Hi Gurus,

I have a unique issue. Unique in the sense that I have only found the opposite of what I'm after so far. Here goes:

I have a special bootable "Linux" USB. Tested the USB and it boots up and builds any old PC - with an appropriate BIOS. I would like to convert this USB - better still its contents - to an ISO.

Reason? VMWare server doesn't support USB bootable BIOS at present. Not sure it ever will.

Any help much appreciated.

http://orgs.man.ac.uk/documentation/...b_3.html#SEC11

You must read Section 5 Configuration !

copy everything from your usb stick into the directory iso/

Follow the rest of the linked document.

What version of VMware are you using. I know that VMware player 3.0.1 supports usb boot. I have built several sessions with it.

I am using VMware server 2.0.2 which doesn't support USB as a boot device. Will a VMware player-built OS work on VMware server? Thanks in advance.

Yes it will. That's how I build mine and then move them to my production Vmware server. Let me know how it goes. Cheers!

dd which every distro of Linux and BSD is sure to have will make a .iso of any drive or folder. The above is a simple form of use. Substitute your own parameters.

man dd
Also lots of threads on it's usage.

Thanks. I have used that dd command before and even though I get the output file - it wasn't bootable. I then output the file as .img and converted to .iso, still no joys.

Any further help still welcome.

what linux are you trying to make into a iso?

this linux didnt come as an iso initially?

You can't make a bootable CD iso off an usb image, the reason for this is that USB images use syslinux as bootloader (which can only be installed on FAT32) and CD isos use isolinux as bootloader (isolinux won't install on anything but iso9660). Your problem there is that while the image did copy correctly, to boot off a CD it needs a special tpye of boot sector and the iso9660 filesystem, none of which are present in the USB image (Note that dd'ing non-bootable data off USB to CD does work, it's only OS's that can't be transferred like that because they become unbootable).

Provide more info as to the linux system on usb and whether it has been dd'd to usb or how did you install to usb?

Its easy enough to make a isolinux bootable iso even off a dd'd-to-usb image

gotta know what distro, etc first....

Sorry mate, VMware player didn't boot from USB. Willing to try further suggestions.

OK, it is Linux distro that came in several bits from the OEM. You have to download various bits, run some Windows setup, copy the OEM ISO into a specific location and use the application from the Windows setup to create the bootable USB. Obviously I don't want to mention the OEM - as it might cause issues.

Essentially, I just want an environment where I can safely test things out before going to production. Each of their boxes cost about £50K.

Please tell distro and how its on usb and I can tell you how-to-iso dude

just tell me exactly what is on USB, all the files folders

Thanks a million for your help so far. I have found an iso on the USB and been able to build the OS on VMWare - although no network connection is configurable (driver issues).

The OS is finjan - are you able to help with the network driver issues?