Bug 712596 - Netinstall image not bootable from USB
Summary: Netinstall image not bootable from USB
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: distribution
Version: 15
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
urgent
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Dennis Gilmore
QA Contact: Bill Nottingham
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2011-06-11 15:29 UTC by TNO-reg
Modified: 2014-03-17 03:27 UTC (History)
9 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2012-08-07 16:07:24 UTC
Type: ---
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description TNO-reg 2011-06-11 15:29:21 UTC
Description of problem:

Fedora images used to be bootable from USB which is quite important on such hardware as netbooks (I tried it on Asus EeePC 1001PX), but it seems to be completely broken in the current release.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): F15 x86_64


How reproducible: constantly


Steps to Reproduce:
1. Download the netinstall image
2. Write it to the USB flash drive (# dd if=Fedora-15-x86_64-netinst.iso of=/dev/sdX)
3. Try to boot the computer from it
  
Actual results: 

My netbook boots from the local hard drive despite the appropriate BIOS settings, that means, the flash drive with Fedora image on it is not bootable at all.

Expected results:

Well, obviously it should boot from the flash drive and start the installer.

Additional info:

I haven't tried it with other images yet, so I'll speak for netinst ISO-s only for now. 

Before you even mention it, the problem isn't in the hardware -- it boots from this very USB drive perfectly (purposefully tested it now with Arch Linux installation image to eliminate this variant).

Comment 1 Brian Lane 2011-06-14 00:10:23 UTC
Try running isohybrid on the netboot iso before dd'ing it to the USB. My understanding is that someone forgot to do that on the released iso's.

As an alternative you can use livecd-iso-to-disk from the livecd-tools package to write iso's to USBs.

Comment 2 TNO-reg 2011-06-14 13:27:49 UTC
(In reply to comment #1)
> Try running isohybrid on the netboot iso before dd'ing it to the USB. My
> understanding is that someone forgot to do that on the released iso's.
> 

That is most likely the case: running isohybrid actually did it, after it the image boots and runs the installer normally. I think the mantainers should do the same and update the image(s). Thanks for your help!

Comment 3 Brian Lane 2011-08-24 23:19:41 UTC
*** Bug 733160 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 4 Ole 2011-08-25 17:01:45 UTC
Are you sure this is a duplicate?  My USB stick boots.  I tried running isohybrid on the DVD ISO and I still get the same result.

Comment 5 Scott Baker 2011-09-07 18:50:10 UTC
I just spent an hour pulling my hair out because my USB stick wouldn't boot the netinstall. Are there any plans to update the ISOs?

Running isohybird on the image did work, and I was able to install my system. Here is the hash of the newly updated .iso.

54935ff607ecb94b0859e4cd811ca13dc39b600e7573977f04f08ed8fb3cbf96  Fedora-15-x86_64-netinst.iso

Comment 6 Fedora End Of Life 2012-08-07 16:07:29 UTC
This message is a notice that Fedora 15 is now at end of life. Fedora
has stopped maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 15. It is
Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases that are no
longer maintained. At this time, all open bugs with a Fedora 'version'
of '15' have been closed as WONTFIX.

(Please note: Our normal process is to give advanced warning of this
occurring, but we forgot to do that. A thousand apologies.)

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, feel free to reopen
this bug and simply change the 'version' to a later Fedora version.

Bug Reporter: Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that
we were unable to fix it before Fedora 15 reached end of life. If you
would still like to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it
against a later version of Fedora, you are encouraged to click on
"Clone This Bug" (top right of this page) and open it against that
version of Fedora.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes
bugs or makes them obsolete.

The process we are following is described here:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/BugZappers/HouseKeeping

Comment 7 Peter H. Jones 2013-01-22 19:39:56 UTC
After a lot of searching for a way to create bootable USB's from installation CD/DVD images, I was delighted to find that the dd command mentioned in the Bug description section created a working USB of Fedora-18-i386-netinst.iso.

I have also found that I can boot from Fedora-18-i386-DVD.iso and create a bootable USB that can be moved from one computer to another. Hence, a person with access to a number of borrowable computers can boot his own Fedora system on each one without having to install Fedora on each one. (So far, I've only tried the Minimal Install 386. If I run into problems when installing other package groups or architectures, I'll post a fresh bug report.)


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