Here's the deal. We have a simple image created by the system-restore-cd linux app. The device has NO cd, so it's on a usb stick. But in the past, I would boot off a DSL (damn small linux) distro on a usb stick, do the install (30 mins), then reboot off the system-restore cd and re-image.

Took a little but worked. Well someone re-used the dsl usb stick, so I booted off the system-restore. Fdisked the local drive, made it bootable and restored the image. That is all fine, I can mount, look around, etc, but on boot I just get "missing operating system".

Not sure why if I install the whole OS first, then wipe it and restore an image it works. I can only assume it's the master boot record? If so, is there a simple mbr command you can issue, or does someone else have .02 to throw out.

Thanks

bootloader?

grub.conf?

If the image is bootable, then a image copy on another usb should work fine

That's what I would have figured, maybe the partimage app doesn't do something it should, as I have seen it first hand. In the past, I would have to run the whole install from the damn small linux, just to reboot and re-do the image, so there is something, and w/o that other stick I am stuck.

As for the bootloader, I mounted the flash drive, and there is a /boot/grub folder. So I am guessing there using grub. The menu.1st file shows; (removing a lot of the comments)

default 0
timeout 1
# Enter the entry for DSL here. Something like this.

title DSL
kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/hda1 quiet vga=normal noacpi noapm nodma noscsi frugal

title DSL fb800x600
kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/hda1 quiet vga=788 noacpi noapm nodma noscsi frugal

#title DSL with mydsl, restore, persistentancy, hostname, and passwords
#kernel /boot/linux24 root=/dev/hda1 quiet vga=normal noacpi noapm noscsi frugal dma toram mydsl=hda3 restore=hda3 home=hda3 opt=hda3 host=DSL1 secure

I did look and all things seem fine (there is a /boot/linux24 kernel), it really seems to be something with the partition or boot.

Any suggestions or thoughts are appreciated. I tried a simple grub-install /dev/sda1 and got;
Could not find device for /boot: Not found or not a block device.

Thanks

See http://www.partimage.org/Partimage-FAQ

It cannot make partitions

Yea, that makes sense. I did make the partition first, (empty) so the restore copied everything it was supposed to. But it just didn't copy whatever hidden or however you want to word it 'things' to make it boot. In windows the old sys: command, or looking around and playing in the past, in windows you could syslinux -ma and that would work, not sure on a linux sustem how to say, make this bootable, but thanks for the link.

My new method is using clonezilla and it works great, but this device, I don't have any working one's to make a copy of, so I need this one to work to then image with clonezilla.

Thanks for the link though.