On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 04:35:47PM -0500, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 23, 2015 at 04:30:39PM -0500, william moss wrote:
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA256
> >
> > On 02/23/2015 04:24 PM, Hendrik Boom wrote:
> > > I have a three-or-four year-old laptop on which I am replacingg the hard drive. It
> > > seems to be old enough not to have proper virtualisatoin hardware. It currently
> > > dual-boots Debian testing, and, once in a blue moon, Windows XP.
> > >
> > > (So far the main problems I have had is to copy Windows' three partitions -- the one
> > > that runs, the so-called restore partition, and the EFI partition. I'm hoping that
> > > grub will find a way to make the running partition bootable. I managed to get
> > > clonezilla to copy the three partitions (even though the EFI partition seemed to
> > > violate what I know of the EFI specs in that it didn't have a FAT 12, 16, or 32
> > > filesystem. Maybe grub will be able to figure out how to boot what needs booting.)
>
> Oh yes, Despite the EFI partition it is still a BIOS machine. Go figure.
>
> > >
> > > But maybe this is the ideal time to try the iso on the new drive and try it on real
> > > hardware instead of a virtual machine. If things were to go
> > > massively wrong, I could always put the old disk back in.
> > >
> > > Except I need instructions just how to do this. It does not have a CD or DVD drive,
> > > but will boot from USB stick.
> > >
> > > How do I go about putting the installation .iso onto a USB stick so it will boot?
> > > Debian should be good enough to accomplish that, riight?
> > >
> > > Or is there another installation method it might be more useful to test?
> > >
> > > -- hendrik
> > >
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> > >
> > If you insist, there is an application to do this in Linux (one for
> > windows also, do not remember the name):
> > unetbootin
> >
> > or
> >
> > dd if=Fully-qualified-path-to-the-image of=Raw-USB-Device
> >
> > for example
> > dd if=/home/daffyduck/download/devian.iso of=/dev/sde

Did that.

Wouldn't boot.

Booting with the USB stick plugged in, pressed ESC to get a boot menu,
the USB stick appeared as one of the devices I could boot from, but
when booting, just got a blank screen with a blinking cursor.

The same as when I tried booting from my new hard drive, on which no
boot sector has ever been written.

Tried seeing if there was anything on the stick (after booting
from my old hard drive, which still has Debian on it. It told
me:

root@notlookedfor:/home/hendrik# fdisk /dev/sdb

Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.25.2).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.

/dev/sdb: device contains a valid 'iso9660' signature, it's strongly
recommended to wipe the device by command wipefs(8) if this setup is
unexpected to avoid possible collisions.

Device does not contain a recognized partition table.
Created a new DOS disklabel with disk identifier 0xfcf3453e.

Command (m for help): q

root@notlookedfor:/home/hendrik#

so evidently the dd succeeded in putting something on the disk.

Had my son (on an Ubuntu system) use his graphical disk
contents display and it told him is was a CDROM, and the file system on
it appeared to contain a Debian system.

Oh, yes. He tried to boot his machine, which is one of the thinkpad
models that's guaranteed to run Linux, from the USB stick. It wouldn't
boot either.

Looks as if there's something else that needs to be done than just dd.

-- hendrik

> >
> > use blkid to get the USB device.
>
> Ah! That easy! I just need to copy the iso file as is to the USB stick and that's
> enough to make it boot? There's nothing special about it being a USB stick or a CD?
>
> marvellous!
>
> -- hendrik
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