SuSE installations from USB drive

For a successful install, you should have:

• SuSE Linux DVD image for i386 or x86_64 architecture, alternatively a Start-CD-Image can be used. This is much smaller and will fit on (almost) any USB drive
• this modified version of [mkbootdisk] (add option -n to the line "for (`fsck.vfat -v $part 2>/dev/null`) {")
• an usb key (mini disk is ~80kb, cd 650Mb, dvd 4Gb, key must have the corresponding size) or USB hard drive
• root access to already installed Linux, and ability to work in a console
• syslinux installed (use YaST)

Preparation

• Open a root xterm or terminal;
• Plug in the USB drive. The drive should mount automatically - if you use KDE, you can find out which device name is used for the USB drive, by reading it from the window that opens automatically. The partition has a name such as "dev/sdb1". The disk is the device without the trailing digit, e.g., /dev/sdb.

You can also use

 lsscsi

and look for a device that matches your USB drive. Then check the partition as root type via:

fdisk -l

or, if you know the disk

fdisk -l /dev/<disk>

The output should have line like

/dev/sdb1  * 1  3924     1004528    c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Here "FAT32" indicates the filesystem.  If you see a star (as in the example above), then this means that the bootable flag is set.

• If the bootable flag is not set (no star), it needs to be set as follows:

fdisk /dev/<disk> 

(<disk> is the disk name, e.g. "sdb". It's not the partion name as "sdb1"). Then press "a", and enter the partition number (e.g. 1, if the partition is sdb1). Save the changes with "w". If the automount prevents the changes from being saved, you can temporarily disable automount using "rcdbus stop" as root.

• If the filesystem is not FAT32, it needs to be changed:

fdisk /dev/<disk>

Then press "t" (to change the partition type) and "c" (for FAT32). Save the changes with "w".

• Create the filesystem (beware, this erases all data on the USB drive). To do so you must first unmount the drive:

umount /dev/<partition>
mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/<partition>

(Here <partition> is the partition, for example "sdb1").

• Make sure that the USB drive is FAT32 formatted:

fsck.vfat /dev/<partition>

If this fails, fix the filesystem with

fsck.vfat -a /dev/<partition>

Copy files to the USB drive

• Choose a suitable mount point for the dvd (for example /mnt/dvd) and a mount point for the USB drive (for example /mnt/usb). Create the mount points with

mkdir /mnt/dvd
mkdir /mnt/usb

• Mount the downloaded CD/DVD image (make sure you have loop-device support in your Linux - in openSUSE this is available by default):

mount dvd.iso /mnt/dvd -o loop

Also mount the USB drive:

mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb

• Copy the downloaded CD/DVD data to the USB drive at the root of the drive

cp -R -L /mnt/dvd/* /mnt/usb/

• Unmount the USB drive (if not, the command mksusebootdisk will fail)

umount /mnt/usb

Make the USB drive bootable

See 2nd comment in Discussion-tab if the mksusebootdisk script program does not finish. !!!!!!

Make sure the script is executable:

chmod +x mksusebootdisk

Install syslinux if it isn't already:

zypper install syslinux

Run the script with arch set to 32 for i386, or 64 for x86_64. This should work for any architecture e.g. ppc, IA64.

./mksusebootdisk --arch --partition /dev/<partition> /mnt/dvd

This command works reasonably fast. It will fail if you forgot to unmount (using umount) the USB disk. It will also fail (and give a "not a FAT file system" error if you press crtl-c) if the drive has errors. To fix the errors, use

 fsck.vfat -w -r /dev/<partition>

Installation

Boot

• Make sure the USB device is plugged in.
• Boot the PC with USB device as the primary boot device or in the first boot order.

This is entirely depends on your BIOS menu and configurations. If everything goes well the openSUSE boot menu will appear.

• From the boot menu, choose "Installation" to install a new openSUSE system.

Setup

During setup, the install media will not be automatically found. The setup will fall back to text-mode setup where you can choose the install media location.

Your media should be in Local hard drive and USB drive should be /dev/sda1 or similar. The setup will ask for the ISO file location on the selected drive. Type in the file path and name. Initial / is required, so if your image is at the root of the drive and has name of dvd.iso, you need to type: /dvd.iso

Gotchas / Common issues

Why cannot I just use the mkbootdisk shipped with SuSE Linux

• The stock mkbootdisk is not capable of writing a FAT32 filesystem.
• Biggest standard/bootable FAT16 partition is 2 gigabytes. That won't hold the DVD image.
• You could create a non-standard FAT16 of 4 gigabytes, but you won't be able to boot from it. At least most motherboards won't.

The PC won't boot from USB drive

If no matter what you try, the machine does not boot from the USB drive:

• Make sure the PC is capable of booting from USB. This information may be difficult to find from manuals or Internet, sometimes USB booting is not supported regardless how new the PC is.
  • Note: removable drive in the BIOS boot menu does not mean USB
• BIOS setup should have the plugged in USB device in high enough boot priority, make sure that PC won't boot from hard drive or CD.
• Some motherboards may have additional restrictions. For example, some Via EPIA mini-itx boards require that the boot partition is no larger than 8MB.
• Try consulting and/or contributing to the USB Booting Knowledge Base

NEWS CONTENTS

• 200102 : Support How to create a bootable USB drive to install SLES ( Support How to create a bootable USB drive to install SLES, )
• 200102 : Installing Suse 11.0 on a USB External Hard Disk. - Linux Forums ( Installing Suse 11.0 on a USB External Hard Disk. - Linux Forums, )

Old News ;-)

Support How to create a bootable USB drive to install SLES

SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 (SLES 10)

Situation

This explains how to create a bootable USB stick to install SLES 10 from for situations where a CD-ROM drive may not be available in the server. It assumes the machine BIOS allows booting from a USB device.

Resolution

It is first necessary to download CD1 or a mini.iso of SLES 10. The proceedure can then be completed in either Windows or Linux.

Creating a bootable USB device from Windows

1. Extract the contents of the .iso file to a temporary directory like C:\isotemp (A utility such as WinRAR can be used for this)
2. Assuming the USB device is E: copy the contents of C:\isotemp\boot\i386\loader\* to E:\
   Note: replace i386 with x86_64 if it is 64 bit
3. Delete E:\isolinux.bin
4. Rename E:\isolinux.cfg to E:\syslinux.cfg
5. Download syslinux and extract it to C:\syslinux (Note: this must be downloaded separately from the Internet)
6. Open a command prompt and change to C:\syslinux\syslinux\win32
7. Run syslinux E:

Creating a bootable USB device from Linux
This example will use /dev/sdb as the USB device.

Create a FAT16 partition on the USB device:
(/dev/sdb1 must be a primary partition no more than 4GB in size)
mkfs.vfat -F 16 /dev/sdb1

For i386:
umount /dev/sdb1
mount -o loop SLES-10-i386-GM-CD1.iso /mnt
/mnt/boot/i386/mkbootdisk --32 --partition /dev/sdb1 /mnt

For x86_64:
umount /dev/sdb1
mount -o loop SLES-10-x86_64-GM-CD1.iso /mnt
/mnt/boot/x86_64/mkbootdisk --64 --partition /dev/sdb1 /mnt
The USB device can then be booted from. For a network installation, select the default 'linux' option and enter options for a custom installation server:
install=ftp://ftpserver.yourhost/install/sles10/arch

Additional Information

Quite often it is required to set the boot device order each time the USB device is connected. It must be placed before the hard drives in the system.

This application can also be used for SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 (SLES 9), however, SLES 9 does not include the mkbootdisk utility so it must be downloaded separately or taken from SLES 10.

---

Must be 16 bit FAT
If the mkbootdisk script fails with the error: "must be 16 bit FAT", the cause is that the FAT partition is not using a 16-bit file allocation type. You can confirm this using the command:

fsck.vfat -v /dev/sdb1

and looking for the line:

2 FATs, 32 bit entries

This must read "16 bit entries" for the script to succeed. You must recreate the filesystem using mkfs.vfat to modify this.

WARNING: Not enough clusters for a 16 bit FAT!
When attempting to execute the mkfs.vfat command it may fail with the following error:

WARNING: Not enough clusters for a 16 bit FAT!

The filesystem will be misinterpreted as having a 12 bit FAT without mount option "fat=16".

mkfs.vfat: Attempting to create a too large file system

This is caused by attempting to create a 16-bit file allocation table size on a partition larger than 4GB. Verify a partition smaller than 4G has been created on the USB device.

Disclaimer

This Support Knowledgebase provides a valuable tool for NetIQ/Novell/SUSE customers and parties interested in our products and solutions to acquire information, ideas and learn from one another. Materials are provided for informational, personal or non-commercial use within your organization and are presented "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND.

• Document ID:3499891
• Creation Date:03-14-2007
• Modified Date:07-26-2012
• • SUSESUSE Linux Enterprise Server

Installing Suse 11.0 on a USB External Hard Disk. - Linux Forums

The C:\ drive on my laptop is reserved entirely for XP. I made three partitions on my USB External Drive. I want to put SUSE into the first partition. I plan to follow the advice of an excellent tutorial by Simon Parsons
"Understanding the Boot Process and NTLDR" 03/04/2002 on devhood.com/tutorials. Now I have several questions about the SUSE install process:
First, I do not want to put a new bootloader into the mbr. Instead, I want to tell SUSE to put the initial GRUB bootloader at the beginning of the first sector of the partition that I allocate for SUSE. How do I tell the SUSE install process to do that? Second, I want to understand why the SUSE install process is in two steps. Why does a reboot take place between steps 1 and 2? Is the part after the second reboot just doing additional package installation? I need to know this because BEFORE a reboot I need to set up the Windows Bootloader(NTLDR) to access the SUSE partition.
Thanks for taking the time to read this, whether or not you can contribute to an answer. And check out the referenced tutorial. It is a short, easy read and very clear in its approach.

Howard3005, if you have the dvd in the drive while the install is going, it will go back to the install after the reboot. Now for putting the bootloader to the 1st sector rather than MBR, when the SUSE install loads up (and assuming the install for 10 is similar to 9.3) there is a heading called bootloader, under here you can choose where the bootloader is installed.

tutankamon, if you use ntldr as your bootloader, you can have it boot into SUSE without the use of the SUSE install media. It will act the same as grub/lilo, and when you want to boot SUSE, just select it from the ntldr list. The tutorial that Howard3005 is using, talks about setting this up link

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Last modified: March, 12, 2019