<RESOLVED> problems with FD live disk - boots to BusyBox v.1.17.1

[tomcloyd]

I just used USBCreator to create a live disk on a 4GB flash drive. It doesn't work. It does, instead, what I've seen such FDs do before: it boots - while filling the screen with text lines about not being able to create various directories, etc., to:

BusyBox v1.17.1 ... built-in shell (ash)...

In the past, I've just abandoned the FD, ad made a successful live disk on a CD. But I really need a FD live disk, so that response won't do this time around.

I don't know what's happening and don't know what to do about it. I searched the forums for info about this and didn't come up with anything I could use.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can fix this?

[vinnywright]

Re: problems with FD live disk - boots to BusyBox v.1.17.1

I use the "startup disk creator" in Kickoff>Applications>system to make those all the time (I have 3 in front of me now)and they usually work like a charm.

try it .....the stick must start out formated as FAT32 though I think so if you have formated it to something else change it back first.......

VINNY

[claydoh]

Re: problems with FD live disk - boots to BusyBox v.1.17.1

vinnywright, usb-creator is the 'startup disk creator' tool

Now a number of things can be a factor here, the first is to check the md5sums on the iso to see if the image is OK

Another thing to look for is if the flash drive is one of the 'U3' ones that have a special partition built in for running various application (windows) directly from the drive. These do not work with any flash drive 'burner', and require special software to remove - formatting does not remove it.

Usually using the 'erase drive' option beforehand will format it correctly if it is a normal drive, but I have seen a flash drive or two over the years that simply won't work. perhaps a bad or unwriteable section on it.

[vinnywright]

Re: problems with FD live disk - boots to BusyBox v.1.17.1

vinnywright, usb-creator is the 'startup disk creator' tool

ya my bad ........I think of it as "startup disk creator" ......oops

Another thing to look for is if the flash drive is one of the 'U3' ones that have a special partition built in for running various application (windows) directly from the drive. These do not work with any flash drive 'burner', and require special software to remove - formatting does not remove it.

Aaaa yes .....thare is a tool called "u3-tool" in the repos (universe) that can...............

tool for controlling the special features of a U3 USB flash disk

Tool for controlling USB flash devices that conform to the U3 specifications.
You can do the following with your U3 flash:
* Replace the CD image
* Change the size of the virtual CD or completely remove it
* Enable and disable security
* Unlock and change the password of secured U3 device
* Obtain various device information

I have 1 of these and used u3-tool to make the virtual cd drive bigger ......700Mb and loaded a live cd .img in it .....it will boot on some boxes but not others .

Usually using the 'erase drive' option beforehand will format it correctly if it is a normal drive, but I have seen a flash drive or two over the years that simply won't work. perhaps a bad or unwriteable section on it.

I now remember a quirk that would cause a similar symptom.

I got a new USB stick just for a live USB ......no mater what tool I tried it wouldn't make a working live USB.
turned out their was a small blank space at the beginning of the partition.
I repartitioned it and it's still running a live session today.

VINNY

[tomcloyd]

Re: problems with FD live disk - boots to BusyBox v.1.17.1

Hey guys - thanks a heap. This is very informative, and thus potentially helpful. I'm going after that U3-tool NOW. I have several FDs that could benefit from its powers.

Meanwhile, last night I launched the KDE partition manager, and seeing there was only one partition on the FD I've been using, decided it would be a good idea to remove it, then restore it, hopefully without that Windows junk. Bad idea. Now I appear to have a dead FD. The partition managers cannot access it. I don't know what will - I need somehow to put a single partition back on it.

I'm obviously in over my head here, again. Sign. Any hope for this mangled FD?

[dibl]

Re: problems with FD live disk - boots to BusyBox v.1.17.1

If it is possible to "dd" it, then you might be able to recover. Pull it out of your computer and reboot (so we know the USB list will be fresh). Then plug it in and open a konsole and run

sudo fdisk -l

If it is not seen at all, you're done with it -- it's dumpster food.

If it appears (probably with a message that says it has no filesystem), then take note of its device designation, and use this command:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdx bs=512 count=1

replace "x" with the device designation on your system for the flashdrive. Leave it alone until it stops blinking. Your "notifier" may pop up notice when it's done. At this point, you can use gparted and "device > new partition table" and choose "MS-DOS", and then make your new partition, and filesystem.

[vinnywright]

Re: problems with FD live disk - boots to BusyBox v.1.17.1

when I plug in my flash drive that has this U3 systems on it I get this from the device notifier
if your flash drive has the U3 systems on it you can get the u3-tool and resize the virtual cd drive to 0 to remove it or whatever you want........+ it will repartition the drive so you may be abel to recover it.

from man u3-tool

-p <cd size>
Repartition device, reassinging the device space between the cd and data partition. The argument specifies the size of the CD partition. The rest
of the device will be assigned to the data partition. The data partition needs reformating after this command has been issued.

fdisk shows it as

Disk /dev/sdc: 3307 MB, 3307404800 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 402 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0004c957

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 1 402 3229033+ b W95 FAT32

and u3 -tool shows

vinny@Vinnys-HP-G62:/usr/share/man$ sudo u3-tool -i /dev/sdc
[sudo] password for vinny:
Total device size: 3.77 GB (4047503360 bytes)
CD size: 705.81 MB (740098048 bytes)
Data partition size: 3.08 GB (3307405312 bytes)
vinny@Vinnys-HP-G62:/usr/share/man$

if this is what you have (a flash drive with U3 systems) I would be willing to try any experiments you think mite be of help to you on it for info on how it reacts to what procedure.

VINNY

[tomcloyd]

Re: problems with FD live disk - boots to BusyBox v.1.17.1

Thanks for your patience. Very very busy right now. Finally returned to this problem. Suspected a problem with the USB ports on my desktop, and pretty much confirmed this, as when I took the FD to my little HP Mini 110 netbook, it was possible to mount the U3 system, then write a new partition table using the KDE partition manager. It took a considerable amount of time, but I just let it chug away, and now my FD is working fine.

Moving on now to make a live disk out of it.

Also moving on to my next problem - another thread.

Thanks to you both for working with me on this puzzling problem.