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Re: Porteus sgn file not found when booting from USB

Posted: 29 Apr 2015, 21:24
by donald
@ Bogomips
Ok,ok...maybe the wrong wording..but the procedure is clear, right?
If you dd the known as good (booting) Image onto the SanDisk,which in turn
won't boot,(isn't yet proven),how would you call that thing?...faulty I think.. :wink:

And of course one can use this thing for data storage furthermore.

Re: Porteus sgn file not found when booting from USB

Posted: 29 Apr 2015, 22:32
by Bogomips
@donald
What I mean is what I mentioned earlier in my previous post. The question once again is if the initrd has a driver which can deal with a SanDisk usb or no. This IMHO needs to be cleared up.

Re: Porteus sgn file not found when booting from USB

Posted: 29 Apr 2015, 22:40
by Ed_P
A couple of questions about this SanDisk flash drive:

Is it 32GB or less. If so it comes formated as FAT32. If it's bigger it comes formated as exFAT.

Is it a USB 3.0 drive or 2.0?

Did it have a U3 partition on it at some point?

Is it seen as a Fixed drive or a Removable drive? SanDisk supported Microsoft's Windows To Go option at one point.

How old is it? While SanDisk doesn't support booting it's drives it does support replacing them if they are defective.

Re: Porteus sgn file not found when booting from USB

Posted: 29 Apr 2015, 23:38
by donald
@ Bogomips
The USB driver is responsible for providing the USB host controller with a set of instructions for how to process data moving through USB ports.
This means that no matter what type of device you have attached to your computer,
the USB device driver is providing the instructions to handle that communication.
I don't think that the brand of the attached usb-flash has anything to to with that.
but correct me if I'm wrong.

Re: Porteus sgn file not found when booting from USB

Posted: 30 Apr 2015, 14:22
by rcrsf
  • The model of the usb stick is "SanDisk Ultra USB 3.0" 32gb. It's brand new, as I bought it just for Porteus.
  • I formatted the SanDisk as fat32 on a Windows computer.
  • I did the same thing (format as fat32) on the Lexar USB 3.0 16gb before installing Porteus.
  • But for some reason the Lexar works, and the SanDisk does not. I've repeated the process twice on each usb, confirming md5sum's of the downloads each time.

Re: Porteus sgn file not found when booting from USB

Posted: 30 Apr 2015, 18:37
by Bogomips
@rcrsf
Prior to laying the blame squarely on h/w can you confirm
  1. md5sum of SanDisk can be made by Porteus running on Lexar usb
  2. ls /porteus/*.sgn of SanDisk works when run from Lexar usb
  3. Lastly, for what it's worth
    1. On the SanDisk usb: mv /porteus/*.sgn SanDisk.sgn
    2. Not sure at this point, as I do not use your setup, but if at boot time you do get a chance to insert a kernel parameter(cheatcode), try inserting sgnfile=SanDisk.sgn
    3. Using only verified boot-up software we can see if that will work. Otherwise problem is either software or hardware.

Re: Porteus sgn file not found when booting from USB

Posted: 01 May 2015, 02:30
by Ed_P
rcrsf wrote:
  • I formatted the SanDisk as fat32 on a Windows computer.
  • I did the same thing (format as fat32) on the Lexar USB 3.0 16gb before installing Porteus.
The SanDisk drive comes from the factory as FAT32, as a Superfloppy actually, why did you format it?

Some people have encountered SanDisk USB drives still showing up as Fixed disk drives rather than Removeable disks and it causes problems for them when using some Boot apps. Does Windows see your SanDisk drive as Removeable or Fixed? If Fixed it might explain the Porteus boot problem.

Re: Porteus sgn file not found when booting from USB

Posted: 01 May 2015, 03:38
by francois
@rcrfs:
Follow donalds advice and report:
you could clone the one that boots (Lexar)
onto the non booting SanDisk using the dd command.


For dd command to create iso, see;
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1043014

Code: Select all

dd if=/dev/sdx of=/path/to/iso/usb-image.iso
For the dd command to copy from iso see:
http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php?t=3318

Code: Select all

dd if=/path/to/iso/usb-image.iso of=/dev/sdy bs=4M;sync

Re: Porteus sgn file not found when booting from USB

Posted: 01 May 2015, 03:53
by rcrsf
@Bogomips:
ii. When I moved the SanDisk's sgn file to the Lexar usb, the Lexar still boots. Those two sgn files look identical.
iii. I tried changing file name to SanDisk.sgn and entered the cheatcode. Upon reboot, message "Searching for SanDisk.sng file" is followed by same error: "Porteus data not found".
i. I'm not sure what's meant by "md5sum of SanDisk can be made by Porteus running on Lexar usb"

@Ed_P:
-When I plug the SanDisk into my Windows 7, on "MyComputer" it's listed under "Devices with removeable storage".
-When I purchased the SanDisk, it had a trashbin and an exe (for encryption) on it. That's why I reformated it (to empty it).

@francois and donald
I will try that next and report back. Thanks for the instructions.

Re: Porteus sgn file not found when booting from USB

Posted: 01 May 2015, 05:11
by Ed_P
rcrsf wrote:@Ed_P:
-When I plug the SanDisk into my Windows 7, on "MyComputer" it's listed under "Devices with removeable storage".
-When I purchased the SanDisk, it had a trashbin and an exe (for encryption) on it. That's why I reformated it (to empty it).
Ok. That removes that as a potential cause.

Yes, there are some SecureAccess files and folders on most SanDisk drives, 3 .exes and 3 folders plus an autorun.inf, all which I removed via Windows Explorer but there is no trashbin file or folder that I am aware of.

Re: Porteus sgn file not found when booting from USB

Posted: 01 May 2015, 13:34
by Bogomips
rcrsf wrote:@Bogomips:
ii. When I moved the SanDisk's sgn file to the Lexar usb, the Lexar still boots. Those two sgn files look identical.
iii. I tried changing file name to SanDisk.sgn and entered the cheatcode. Upon reboot, message "Searching for SanDisk.sng file" is followed by same error: "Porteus data not found".
i. I'm not sure what's meant by "md5sum of SanDisk can be made by Porteus running on Lexar usb"
@rcrsf
  1. In a previous post of yours you mentioned you had checked the md5sum on the SanDisk usb. So what I meant was form the Porteus system after booting from Lexar usb

    Code: Select all

    md5sum /mnt/sdxy/<whatever it is you had checked on SanDisk usb>
    Here /mnt/sdxy, being where the SanDisk is plugged in
  2. this was just part of the step by step instructions for changing the name of the 'sgn' file on SanDisk :)
  3. Afraid I wasn't very clear here. Meant booting from Lexar usb, and entering 'sgnfile=SanDisk.sgn' upon boot-up.

Re: Porteus sgn file not found when booting from USB

Posted: 04 May 2015, 15:10
by rcrsf
Sorry for the delay. On the road for a few days.

@francois and donald

I used the dd command as you mentioned:
.. Afterwards, initially the cloned SanDisk USB wouldn't even boot. So I went to /boot and ran "sh Porteus-installer-for-Linux*"
.. After running that installer, the Porteus login screen would appear (showing boot choices), but upon selection of an option I again get the "Porteus data not found" error.

@Ed_P:

Yes, I formatted to get rid of the SecureAccess files. There may not have been something called "trashbin", but after doing the format I now have to do shift+delete (permanently delete) to delete anything on the USB.. so there was some sort of trashbin functionality before formatting.

@Bogomips:

For the md5sum, I just meant that I checked the md5sum of the ISO that I downloaded from porteus.org to confirm that it wasn't corrupted during transfer. Sorry for the confusion.

P.S.:
I also tried reformating the SanDisk from GParted. Didn't make a difference.

Re: Porteus sgn file not found when booting from USB

Posted: 04 May 2015, 16:58
by beny
from the lexar that run porteus plug in the sandisk and in console fdisk -l in this way we have to know the real size format and more of the sandisk key,this is the first step, and if you use dd or another way to move data into the sand disk you have to redo the linux installer or the windows installer i think, because the media change name

Re: Porteus sgn file not found when booting from USB

Posted: 06 May 2015, 21:43
by Ed_P
@rcrsf

Ok, I'm with you. I think you are referring to the $RECYCLE.BIN folder. I believe there is a setting in Windows that can disable that on a drive. I'm not in Windows at the moment so I will check later.

Re: Porteus sgn file not found when booting from USB

Posted: 31 May 2015, 15:43
by uyduruq
Hi everyone,

I have same issue with Sandisk 32gb usb 3.0 drive. (SanDisk 32GB CZ43 Ultra Fit USB 3.0 )

The problem is seen when the computer is just powered on; I mean If I reboot the computer, porteus boots as usual. But if I try to boot from power off state, I get "porteus data not found" message. And in command shell, I see that only local harddrives are listed under /mnt .

I have tried fat32,ntfs and ext2 but same problem. It seems this is related with sandisk firmware, but no idea how to overcome.