLVED
Resolution: (none) => INVALID

Comment 4 Simple 2012-05-27 19:10:27 CEST

I still dont understand what caused this problem, but after i created a new partition table and burned the iso again with dd, now saved all its contents correctly.

Before dd burned the iso and was not showing any partition (thus no files in it).

Comment 5 Dave Hodgins 2012-05-27 20:58:48 CEST

(In reply to comment #4)
> I still dont understand what caused this problem, but after i created a new
> partition table and burned the iso again with dd, now saved all its contents
> correctly.
> 
> Before dd burned the iso and was not showing any partition (thus no files in
> it).

All of the iso files were checked to ensure they contain proper
partition tables, in part due to bug 5036.

The only explanation I can think of, is that the output parameter
in the dd command was something like of=/dev/sdb1 instead of
of=/dev/sdb.

Comment 6 Simple 2012-05-27 21:02:43 CEST

For that im sure i did used /dev/sdb.
The problem was only solved after i run gparted and create a partition table in the usb pen disk and created a FAT32 in it.

Comment 7 Dave Hodgins 2012-05-27 22:04:41 CEST

(In reply to comment #6)
> For that im sure i did used /dev/sdb.
> The problem was only solved after i run gparted and create a partition table in
> the usb pen disk and created a FAT32 in it.

When you use dd to copy the iso to the usb device, it overwrites the
existing partition table, so it doesn't matter what was there before.

All that matters, is what's in the iso image, and that it is copied
to the device correctly.

If you take a look at "hexedit Mageia-2-i586-DVD.iso", you'll see
x '55 AA' at offset 1FE.  That's the mbr signature.  At offset 01BE
is the partition table, that will be copied to the device.

The only other problem I can think of, that might have happened, was
that the device was busy, due to a filesystem on the usb drive being
mounted, when you tried to run the dd command.