Can't boot to Porteus USB if installed on HD? [Solved]

[rgroner]

I have a test system with an on-board 4 GB SATA Flash drive that I installed Porteus 3.0.1 (32-bit) onto.

I then took a 16 GB USB drive with Porteus 3.0.1 (32-bit) installed on it, and attempted to boot to it.

I use the boot selection feature of the BIOS to ensure that I am booting to the USB drive. The Porteus boot menu that comes up does belong to the USB drive (I added "U" to the end of the boot menu title in the porteus.cfg). I choose the top option, which is to boot to the Desktop (LXDE).

When the booting is completed, however, I realize that I have booted to the onboard SATA Flash drive. I can tell because the files on the desktop are different.

Here are the combinations I have tried:

If I have both drives connected and enabled, boot the system, and choose to boot to the onboard SATA drive, then the SATA drive Porteus boot menu comes up, and if I select LXDE, it boots to the SATA drive. I notice that the USB drive has not been mounted on /mnt.

If I boot the system, choose to boot to the USB drive, then the USB drive Porteus boot menu comes up, and if I select LXDE, it boots to the SATA drive. Again the USB drive is not mounted.

If I choose to boot from the USB drive, and choose "Always Fresh" instead of the LXDE desktop, then it boots to the USB drive like it should.

If I go into the BIOS and completely disable the onboard SATA flash drive, then it boots to the USB just fine.

If I remove the USB drive, then it boots to the onboard SATA drive just fine.

In other words, it seems that no matter what I choose as far as a boot device, it is using the /porteus directory on the onboard SATA drive if it can. Is that working as intended? I would have thought that it would use the /porteus directory on the drive you chose to boot to, regardless.

I know that I can specify where the /porteus directory comes from via cheat codes, so i could tell the USB key to always try to use /dev/sdb1....but won't that cause problems when I try booting to a system that has no on-board SATA drive (because the USB key would then be mapped to /dev/sda1, right)?

I basically want to be able to boot and run from the USB key no matter what, whether the system has a hard drive in it with Porteus installed, or not.

[francois]

The Porteus boot menu that comes up does belong to the USB drive.
What is the porteus.cfg syslinux bootloader syntax on your usb key?

[beny]

hi i think you have to use the uuid chetcode that check device by the uuid number and not by the sda or sdb when one usb key is plugged in, the device name change so the uuid determine the unique id of device,one thing change the name of the changes directory because data can be mixed if the changes folder have the same name.

[rgroner]

I know I could use the UUID code to indicate what specific drive to get the porteus changes from, but my goal in developing this USB drive is to then have something we can copy to X other USB drives and use them all the same way. If I have a UUID hard-coded in there, then that would prevent me from doing that, right?

I hadn't thought about renaming the changes directory on the USB key....that's something that would transfer ok onto every other USB key, and it would then be different from the standard porteus install that might be on the on-board SATA hard drive on any particular system. I'll try that today.


porteus.cfg on USB key

Code: Select all

PROMPT 0
TIMEOUT 90
UI vesamenu.c32
DEFAULT lxde
MENU BACKGROUND porteus.png
MENU TITLE Porteus-3.0.1 32bit (USB)

MENU WIDTH 30
MENU MARGIN 2
MENU ROWS 10
MENU HELPMSGROW 17
MENU TIMEOUTROW 28
MENU TABMSGROW 15
MENU CMDLINEROW 22
MENU HSHIFT 4
MENU VSHIFT 5

	menu color screen	37;40      #00000000 #00000000 none
	menu color border	30;44      #00000000 #00000000 none
	menu color title	1;36;44    #ffF6FF00 #30003f07 none
	menu color unsel	37;44      #ffffffff #00000000 none
	menu color hotkey	1;37;44    #ff8037b7 #00000000 none
	menu color sel		7;37;40    #ff111B78 #003f7fbf none
	menu color hotsel	1;7;37;40  #ffaf67f7 #003f7fbf none
	menu color scrollbar	30;44      #00000000 #00000000 none

	menu color tabmsg	31;40      #ffB6F538 #00000000 none
	menu color cmdmark	1;36;40    #ffff0000 #00000000 none
	menu color cmdline	37;40      #ffffffff #ff000000 none
	menu color pwdborder	30;47      #ffff0000 #00000000 std
	menu color pwdheader	31;47      #ffff0000 #00000000 std
	menu color pwdentry	30;47      #ffff0000 #00000000 std
	menu color timeout_msg	37;40      #ff809aef #00000000 none
	menu color timeout	1;37;40    #ffb72f9f #00000000 none
	menu color help		37;40      #ffD5F538 #00000000 none
	menu color msg07	37;40      #90ffffff #00000000 std


LABEL lxde
MENU LABEL Graphics mode (lxde)
KERNEL vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=initrd.xz changes=/porteus login=root
TEXT HELP
    Run Porteus the best way we can.
    Try to autoconfigure graphics
    card and use the maximum
    allowed resolution
ENDTEXT

LABEL fresh
MENU LABEL Always Fresh
KERNEL vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=initrd.xz nomagic base_only norootcopy login=root
TEXT HELP
    Normally Porteus saves all changes
    to the /porteus/changes/ directory
    on the boot media (if writable)
    and restores them next boot.
    Use this option to start a fresh
    system, changes are not read from
    or written to any device
ENDTEXT

LABEL copy2ram
MENU LABEL Copy To RAM
KERNEL vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=initrd.xz copy2ram login=root
TEXT HELP
    Run Porteus the same as above,
    but first copy all data to RAM
    to get a huge speed increase
    (needs >768MB)
ENDTEXT

LABEL text
MENU LABEL Text mode
KERNEL vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=initrd.xz 3 login=root
TEXT HELP
    Run Porteus in text mode and
    start the command prompt only
ENDTEXT

LABEL pxe-boot
MENU LABEL Porteus as PXE server
KERNEL vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=initrd.xz pxe login=root
TEXT HELP
    Run Porteus as usual, but also
    initialize a PXE server.
    This will allow you to boot Porteus
    on other computers over a network
ENDTEXT

MENU SEPARATOR

LABEL plop
MENU LABEL PLoP BootManager
KERNEL plpbt
TEXT HELP
    Run the plop boot manager.
    This utility provides handy
    boot-USB options for machines
    with vintage/defective BIOS
ENDTEXT

LABEL hd
MENU LABEL Boot from the first hd
COM32 chain.c32
APPEND hd0 1
TEXT HELP
    Don't start Porteus at all, but
    rather run any operating system
    installed on the first partition
    of the hard drive
ENDTEXT

[Ed_P]

If you clone the drive the uuid will be copied also.

[fanthom]

@rgroner
this is a rare case when 'sgn=' cheatcode could become handy so please use it instead of 'from=UUID:'

[rgroner]

thanks for the suggestion. I appended "_usb" to the end of the .sgn file name on the USB drive, and then added the sgnfile= cheatcode. During boot it says it is looking for that .sgn file, but can't find it.

Is the presence of the SATA drive somehow keeping the USB drive from being mounted and accessed, even though it is the boot drive?

[rgroner]

My mistake! I booted a few more times and found a few spelling errors and that I hadn't really changed the .sgn file name. I've tried it a few times now and it's working!

Thanks for the help, this appears to do exactly what I need!