Intel Communities: Message List - Cannot boot Linux Server installed to USB flash driven on D525MW board

Re: Cannot boot Linux Server installed to USB flash driven on D525MW board

webadmin@intel.com — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 22:27:25 GMT

Hi folks,

I'm the original poster but for reasons I don't understand I can no longer log in. (Can't even reset my password. )

Thanks all for the help getting this solved. I was trying to get this resolved so I could set up a NAS using this board and a pair of drives that were in a RAID1. Time ran on and I needed to move so I finally repartitioned my RAID so I could boot from that and no longer have the need to use this. But perhaps someone elas will.

thanks,

hank

Re: Cannot boot Linux Server installed to USB flash driven on D525MW board

surfingsteve@gmail.com — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 23:04:05 GMT

Thank you so much. I was pulling my hair out trying to figure out what was going wrong.

Re: Cannot boot Linux Server installed to USB flash driven on D525MW board

johan.ekback@gmail.com — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 23:40:09 GMT

Great news everyone; the problem has finally been fully solved!

Intel released a BIOS update a few days ago (03/25/2011) which solves the linux boot from usb problem:

Intel wrote:

BIOS Version 0078 - MWPNT10N.86A.0078.2011.0325.1330
New Fixes/Features:
* Fixed issue where system will not boot from a Linux* partition on USB flash devices.

I've flashed my board and installed Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS 32bit onto a 8gb usb stick and it boots and runs perfectly .

Note that installing to a (cheap) USB stick will take a long time, I think it took about 3-4 hours for me. Compare that with 30mins for a normal SATA HDD.

Other things that probably doesn't matter but I'll mention them anyway:

I had partitioned (but not formatted) the USB stick beforehand to make sure the partition was aligned (to avoid additional performance loss on this already slow usb stick). I then created a single ext4 partition with mountpoint '/' and options 'noatime' (also for performance) during the installation.

Next step is to try 64bit Ubuntu which I expect will work equally well. Then I will investigate if it's worth disabling journaling to gain even more performance from the usb stick. It might hurt reliability though, do you guys have any experience with disabling journaling or suggestions why/why not to do it?

Happy hacking in Linux everyone, cya!

//Johan

Re: Cannot boot Linux Server installed to USB flash driven on D525MW board

joshua.a.dickerson@gmail.com — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 16:07:54 GMT

I have a similar issue that I can't seem to figure out. All of the details are posted on the Ubuntu forums: http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=10644915&postcount=8

I can boot with my USB drive but I cannot boot with my HDD. I never get a GRUB screen. I just see a blinking cursor. When I boot with my USB drive it goes to the ubuntu screen and loads. I am using Ubuntu Server 10.10 with GRUB 2.

I created the installer using unetbootin so that may be an issue. Unfortunately, I immediately went in to installing stuff so I really don't want to lose that now by trying to install again.

Re: Cannot boot Linux Server installed to USB flash driven on D525MW board

helgeschneider5@hotmail.com — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:04:04 GMT

ok, now it works, the 1. Partition the Board finds was FAT but not bootable....i make it bootable now it runs

Re: Cannot boot Linux Server installed to USB flash driven on D525MW board

helgeschneider5@hotmail.com — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 08:59:41 GMT

Hi,

i tried it, but he hangs in GRUB at: loading Stage2...

this happns with or without 1. FAT Partition on the stick.

Fdisk says the right, an i also tried repoair GRUB ( root (hd0,1) setup (hd0,1) ...)

any ideas?

Re: Cannot boot Linux Server installed to USB flash driven on D525MW board

jamesbaxter82@hotmail.com — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 02:09:53 GMT

As said, the Intel board looks for a bootable fat partition (hence why the live USBs work as these are on a Fat32 partition).

To get a USB install booting do the following:

1. Boot using a USB or CD Live/Installer

2. Once booted in to the OS, click 'Try' if prompted.

3. Plug in the USB drive you want to install linux on

4. Using Disk Utility (System > Administration > Disk Utility), locate the drive.

5. Click on Format Drive

6. Create a partition using Fat16 or Fat32, it doesn't matter which as you won't be formatting it or using it. Click to make it bootable.

7. Create a Linux Native partition Ext4, don't make it bootable.

8. Create a Linux Swap partition

9. Close Disk Utility

10. Double click on the desktop icon to install linux.

11. When asked, choose to manually set partitions.

12. Set the Linux Native Ext4 partition to mount / and tick 'Format'.

13. Select the USB device in the Boot loader dropdown.

14. Proceed to install.

That'll now boot

Excuse any missing steps or incorrect descriptions above, it was written from memory as this is how I worked my way around the issue a couple of days ago.

Intel are a joke, I must say.

Hope this helps where Intel failed to.

Re: Cannot boot Linux Server installed to USB flash driven on D525MW board

predator.nl@hotmail.com — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 14:14:06 GMT

Please explain me how to extactly create the USB (with the correct partitions), so that it boots.

I want to boot freenas embedded, and have the boot problem also, and not an expert with partiotioning an USB stick

Thanks in advance.

Re: Cannot boot Linux Server installed to USB flash driven on D525MW board

webadmin@intel.com — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 23:02:19 GMT

@Valp: Thanks for information!

Re: Cannot boot Linux Server installed to USB flash driven on D525MW board

ezmer.dekleaner@gmail.com — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 02:41:34 GMT

I can confirm that the key appears to be having a fat (I have fat32) as the first partition.

nothing has to be there. Probably a bug in the bios that checks to verify that there is a fat partition before booting....

Works great! pity that we had to discover it with Valps work.... Thanks Valp for the insight and help.

Ezzy