[mini-ITX] Fails installing Fedora from USB key

[littlebigfred]

Hello

While I wait for the adapter so I can hook up a slim CD/DVD to a Via ML6000 mini-ITX motherboard, I wanted to install Linux on the hard-disk by dd'ing Fedora 6's diskboot.img to a USB key and booting from this.

It does start OK, but at some point, I get this:

Time: acpi_pm clocksource has been installed
invalid compressed format (err=2)
ext2-fs: unable to read superblock
isofs-fill-super: bread failed, dev=md1, iso_blknum=16, block=32
No filesystem could mount root, tried ext2 iso9660
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(9,1)

Based on tips that I googled, I tried the following, all to no avail:

1. chose USB-HDD in BIOS
2. chose USB-FDD in BIOS
3. still with USB-FDD, linux acpi=off nofp askmethod
4. with USB-HDD, linux acpi=off nofp askmethod
5. memtest86 (no errors detected in RAM)
6. linux root=/dev/ram askmethod (endless loop of error message)
7. linux root=/dev/sda1 askmethod ("Please append a correct "root=" boot option")

Any idea what's wrong? Is that Fedora boot image incompatible with either my USB key or the Via ML6000 CPU (someone in the Asterisk list said that it was safer to compile for i586 than i686 when using Via mini-ITX motherboards)?

Thanks much for any tip.

[stevea]

I had a similar problem on an EBX board a a few weeks ago. The solution was to put in a long time delay in the initrd startup script before it attempts to access the root file system. 12 second delay was 100% solid, 7 seconds was a little shakey. It's not at all clear that this is your problem.

[littlebigfred]

I had a similar problem on an EBX board a a few weeks ago. The solution was to put in a long time delay in the initrd startup script before it attempts to access the root file system. 12 second delay was 100% solid, 7 seconds was a little shakey. It's not at all clear that this is your problem.

Thanks for the help. Sorry for not replying faster, but I've been sidetracked.

OK, here's what happened:

1. After more reading, I found an article that explained that dd should only be done on an unmounted drive, and to pay attention to /sda1 and /sda: I think the problem I had was that the USB key was still mounted, and I mixed those two, ie. used "dd if=diskboot.img of=/dev/sda1" instead of "/dev/sda"

2. After using dd correctly, I got the mini-ITX to boot all the way to when I'm asked about the address of the FTP/HTTP server from which to fetch the install files. Unfortunately, that's when I was sidetracked, so had to turn the computer off and take care of business.

3. When I resumed the install, I could no longer boot, with the error message (from memory) : "DISK BOOT ERROR"

4. I let a couple of days go by, reading a bit about the issue on the Net, and finally got it to boot, but this time, it fails when I use USB-HDD or USB-FDD (although it worked above), but works if I choose USB-ZIP.

I have no rational explanation as to why it failed resuming in step 3, but I suspect the cause for step 4 is that a USB key needs more than just a diskboot.img if it needs to boot as HDD or FDD. Shouldn't a USB key need an MBR?

HTH,