Ubuntu
usb-creator package

Live USB with persistent boot options fails to boot

Bug #358881 reported by Ryan Waldroop
16
This bug affects 3 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
usb-creator (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: usb-creator

I've been trying to get Ubuntu Jaunty to install a live CD to my thumbdrive for several days. I've been doing the same thing for a while:

1. Go to System > Administration > USB Startup Disk Creator
2. Select an Ubuntu image (tried jaunty beta i386 and jaunty daily i386)
3. Choose to store some amount of data in reserved extra space (created as casper-rw in the root of the thumbdrive, and also adds the "persistent" boot option to the kernel tags)
4. Reboot, boot from thumbdrive, and choose the first option labeled "Try Ubuntu without any change to your computer."
5. Press ctrl+alt+f1 to see what's happening
6. Watch various logs repeat over and over, which are different depending on the computer.
     6a. When booting from a computer with a floppy drive and Windows installed, I get messages about IO errors on fd0.
     6b. On computers running jaunty + ext4, messages refer to ext4fs mballoc.
     6c. From Qemu in Windows, messages refer to a DRDY IRQ ERR
7. Drop to BusyBox shell at (initramfs) shortly after attempting to load the persistent file.
8. Reboot and press F6 to change the boot options. Delete the word persistent. Problem solved.

I've tested this with both the Ubuntu USB Creator and with Unetbootin on Jaunty, while trying to create a Jaunty Live USB.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: usb-creator 0.1.15
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: usb-creator
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-11-generic x86_64

See original description
Revision history for this message
Ryan Waldroop (ryan.waldroop) wrote :
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Gareth Hart (tghe-retford) wrote :

I'm also getting dropped to a busybox shell on an Jaunty daily i386 live CD for a EeePC 901. I also used usb-creator as well, however I didn't see any of the error messages as stated by the bug reporter.

Revision history for this message
Ryan Waldroop (ryan.waldroop) wrote :

I'm starting to think this could be caused by my disk. The problems have all been on my new 16GB OCZ ATV (same controller chip as the Rally 2). But tonight I found an older 8GB Ativa which has worked fine across several reboots.

I've also downloaded unetbootin to try installing onto the 16 gig from there, and now I'm getting the same issue.

I'll mark the USB creator tag as invalid, but I'd like to leave this bug open until I hear some more feedback on this drive/chipset. If other people have luck installing to this 16gb drive--or any other 16gb drive--then I'll RMA this disk and can close this bug.

Revision history for this message
Ryan Waldroop (ryan.waldroop) wrote :

usb-creator as well as unetbootin works fine on other thumbdrives, so the problem lies more with the drive itself.

Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu):
status: New → Invalid
summary: - Live USB created with usb-creator and persitent home fails to boot
+ Live USB created on OCZ ATV / Rally 2 fails to boot
Ryan Waldroop (ryan.waldroop)
description: updated
summary: - Live USB created on OCZ ATV / Rally 2 fails to boot
+ Live USB with persistent boot options fails to boot
Revision history for this message
Ken VanDine (ken-vandine) wrote :

I can confirm this is a bug, I have reproduced it with 3 different USB sticks all of which have worked in the past with usb-creator.

I have tested with both jaunty-desktop-i386.iso and jaunty-desktop-amd64.iso, the RC candidate isos. I have also tested booting those USB sticks on 3 different machines, all get the same busybox prompt. Disabling the persistent storage works.

Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu):
status: Invalid → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Drahoslav Vavrda (dvavrda) wrote :

This is not usb-creator bug.
Jaunty RC usb-stick created using Intrepid usb-creator fails the same way,
while Intrepid usb-stick created on Jaunty works fine.

Problem was caused by use of head command within initramfs.
Recent daily-live build solved this problem.
See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/casper/+bug/363038

Revision history for this message
Evan (ev) wrote :

I'm marking this as a duplicate of bug 363038. If you are getting dropped into a busybox shell with a karmic CD, please file a new bug against casper.

Thanks!

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