create USB bootable media

General support questions
Post Reply
fat_uva
Posts: 3
Joined: 2014/08/07 14:23:18

create USB bootable media

Post by fat_uva » 2014/08/07 14:34:34

I was trying to install CentOS7 to a newly assembled computer. The only way is to install from usb. I followed the instruction and dd the iso to usb drive. When I use it to boot, it give me error "Boot failure : No DEFAULT or UI configuration directive found". I searched online and found this answer:

Generally the iso image that are intended to be burned and booted from CD/DVD has all the files required for Boot in the “ISOLINUX” folder. Whereas the iso images that are intended to be run from USB has all the files required for boot in the “SYSLINUX” folder. So when you try to burn and boot a CD/DVD iso from USB, it cannot recognize the type of boot medium as it will not have “syslinux” folder it will simply give “Boot failure : No DEFAULT or UI configuration directive found“.

So according to some posts, the fix is to rename the ISOLINUX folder and 2 files underneath it with ISOLINUX name to SYSLINUX. However, when I insert the usb drive to my other linux computer, it is automatically mounted with iso-9660 and the filesystem is un-writable. So I am stuck. Anyone has solutions?

I also find it quite irresponsible to put this "Various installation images are available for installing CentOS. Which image you need to download depends on your installation environment. All of these images can either be burned on a DVD or dd’ed to an USB memory stick." in the official release note with no mentioning of this "isolinux vs syslinux" issue. At least there should be an iso that dedicated to usb drives.

gerald_clark
Posts: 10642
Joined: 2005/08/05 15:19:54
Location: Northern Illinois, USA

Re: create USB bootable media

Post by gerald_clark » 2014/08/07 15:30:23

Show us the command you used to dd the file.
The ISOs are hybrid ISOs and should boot from optical media or a USB thumb drive provides your BIOS will boot a hybrid image.
You need to dd it directly to the USB device, not to a partition on the drive.

fat_uva
Posts: 3
Joined: 2014/08/07 14:23:18

Re: create USB bootable media

Post by fat_uva » 2014/08/07 17:03:10

dd if=CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-Minimal.iso of=/dev/sdb
After dd finished, two partitions automatically mounted, one is the Anaconda which is a fat filesystem, and the other is the CentOS stuff with the iso-9660 file system.

It was able to boot the computer, but gives a message
"SYSLINUX 3.85 2010-02-20 CBIOS Copyright (c) 1994-2010 H. Peter Anvin et al
No DEFAULT or UI configuration directive found!
boot:
"
Have you created usb thumb drive and successfully boot from that?

User avatar
avij
Retired Moderator
Posts: 3046
Joined: 2010/12/01 19:25:52
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Contact:

Re: create USB bootable media

Post by avij » 2014/08/07 17:25:54

dd is indeed the best way to create installable USB media. The published .isos are suitable for burning to CD/DVD and dd'ing to USB memory sticks without any changes.

Please make sure your .iso file and USB media are correct. Try sha1sum CentOS-7.0-1406-x86_64-Minimal.iso and dd if=/dev/sdb bs=4096 count=144896 | sha1sum. Both commands should output 495a7d50eb7633c4667fbfc5e817bf244697c627.

User avatar
avij
Retired Moderator
Posts: 3046
Joined: 2010/12/01 19:25:52
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Contact:

Re: create USB bootable media

Post by avij » 2014/08/07 17:42:33

Besides, "SYSLINUX 3.85 2010-02-20 CBIOS Copyright (c) 1994-2010 H. Peter Anvin et al" does not look like it would be a CentOS 7 message. I would bet that you have actually dd'ed the .iso to a partition (like /dev/sdb1) instead of /dev/sdb.

fat_uva
Posts: 3
Joined: 2014/08/07 14:23:18

Re: create USB bootable media

Post by fat_uva » 2014/08/08 15:19:52

I guess I must dd to sdb1 when I made the bootable usb stick. I tried to dd it again and it was able to boot to the installation menu. But I ran into some issues and the installation stuck somewhere for a long time, finally it went to dracut shell prompt. Maybe some hardware conflict. Anyway, that is a separate issue. Thanks all for the help.

User avatar
avij
Retired Moderator
Posts: 3046
Joined: 2010/12/01 19:25:52
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Contact:

Re: create USB bootable media

Post by avij » 2014/08/09 06:58:15

If you manage to get to the boot menu, try selecting the "media check" option from the menu to make sure your installation media is OK.

ZKRING
Posts: 3
Joined: 2014/08/11 17:01:51

Re: create USB bootable media

Post by ZKRING » 2014/08/11 17:05:19

Use the fedora app for make USB. It works perfect

https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/

Do you have for Linux and for Windows. I made from Windows and worked perfect to me.

User avatar
kkyinc
Posts: 10
Joined: 2014/08/13 06:23:54

Re: create USB bootable media [SOLVED]

Post by kkyinc » 2014/08/14 08:49:35

hi guys

i tried live USB creater. it also created live usb but while booting it show error. another way to install centos7 in my laptop

USE THIS LINK TO DOWNLOAD CENTOS LIVE USB CREATOR FOR WINDOWS OS. ITS WORKS FINE

http://www.netbsd.org/~martin/rawrite32/download.html



ENJOY :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Post Reply