mindwave Posted July 10, 2007 Report Share Posted July 10, 2007 I am learning a LOT working with MCNL, and thats always fun. I have working editions so thats always good. However I seem to be perpetually riding the little yellow short bus when it comes to using a new USB stick. Background. I have 4 different USB Sticks all working fine (now) with MCNL. HOwever I JUST bought/received a new 8GB stick from Alcor, that is giving me fits. Here is what I have tried: 1) booting from a clean toronto disk and going to MCC to create a 800MB fat32 partition. That works fine, use MCNL to create USB, that workks fine' boot from said flash and get a BOOT ERROR! Thats ok, I've had this before WE know how to fix this (or so I thought) 2) reboot, kill the existing partition, recreate 800mb partition, reboot, open CLI, SU, type dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M count=2 everythig SEEMS to work. Go to MCNL, create USB, everything goes smooth. Reboot, then receive the following error (this is a first) ERROR unable to mount loop file system commands were: losetup /dev/loop0 /initrd/cdrom/livecd.sqfs mount -r -t squashfs /dev /loop0 /initrdloopfs Dropping you to a linux shell Then it drops me to a very limited Linux shell. 3) So I kill the partition, try opening a teminal SU, fdisk -l /dev/sda it APPEARS to go well, I recreate the partition, reboot Start the mcnl menu and reeive the same error as in number 2. In windows or linux, copying files to and from the stick all seem to work fine, it's getting MCNL to boot thats causing me issues. But of course any and all information and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks J Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindwave Posted July 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 10, 2007 OOPS I just read my message and realized the yellow is almost impossible to read and very annoying. sorry, but the error message came up in colors? here it is again in black: commands were: ERROR unable to mount loop file system losetup /dev/loop0 /initrd/cdrom/livecd.sqfs mount -r -t squashfs /dev /loop0 /initrdloopfs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris:b Posted July 10, 2007 Report Share Posted July 10, 2007 commands were:ERROR unable to mount loop file system losetup /dev/loop0 /initrd/cdrom/livecd.sqfs mount -r -t squashfs /dev /loop0 /initrdloopfs 1. Boot the Live CD without plugged stick, plug it in, wait two seconds, run: su fdisk -l /dev/sda And post the output here. 2. Click on the devices icon on the desktop, open the partition on the stick that holds the base system. What is the content? How big are the files? * type mount to see where the partition is mounted, example at: /media/removable * type: ls -l /mnt/removable to see the content. 3. Did you try to boot it on a different PC? Did you try to boot from CD with inserted stick with the bootcode: livecd fromusb The error is not a first stage boot error, but can have different causes, a bad copy from CD to the stick, a problem with the usb port (the solution would be to boot with the cheatcode: livecd noapic irqpoll, or the alias: lenovo (without livecd), a problem that this stick is too 'fast', or a special partition table ... The boot error indicates that at this stage it looses contact to the usb port/partition/stick or can't find the base system on the partition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindwave Posted July 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 10, 2007 1. Boot the Live CD without plugged stick, plug it in, wait two seconds, run: su fdisk -l /dev/sda And post the output here. I'm going to take these 1 at a time just in case. heres the output from the above command: Disk /dev/sda: 8589MB 8589934592bytes64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 8192 cylinders Units= cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda 1 1117 1143792 b w95 FAT32 Realize that the ONLY partition on here right now is the 1.4GB one created to hold the system, I left the rest unpartitioned to leave out any confusion. But excellent point about it NOT being a 1st stage boot error, I do in fact GET the splash screen and initial text openeing and it does begin processing the OS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindwave Posted July 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 10, 2007 2. Click on the devices icon on the desktop, open the partition on the stick that holds the base system.What is the content? How big are the files? * type mount to see where the partition is mounted, example at: /media/removable * type: ls -l /mnt/removable to see the content. Since I'm booting this on my laptop DEVICES sees my 2 Linux partitions and 2 NTFS partitions of my HD's It ALSO shows the 1.2GB removavle device mount from a terminal = /dev/sda1 on /media/disk type vfat (rw,nosuid,nodev,noatime, whelper=hal,flush.uid=500,utf8,shortname=lower) I tried using Ksnapshot to shoot a screenshot to show you whats on the device per your output request, but that wont open correctly. However other than not showing the rw attributes I am able to plug it into my winbox and shoot THIS screenshot that is here as an attachment: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindwave Posted July 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 10, 2007 3. Did you try to boot it on a different PC? Did you try to boot from CD with inserted stick with the bootcode: livecd fromusb I havent tried a different PC, but will do so as soon as I comeback from lunch. however using the bootcode livecd fromusb shoots me back to the toronto boot menu. so then i tried to let use the menu command to boot from USB, and received the same error code that I get when i attempt to boot straight from the USB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindwave Posted July 10, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 10, 2007 Ok, Tried a different pc, no go :( then I tried formatting the other 7.5GB etx3 to see if that would resolve it , no go. bow I've done a low level format of the key (using the makers sw) and IT says its 256MB so I MAY have a bad key. that would stink. I', going to try once more then contact the seller. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris:b Posted July 10, 2007 Report Share Posted July 10, 2007 (edited) Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System/dev/sda 1 1117 1143792 b w95 FAT32 Is this really '/dev/sda 1' or '/dev/sda1' 1. /dev/sda can't work, this is not a partition 2. The boot flag is missing Is the livecd.sqfs file the orginal of Toronto or a remastered one? however using the bootcode livecd fromusb shoots me back to the toronto boot menu. so then i tried to let use the menu command to boot from USB, and received the same error code that I get when i attempt to boot straight from the USB ... hm, there is something wrong with the device, it seems. Edited July 10, 2007 by chris:b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindwave Posted July 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 11, 2007 Is this really '/dev/sda 1' or '/dev/sda1' 1. /dev/sda can't work, this is not a partition 2. The boot flag is missing Is the livecd.sqfs file the orginal of Toronto or a remastered one? ... hm, there is something wrong with the device, it seems. actually it looks like there IS something wrong w/ the device. I was able to find the manufacturers website (looking for something like U3uninstall) and came across a suite of utils that show this is a 256megabyte 8 giga BIT memory chip. so I have an RMA from the seller for a trade in. but thanks for your effort, hopefully in a week, i'll be able to post that all is well. but in answer to your questions 1) it is SDA1 (bad typing) 2) you are correct it IS a remater, I thouht it was clean, but I had added PAN 3) Tell me about the boot flag again? I know I've seen the how to on this, but cant remember where or how. j Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris:b Posted July 11, 2007 Report Share Posted July 11, 2007 When you create and format a first partition with the MCC, the boot flag is automatically set. Running fdisk -l it would look like this: [root@lenovo chris]# fdisk -l /dev/sda Disk /dev/sda: 2051 MB, 2051014656 bytes 64 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1009 cylinders Units = cylinders of 3968 * 512 = 2031616 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 742 1472097 6 FAT16 /dev/sda2 743 1009 529728 6 FAT16 [root@lenovo chris]# Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindwave Posted July 11, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 11, 2007 Thanks, I THOUGHT it was automatically set, but since I havent gotten a successful format and setup through MCC, that may be why its not showing. As I said earlier the stick is going back today, and hopefully I'll have a new one by the begining of next week. The funny thing is that I have a good working copy of Toronto on a stick now. I was just using some docs that I had written for a class to start working on remastering my own full install of MDV Spring on my master pc. Glad I tested it, intsead of just setting it aside until I was ready to use it.... Thanks for all your input. Have you or anyone else seen the latest distro head to head in this months Linux Format? j Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindwave Posted July 20, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 20, 2007 just an update. the seller sent me another "8gb stick", got it yesterday. plugged it in, it showed 8.6GB (?) So i copied 8 GB of files over, wehn i went to open them up, 27 of the 28 directeries were EMPTY and the one that DID have files the files were corrupt. So since she suggested I reformat last time, I figured I'd try it again this time. it formatted out to 8GB, so I copied 7.6GB of iles over, same results 24 of 25 folders were empty and the 25th had corrupt files. In doing some searches on the net for this particular chip, and its support, I am finding LOTS of folks having similar issues with similar schips. it LOOKS like the controller in these devices is programable to the point that they can be setup to DIsPLAY 8 Giga BYTES, when in actuality you have a total of 8 Giga BITS of storage. So I've asked for a refund of the price plus all my shipping charges, but I guess the moral is, watch out for USB Keys using the ALCOR MP_6980 chipset. They acn easily be turned into fakes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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