Dual Boot Single Hard Drive off USB - Missing ISO Image 9660

brosta · #1 5th October 2010, 01:27 AM

I currently have Windows 7 installed on my laptop and I would like to dual boot w/ Fedora on the same hdd.

I have two NTSF partitions, I shrunk my D drive 50GB for ext4 & swap.

I've tried both liveusb-created & unetbootin to create a bootable USB to install Fedora.

Anaconda starts up and I get through most of the install configuration, I set up GRUB & the partitions. Once I proceed to the next screen I get missing ISO image 9660 error. My laptop doesn't have a DVD drive. It seems like a lot of people are getting this error, but I have found no concrete solution though.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=446665

How do I put the image on the drive? Windows can't read ext4 and I haven't been able to find a program that can.

I have a USB to SATA adapter that I could hook up a DVD-ROM drive too, but I don't know if fedora will pick up on it.

stoat · #2 5th October 2010, 03:01 AM

If you already have two partitions and want to create two more for Fedora, then if you don't already have an extended partition, I first recommend that you create one from some of your unpartitioned space to allow the creation of several more logical partitions as needed. The Windows Disk Management utility can do that. Then consider this idea. Create a small FAT32 partition which both Windows and Anaconda can access. Even 5 GB is enough. Use Windows to download the DVD ISO file or at least the first two CD ISO files of the CD set (for a default package set). Put the ISO files in that FAT32 partition. Then start Anaconda again. Choose the "Hard drive" installation method. When asked, direct Anaconda to the FAT32 partition for the ISO files. It works in my head anyway.

P.S.: Actually, it's more than just in my head. I've done that many times. You also can leave the little FAT32 with the ISOs. Just in case.

brosta · #3 5th October 2010, 07:09 AM

I'm getting really frustrated, I might just go out and buy a usb DVD drive.

I did what you said. I created a 5GB fat32 partition, I extracted the iso files there. Anaconda asked for the install image and I pointed it to that partition. I went through the rest of the setup (which I've done 50 times in the past 3 days) and viola... it fails, same error message.

Can I do a network install maybe? I'm desperate. I really hope this is fixed in 14, cause by the looks of it I will be waiting for that to be released.

mwesten · #4 5th October 2010, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brosta

I extracted the iso files there.

I believe the ISO file itself needs to be copied to the FAT partition, not the files extracted from it.

brosta · #5 5th October 2010, 12:40 PM

I tried that but I get error "An error occured finding the installation image on your hard drive..."

stoat · #6 5th October 2010, 01:41 PM

mwestern was correct about not extracting the files from the ISO (I didn't say to do that). But you also need to copy the file install.img there to a subdirectory named /images (I should have said that though). You can get that file from inside the ISO or you can download it from the ~/os/images subdirectory of the download servers. When you have the ISO in the root directory of your FAT32 partition and the file install.img in a subdirectory of it named /images, then you can restart Anaconda and continue with your "Hard drive" alternative method installation. It's all in the installation guide (no offense intended). See "Using ISO images" in the section "Preparing for a Hard Drive Installation".

http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/....html#id903229

brosta · #7 5th October 2010, 03:55 PM

Great, it actually installed Fedora. Now I set GRUB to install to Fedora partition and Fedora to be default boot option. When I restarted Windows booted right up. Little digging told me to use a Live CD and set Fedora partition flag to boot using GParted. Fair enough all set go to restarted and I get this message: Reboot and select proper boot device. My HDD is selected as the boot device.

What happened this time?

stoat · #8 5th October 2010, 04:19 PM

That idea to leave MS bootstrapping code in the master boot and use it to launch GRUB stage1 in the Fedora partition's boot sector by setting that partition to active is a well-known, kinda clever, and mostly overlooked method (IMO). But here is a possible reason it didn't work this time. Maybe your Fedora partition is a logical partition. GParted (and fdisk, too) will mark a logical partition active. But that doesn't mean it will work to be booted by MBR bootstrapping code. Only primary partitions can be true active partitions in that sense. See, the MS bootstrapping code in the MBR examines the partition table (also in the MBR) to discover the active partition and then executes its boot sector code. But the MBR bootstrapping program cannot examine the the partition table of logical partitions. That thing is a daisy-chained affair scattered amongst the boot sectors of all of the logical partitions. The MBR bootstrapping program will never find those things. Just a guess. Try posting the fdisk output with your LiveCD depicting your partition layout. It may at least answer the question. Then it will be easy enough to use another of the many well-known dual booting methods.

xprezons · #9 5th October 2010, 05:08 PM

I'd recommend using XOSL as a bootmanager. I use it as a default in all multiboot setups for the ease, convenience and flexibility it offers.

1 (P) Windows
2 (Log) containing daisy chained linux/win/other partitions
3 (P) FAT32 DOS partition with XOSL installed.

Create a small (~30MB say) FAT32 partition at the end of the drive and install XOSL on this partition (using install to DOS partition option). You can do this by booting off your external USB DVD drive.

Install Fedora with Grub installed in the /boot partition.

Now when your machine boots up, you should see the XOSL screen come up. You can set up booting to Windows / Linux / others from here easily.

Let us know how it went.

brosta · #10 5th October 2010, 06:56 PM

XOSL looks very interesting.

Using LiveCD gparted shows my HDD as /dev/sda

I tried to run fdisk -l /dev/sda or any other variation of this command all resulting in Unable to read /dev/sda. I do remember those partitions I made for linux under Windows Disk Management said they were primary partitions.

But why wouldn't this work?

stoat · #11 5th October 2010, 09:48 PM

Well, for now you can use GParted on your LiveCD to change the active partition back to what it was. Then at least you can use Windows while you decide what to do.

It's all up to you, of course. But the simplest and easiest-to-describe thing to do is to re-install GRUB in the master boot record of the hard drive. That will make GRUB start directly from BIOS. From there you could boot Fedora and do the Firstboot stuff (i.e., set up a user account, etc.). When Fedora is working okay, then you could reboot and try "Other" in the GRUB boot menu to see if Windows boots.

As you know, there are many other booting arrangements. They're just not-so-easy-to-describe.

P.S.: You also can try xprezons' idea, of course.

xprezons · #12 5th October 2010, 11:19 PM

Indeed. It's best to ensure in the first place that your Windows installation is working as it should.

Goes without saying, if you have any important data on this drive, back it up first after booting from a live CD. Hope you have a Windows 7 restore disk to reinstall Windows should anything go wrong.

Can you boot up with the GParted LiveCD and view the partitions? How are they laid out ? Can you describe your current partition scheme here? like so

GParted snapshot

Turn on the boot flag on the Windows partition. Are you able to boot into Windows?

brosta · #13 6th October 2010, 06:36 AM

Here is what it looks like:

Here is also fdisk output, I set my Windows partition to boot.

Code:

[root@localhost liveuser]# fdisk -l /dev/sda

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xe0c5913d

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1               1        2550    20482843+  1c  Hidden W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sda2   *        2551       17750   122093748    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3           17750       60802   345808896    f  W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5           17751       53775   289364992    7  HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6           53775       54428     5241856    b  W95 FAT32
/dev/sda7           54428       60671    50149376   83  Linux
/dev/sda8           60671       60802     1048576   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Sweet, I have Windows back... I think I might just reinstall Fedora and let it take over the MBR. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for your help guys.