Not sure if this is the right section to be posting in, but here goes. I’ve been following the instructions set out in this article on how to create a live USB drive with openSUSE installed and it’s not quite working out the way I’d like it to. It’ll boot into it no problems, but the last stage in the article entitled ‘Create partition from remaining space’ is what I’m having trouble with. Once I input the sh liveUSBpartition.sh /dev/sdX (where X, in my case, is replaced with c), this is my output:
The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 7935.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
booting and partitioning software from other OSs
(e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)
Command (m for help): Command action
e extended
p primary partition (1-4)
Partition number (1-4): First cylinder (679-7935, default 679): First cylinder (679-7935, default 679): First cylinder (679-7935, default 679): First cylinder (679-7935, default 679): Value out of range.
First cylinder (679-7935, default 679): Value out of range.
First cylinder (679-7935, default 679): First cylinder (679-7935, default 679): Using default value 679
Last cylinder, +cylinders or +size{K,M,G} (679-7935, default 7935): Using default value 7935
Command (m for help):
got EOF thrice - exiting…
2+0 records in
2+0 records out
8192 bytes (8.2 kB) copied, 1.9837e-05 s, 413 MB/s
Anyone with ideas about what this means and how I can fix this? All I know is that when I go to boot into the live USB environment each time none of my settings/files are restored when I come to shutdown.
Easiest way to do this is boot with a Parted Magic CD, insert your USB.
Start the Partitioner and you can create a partition in the free space. For example, you might format to ntfs and give the partition a Label like: SHARE
You can then use the USB in windows machines too and save files to SHARE.
I’ve tried to get the partition editor in Parted Magic CD to recognise it, but it says that the drive is fully ‘unallocated’ and therefore needs to create a new partition table (i.e. wipe whatever is already on it). If it makes any difference I’m using the default shortcut on the desktop entitled ‘Partition editor’ (I think), is this the right one to use?
Yes I am after a portable OS with so-called persistence, which as I understand is a Linux-specific term to mean that you can save files and program settings so you don’t have to re-configure it each time you boot into it, is this right?
As for the requested output, it goes as follows:
Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x32678230
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 77826 625135616 7 HPFS/NTFS
Disk /dev/sdb: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Disk /dev/sdb doesn't contain a valid partition table
Disk /dev/sdc: 80.0 GB, 80026361856 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9729 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000ec285
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 * 1 2612 20980858+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdc2 2613 9729 57167302+ 83 Linux
Disk /dev/dm-0: 640.1 GB, 640140967936 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77826 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x32678230
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/dm-0p1 * 1 77826 625135616 7 HPFS/NTFS
Disk /dev/dm-1: 640.1 GB, 640138870784 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x6e697373
This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/dm-1p1 ? 120528 234814 918008208 4f QNX4.x 3rd part
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/dm-1p2 ? 119381 153271 272218546+ 73 Unknown
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/dm-1p3 ? 113202 147075 272087568 2b Unknown
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/dm-1p4 ? 177064 177067 27487 61 SpeedStor
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.
Partition table entries are not in disk order
Disk /dev/sdd: 8320 MB, 8320974848 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 7935 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x651d5702
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 * 1 678 694272 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdd1: 710 MB, 710934528 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 678 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x651d5702
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1p1 * 1 678 694272 83 Linux
I should probably explain at this stage what some of these disks refer to:
sda & sdb (both 320GB) point to the hard drives in my RAID0-connected Windows 7 installation, sdc is my eSATA hard drive onto which I have my main openSUSE installation, and finally sdd is my USB flash drive onto which I want my portable OS to run. Also if it makes any difference, I’ve tried both the Windows and Linux steps for writing the openSUSE ISO image onto the flash drive in my attempts up to now to get this working.
I can’t say I have ever done what you are trying. Yes, I have and do write .iso’s to a flash drive regularly with dd.
I’m really busy at the moment - but as soon as I can I will give it go and see. Sorry I can’t do better than that just now.
Take care with it
A typo with dd could do some damage!