Issue with USB partition number

linus72 · 05-15-2019, 03:53 PM

do you do bs=? and && sync?

I usually do

Code:

dd if=/whatever.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=1024 && sync

Belikewater · 05-15-2019, 07:39 PM

Hey Linus72,

It appears for whatever reason, the issue is with the actual ISO image. I downloaded Slackware 14.2 source code DVD ISO (The complete source code tree for both x86 and x86_64), but not sure if its missing any files. I downloaded Puppy Linux, just to check if I could write an ISO image to the USB and it worked. I'll have to investigate what is going on with my Slackware download. Nonetheless, I learned quite a bit from this thread. I appreciate the help. I am going to download a mirror, to see if I can successfully write that ISO image to the USB.

linus72 · 05-15-2019, 08:09 PM

you mean you downloaded this iso?

https://mirrors.slackware.com/slackw...re64-14.2-iso/

Belikewater · 05-15-2019, 10:35 PM

Yes, that is the one I just did and it is working. Previously, I tried downloading the torrent from here: http://www.slackware.com/getslack/torrents.php

ehartman · 05-15-2019, 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Belikewater

So I ran sudo fdisk /dev/sdb then p to print the table partition, but again its only sowing sdb with no partition number like sdb1.

Have any of you run into this issue before? This is causing me to be unable to write the ISO image to the USB.

Thanks

It is either a still UNpartioned drive (like a blank one) or one which is "floppy formatted", that is: with the BOOT block as block 0 and NO partion table/MBR.

I had several MP3 players that used that latter format.

If it's an unpartitioned drive and you've got an image that is one of a partition (that is: it does NOT contain a MBR) you should first create a partition ON the drive of at least "iso size) and then write the image to that partition.

To see the difference between UN- and floppy partitioned drive, do a dd of block 0

Code:

dd if=/dev/sd<letter> count=1 | hexdump -C

If the output is not all-zero and ends with 2 bytes "55 aa" it is a boot block.

colorpurple21859 · 05-16-2019, 07:18 AM

Quote:

Right. I have the iso image in my downloads. I CD into ~/Downloads/slackware-14.2-iso

you wouldn't happen to be trying to boot this on a newer efi machine with secure boot still enabled and legacy boot disabled? To boot on efi machine in legacy/cms mode, need to disable secure boot and enable legacy/cms boot or use a slackware64-14.2-iso with secure boot disabled