Unable to boot from usb flash memory

Booting, installing, newbie
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tahir
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu 23 Mar 2006, 13:43

Unable to boot from usb flash memory

#1 Post by tahir »

Hi

I installed puppy on my Peak brand usb 128MB stick using the live puppy cd.

I have a machine with 1Gig of memory and an Award Bios. In the Bios I changed the settings to Hard Disk first boot device and USB-HDD in the Hard Disk boot priority as per the USB wiki page:
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/USBKeysTroubleBooting.

The stick does boot-up a bit but towards the end of the process I get the following error message:

"Puppy was unable to locate file usr_cram.fs. This file is the entire /usr folder, as a compressed read-only f.s, and its absence means that X cannot be started"

Later on I get the message:

"Sorry, cannot start X. File /usr/X11R6/bin/X missing. If X is supposed to be installed probably Puppy was unable to mount usr_cram.fs on /usr"

I don't understand why the little puppy does not find the usr_cram.fs as it is there - I have the checked to see that the file is on the stick!

I have searched around the forum but can't find a solution to this. I have tried different USB ports to see if this makes a difference but to no avail. The best solution I have found is to use an older version of puppy such as 1.02 as the missing usr_cram.fs file problem does not happen with that one.

Please could someone solve this as I would love to get the little puppy working on my usb stick.

Thanks
Tahir

eppoh
Posts: 28
Joined: Thu 23 Mar 2006, 21:06

#2 Post by eppoh »

Did you checksum before you burned the iso after downloading?

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

#3 Post by toddyjoe »

I am a complete Linux newbie and this is my first post here, but I had this same problem with the new Puppy Linux version earlier today. I burned my own Live CD and then tried to create a bootable USB flash drive from the menu inside Puppy. My USB flash drive is a new SanDisk 512MB Cruzer Micro. The installation appeared to go well with no errors or problems.

When I attempted to boot from the USB flash drive, there was a point in the middle of the boot where I got a "sda:" prompt with a long pause. After that, I got the error message that usr_cram.fs could not be found and X could not be started. I did not find an answer searching this forum. However, I found elsewhere there is something in the way some USB hubs get recognized during the boot sequence that makes them inaccessible for a period of time. Apparently, if your USB flash drive is plugged into one of these ports when Puppy is looking for usr_cram.fs, the error results. It recommended trying different USB ports, including ones on the back of your computer. Switching my USB flash drive to another USB port allowed me to boot Puppy completely. I found that only one of the USB ports on the front of my computer worked and even some rear USB ports had problems.

You said you tried different ports already. Did you try all of them? Unfortunately, that is the only solution I was able to find after searching.

tahir
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu 23 Mar 2006, 13:43

#4 Post by tahir »

Eppoh - no I didn't do a checksum! I am not sure how to.....newbie that I am.

Toddyjoe - That is what I read too about trying different usb ports. So I tried different usb ports but none of them worked for me but I am glad that you found one that hooked up properly.

I guess it is the nature of usb booting that is not a perfect affair and really depends on many different factors - the bios, the hardware, the memory stick, the distro. I hope in time that usb booting will become easier.

On a lighter note I have managed in the last couple of days to usb boot Slax (perfectly and with ease), Damn Small Linux (perfectly but with a great deal of difficulty), Feather Linux (in failsafe mode only). So definately my computer is capable of doing it.

I am not going to give up on puppy just yet, there is a brand new day tomorrow.

Regards
Tahir

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