I have an ISO file that I need to make a bootable USB drive with… but I don’t know of any apps native to openSUSE that can do this… can someone please tell me what I might use, and how?
Have a look at Live USB stick - openSUSE
Hi,
dd method of copying an iso to a usb works well.
If you want a gui, I recommend unetbootin (which is available as
1-click-install).
–
Regards,
Barry Nichols
I tried it with dd, which seemed to work… but when I try to boot using my usb drive, it says it can’t find the OS… so something must have gone wrong whilst extracting the ISO. What could the problem be, and how can I fix it?
jwesleycooper wrote:
> but when I try to boot using my usb drive, it says it can’t find the OS
have you set your BIOS to boot from the usb?
–
palladium
Yes, I selected the USB drive in question from the BIOS Boot Menu, and then I got the no OS message… 
jwesleycooper wrote:
> Yes, I selected the USB drive in question from the BIOS Boot Menu, and
> then I got the no OS message…
then you must not have follow the how-to-make-a-bootable-USB-stick
directions closely enough!
try again, it has worked for many many many:
http://en.opensuse.org/Live_USB_stick
–
palladium
This what I suggest.
Format the USB device to FAT32 (no real reason)
You can do that in winders easily.
Identify your usb device in Linux from fdisk -l
lets say it’s sdc
Working from su terminal if you cd to the directory of your .iso the next step is easier because you can use TAB to auto complete.
And lets say the .iso is called:
openSUSE-KDE-LiveCD-Build0476-i686.iso
So to dd the usb do this
dd if=openSUSE-KDE-LiveCD-Build0476-i686.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=4M;sync
wait, it takes a while.
Just tried it again, after re-formatting the drive as FAT32 in WinXP, but I’m still getting the same results; so here’s what I did in the terminal:
jwesleycooper@linux-twom:~> su
Password:
linux-twom:/home/jwesleycooper # ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/*usb*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 2010-03-09 20:16 /dev/disk/by-id/usb-FLASH_Drive_AU_USB20_OYTMN3G3S4GVEPNBWU94-0:0 -> ../../sdb
linux-twom:/home/jwesleycooper # umount /dev/sdb
linux-twom:/home/jwesleycooper # cd Download
linux-twom:/home/jwesleycooper/Download # dd if=trinity_master_i386.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M;sync
128+1 records in
128+1 records out
539813888 bytes (540 MB) copied, 82.2916 s, 6.6 MB/s
linux-twom:/home/jwesleycooper/Download #
Any idea what I might be doing wrong here, or why else this might be happening?
Hi
Are you setting the boot flag on the device? What’s the output from;
fdisk -l /dev/sdb
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.27.45-0.1-default
up 2 days 2:49, 3 users, load average: 0.17, 0.22, 0.21
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - CUDA Driver Version: 190.53
Here’s the output:
linux-twom:/home/jwesleycooper # fdisk -l /dev/sdb
Disk /dev/sdb: 2087 MB, 2087714816 bytes
65 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1011 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 4030 * 512 = 2063360 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table
linux-twom:/home/jwesleycooper #
…and how do I set the “boot flag” anyway?
Hi
You should get some valid output from the device?
What openSUSE version are you using?
–
Cheers Malcolm °¿° (Linux Counter #276890)
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 (x86_64) Kernel 2.6.27.45-0.1-default
up 2 days 3:32, 3 users, load average: 0.27, 0.13, 0.07
GPU GeForce 8600 GTS Silent - CUDA Driver Version: 190.53
I’m currently using openSUSE 11.2 (i586)… what should I do now?
Your output was basically rubbish - Not sure why though. Only you must have messed up somewhere.
If you format it again, then…
You could boot a Live CD called Parted Magic and check to see if you can add the boot flag from there, with the Partition editor, if you select the usb device and partition, right click and you should see the option.
see in this pic, hda1 has the boot flag
http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pEHj9GLcWMpuNucpbagFrIfahOkY0vmSIg8sWe2eXG7PIB1g7bZoN2tvftJZ_qFf5jtEcmG4gUfBHjYRAT6W8iw/term%20and%20parted.png
When you do fdisk -l in suse terminal - any partitions which is bootable will have the * in it
I think the problem here is that not EVERY iso image are build to be bootable from USB stick - for openSUSE LiveCD it’s started only since 11.2 that you can simply dump the iso image into USB and boot 
And from the commands posted by “jwesleycooper” it’s not clear what represents “trinity_master” iso image - you have to use 11.2 or 11.3 liveCD image here
As well, doesn’t matter how your USB stick was formatted because you erase it completely while doing the copy via “dd” and it erases your whole partition table too
Rgds,
-Dimitri
jwesleycooper wrote:
> here’s what I did in the terminal:
> Code:
> --------------------
> linux-twom:/home/jwesleycooper/Download # dd if=trinity_master_i386.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M;sync
> --------------------
> Any idea what I might be doing wrong here, or why else this might be
> happening?
tell me about the iso file named “trinity_master_i386.iso” which you
are burning to your USB stick, please:
-
did you change the name FROM (something like)
openSUSE-11.2-KDE4-LiveCD-i686.iso ?? why would you do that? -
what is the exact size of that file?
-
did you run md5sum against it to make sure it is a perfect image
(if you don’t know, ask how)? -
if you are in fact trying to make a bootable image of a Studio 64
distro, why are you seeking assistance here and not at:
http://www.64studio.com/forum ??
–
palladium
If you’re not trying to install an “hybrid” ISO that has been prepared to be USB bootable, you should look for preparing it by yourself with syslinux.
Spyhawk wrote:
>
> If you’re not trying to install an “hybrid” ISO that has been prepared
> to be USB bootable, you should look for ‘preparing it by yourself with
> syslinux’ (http://tinyurl.com/yzfp6t5).
>
>
unetbootin works also fine (I use it often)
Curiously “unetbootin” did not work for me to make liveusb from 11.1 kde4 iso image - well, the netbook (asus 1005PE) is booting, but hitting an error message everytime… While dump (via “dd”) of 11.2 iso worked just fine.
Rgds,
-Dimitri
dim7 wrote:
>
> Curiously “unetbootin” did not work for me to make liveusb from 11.1
> kde4 iso image - well, the netbook (asus 1005PE) is booting, but hitting
> an error message everytime… While dump (via “dd”) of 11.2 iso worked
> just fine.
>
> Rgds,
> -Dimitri
>
>
I guess (but it is only a guess) that happens when you use unetbootin with a
hybrid iso image, which are by themself able to be bootable from usb. With
most live cd’s it works (but I guess they are not hybrid).