Helping Puppy find user_cram.fs at boot

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kabooky

Helping Puppy find user_cram.fs at boot

#1 Post by kabooky »

so I have my drive booting with syslinux, it loads everything into the ram and when it gets to loading user_cram.fs off the usb drive it fails to find the drive. After failing to find the usb drive it automatically checks the cd-rom for usr_cram.fs and if i have the cd in at the time it will go ahead and load it, loading the GUI.

So i don't understand after loading the other files off the drive why when it comes to usr_cram.fs it can't find the device no matter where i look, sda sda1 sda2 sdb sdb1 sdb2 ( I have no other usb devices plugged in )

I need help

Guest

#2 Post by Guest »

these guys were having the same exact problem as me but no help was really given.

http://www.murga.org/%7Epuppy/viewtopic.php?t=484
http://www.murga.org/%7Epuppy/viewtopic.php?t=239

Jesse
Posts: 466
Joined: Sun 08 May 2005, 16:07
Location: Auckland, NZ

#3 Post by Jesse »

Hi,

the thing about the boot process is that PuppyLinux doesn't know automatically where it came from, so it has to hunt for the last part of it before it gets into x windows, which is the usr_cram.fs file.
I've found that if you put the usr_cram.fs file inside the pup001 file, that PuppyLinux will find it more reliably.

So if when you boot up, you get to that red text saying "can't find usr_cram.fs" you can fix by doing these commands:

1)
# df

Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs 1005848 9520 996328 1% /
tmpfs 1005848 9520 996328 1% /
/dev/hda6 7808356 4701428 3106928 60% /mnt/home
/dev/loop1 507748 192071 289463 40% /root
/dev/loop0 562020 246343 289463 46% /usr
none 562020 246343 289463 46% /usr

Look for a /dev/loop* on the left with a /root on the right (on same line)
If there is one then proceed to step 2

2)
Make sure that you know where the usr_cram.fs file is, and copy it to the /root directory (this is copying into your pup001 file)

(e.g. if copying from cd, mount the cd)
# mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

# cp /mnt/cdrom/usr_cram.fs /root/

flush file system buffers:

# sync

3)
restart your computer

# restart


Hope this helps.
Jesse

kabooky

#4 Post by kabooky »

thank you so much, i will try this when i get home.

kabooky

#5 Post by kabooky »

ok well, the problem seems to be that when it goes to

"Puppy wants to mount the users home device"
mounting /dev/sda1 on /root failed: no such device or address
mounting /dev/sdb1 on /root failed: no such device or address
looking for usr_cram.fs on cd...

so puppy can't find the root or usbdrive
and therefore can't find usr_cram.fs

i have no idea what to do, perhaps an adjustment to the syslinux.cfg,
or would an image.gz file that has the usr_cram.fs work?

help would be greatly appreciated

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Ian
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Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 12:00
Location: Queensland

#6 Post by Ian »

What sort of USB device are you using and which version of Puppy.

kabooky

#7 Post by kabooky »

A PNY 512 mb PNY Attach

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Ian
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Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 12:00
Location: Queensland

#8 Post by Ian »

Have you tried any other version of Puppy and how did you do the install.

kabooky

#9 Post by kabooky »

I haven't tried any other versions, for the install, I made the cd, I used the script on the cd to put the four files on the drive, I actually ran it twice once for each partition, because it didn't boot otherwise, I had sda and sda1. They were both the same device, i assume they were different partitions because sda was call PNY DIRECT ACCESS i think, and sda1 said something about the ms-dos fat partition, there was only the one usb device plugged in. Through ms-dos i copyed syslinux.exe, syslinux.c and makefile onto the drive, i ran syslinux.exe ---" syslinux -s f: " to make the drive bootable. And it boots now. It just can't find the usb drive after everything is loaded and hence can't find usr_cram.fs And yes I have tried the usb ports on the front and back of my machine because someone posted that his computer had a foreign hub controlling the front usb ports and it lost control through the boot just like mine is doing. So i'm now pretty lost

kabooky

#10 Post by kabooky »

I think i'll go ahead and try my luck at barebones 1.0.2 since this other guy said his 1.01 and 1.02 works but not 1.03, and his couldn't find the usr_cram.fs or mount his home dir like mine. so i'll get back to you guys about it.

kabooky

#11 Post by kabooky »

SUCCESS FIRST TRY. I'm not sure why 1.0.3 didn't work but 1.0.2 mozilla bare bones works wonderfully.

mdbarton

got 1.0.3 working

#12 Post by mdbarton »

I have had the same problem (with a 512MB Corsair Flash Voyager). Managed to get is working with the following (from memory!)

Code: Select all

mount /dev/sda /mnt/flash
mount -o loop /mnt/flash/usr_cram.fs /usr
mount -o loop /mnt/flash/pup001 /root
startx
And X started up. However, this does not persist - if I reboot I have to do it again, and I notice some of the apps will not work (mozilla and abiword). Still, finally got linux working(ish) off a USB pen!

Maybe I'll try 1.0.4 - is this problem fixed in the latest version?

Matt

Guest

#13 Post by Guest »

ok....

sda this relates to the WHOLE drive.....ie what would initially be an unpartitioned drive

sda1, sda2, sdaxx these relate to the PARTITIONS and these must be the device file that is mounted...not sda

ok after manually mounting usr_cram.fs logout and log back in then start your x session.........This is related to the LD_LIBRARY_PATH variable...trust me on this one I know it works...

So to recap...Puppy should only be installed to sda1 or sdaxx not sda. And the same goes for mounting mount /dev/sdaxx not /dev/sda

I think the syslinux (or a readme) site has an explanation as to why some USB flash drives are difficult to get to boot

mdbarton

#14 Post by mdbarton »

I thought it strange that it worked on /dev/sda not /dev/sda1, however I had a nightmare formatting the drive. If I used fdisk and mkdosfs from the Puppy liveCD or from my Ubuntu installation on my desktop, the usb stick will not boot. If I format the drive using Windows XP, it will not boot. The only way I found was to used the flash utility supplied by Corsair. The copy the files int the flash drive, run syslinux, and all as described.

I did notice that when I have formatted with the corsair utility, fdisk complains about overlapping partitions.

bean
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu 27 Apr 2006, 20:07

on boot: Mounting /dev/sda1 on /root failed: No such devi...

#15 Post by bean »

As with the others posting to this thread Puppy has been unable to find my user_cram.fs file when booting from USB flash. I have found that removing and re-inserting the USB drive at the correct point in the boot process works around the problem. Here are my specifics:

-SanDisk Cruzer Mini 512MB USB Flash drive
- Dell Optiplex GX60 w/ latest BIOS flashed
-USB drive formatted with HP USB Disk storage Tool as vfat/win32 single partition
-Puppy live CD version: puppy-multisession-1.0.8r1-mozilla
-USB install using "Install Puppy USB" script with all defaults to /dev/sda1

During the boot process there is a long pause after the usb drive info is displayed:

Vendor: SanDisk Rev: 0.2
Type: Direct Access ANSI SCSI revision: 02

sda: Write Protect is off
sda:

It is at this point that there is a long pause in the boot process during which if I remove and re-insert the USB drive user_cram.fs is successfully found and Puppy boots as expected. If, however I do not remove and re-insert the usb drive at this point the following error messages are reported after the long pause (the first line shown below starts with the last one shown above):

sda:<6>scsi: device set offline - not ready or command retry failed after bus reset: host 0 channel 0 id 0 lun 0
SCSI disk error: host 0 channel 0 id 0 lun 0 return code=50000
I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 0
I/O error: dev 08:00, sector 2
I/O error: dev 08:00,sector 0

The boot process then continues with the typical complaints about not being able to find user_cram.fs and I am dropped to the shell. At this point if I try to manually mount /dev/sda1 I am told that the device does not exist. Though I haven't tried it, I suspect that removing the USB drive and re-inserting it at this point may make it mountable.

I have not been able to try booting on other machines but will do so this evening. If anyone has any ideas on how to fix this or would like me to do any further testing or provide more information I am happy to do so.

- Ben

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Flash
Official Dog Handler
Posts: 13071
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 16:04
Location: Arizona USA

#16 Post by Flash »

A very similar thing happened to me when I tried to boot Puppy a cheap CD-R in an old IBM all-in-one computer.

Perhaps removing and reinserting the flash drive resets something in the USB controller on the motherboard. If so, maybe it gets out of whack in the middle of the boot sequence because of something in the Linux kernel. Puppy2 with the Linux 2.6 kernel is supposed to be out in a few days. My guess is it will solve the problem.

toddyjoe
Posts: 122
Joined: Thu 23 Mar 2006, 21:07

#17 Post by toddyjoe »

Interesting finding, bean. I have this exact same problem and response with my home desktop computer with the same USB flash drive (SanDisk Cruzer Mini 512MB) and Puppy 1.0.8r1. I will have to try your approach and see if it works.

bean
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu 27 Apr 2006, 20:07

SOLVED - booting from Sandisk cruzer mini 512MB USB drive

#18 Post by bean »

I just tried downloading the 2.0 alpha and used it to install to my USB drive and was able to successfully boot on the same machine as I was unsuccessfully using earlier with 1.0.8r1.

Many thanks for the pointer Flash. I look forward to working with the official 2.0 release when it becomes available.

Oddly enough uname -r shows this is a kernel 2.4.31 not the 2.6.x I was expecting.

- Ben

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Flash
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Posts: 13071
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 16:04
Location: Arizona USA

#19 Post by Flash »

Well, there ya go, problem solved. :lol:

I didn't make it clear that it is the unreleased Puppy2 I was talking about, that has the 2.6 Linux kernel. NEWS FLASH: Barry just released it today. See the news.

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