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Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 15th, '13, 13:17
by dwhite
I downloaded Mageia 2 again, but I find I haven't any CD-R's, CD-RW's, DVD-R, or even a DVD-RW's that work. Frankly I'm lucky if I get one use, I think light degrades them, so I though I'd put it on an old 1 Gb USB stick I had knocking around.
Problem is both the old 1Gb drives I've got the MBR's have gone faulty. I read on the Net that the MBR's commonly corrupt on old small drives left empty . I Downloaded that Fedora 'iso on a stick' app, and I've got Mageia live :cry:

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 15th, '13, 14:12
by doktor5000
dwhite wrote:I Downloaded that Fedora 'iso on a stick' app, and I've got Mageia live :cry:

Assuming that this is a question how to get Mageia on the flash drive: https://wiki.mageia.org/en/Installation ... h_stick.3F
For the broken MBR that doesn't matter as they get overwritten in the process :)

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 15th, '13, 15:18
by dwhite
Great the old 'MBR' doesn't matter, so I take it that it that DD scans the drive and writes a new MBR dependent on its volume :D. It is command line though.

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 15th, '13, 15:44
by doktor5000
Well the MBR is included in the image ... Well not really an MBR, let's just call it bootloader/bootsector.
As for your first post, i don't understand if your last comment "It is command line though" is really a comment or some question behind it?

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 15th, '13, 19:39
by dwhite
Command line is something I shy away from, Knowing how doesn't mean you should, I know how but I definitely shouldn't my disability makes it risky saying that I often do sometimes the outcome is good but mostly I break it.

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 16th, '13, 11:41
by dwhite
I'm having a right job. I couldn't find any pre-burned discs the MBR of the Net book I'm using corrupted so I haven't got a working box. Currently this netbook says can't find ksmserver and throws me out even log'd on in Icewin consul root task kde4 stil no ksmserver I'm going to search on my last mandriva disk(2010) that's got KDE4. Still haven't got my 64-bit box working yet.

Would #urpmi --auto-update fix faulty file?
I don't know why But now it works

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 16th, '13, 13:14
by doktor5000
Sorry, the way you write is too confusing, at least for me. First you said the MBRs of the flash drives are corrupted. Now you say the MBR of you netbook is corrupted.
But if MBR is corrupted, how can anything even boot up, as far as login manager/desktop environment? If you don't clearly describe what the problem is,
i fear i can't help you properly.

And no, urpmi --auto-update will not fix any broken file, it would only update any installed package, if there were newer ones in the currently configured repos.
If you know the faulty package, you could re-install it via
Code: Select all
urpmi --replacepkgs packagename


For a graphical tool to write images to flash drives AND which is compatible with Mageia images, i can't help you
as i don't use those, i could only hint you to the windows tools if you had a windows available.

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 16th, '13, 15:28
by dwhite
You're probably finding it hard to follow my train of thought, I think about many things at once flitting from one to the other I'm also thinking of other unrelated things I am trying to put a live disto on a thumb drive, because I re-install to fix problems I've caused with the software. The Netbook thing just got in the way, but that is at least working now.
Anyway if update coincidently just happened to replace the phrase that was broken in the file
Anyway I've ordered two 5Gb thumb-drives that I''ll install the full 32-bit disto on one and the 64-bit on the other.

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 18th, '13, 22:37
by dwhite
The 5Gb thumb drives have arrived and the fedora program won't write to them either, saying
the drives checksum value isn't correct. Must be this system ? not the new drives should be right???

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 18th, '13, 22:52
by doktor5000
Can you at least post the error message, in context with what you actually did? Your post doesn't make much sense,
if that fedora program can't write to the flash drive, it cannot check it's checksum. It can check the checksum of
the image file you want to write, against a checksum you supply (the same as when burning discs) and/or against the checksum
of the written image (on the flash drive or on a CD/DVD or whatever, doesn't matter)

If it says during writing that the checksum is incorrect, than that sounds like bad flash drives.
It doesn't matter if they are new or not, they could still be failing.

Have you tried to write the image with another box, to the same flash drives for comparison?

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 19th, '13, 17:27
by dwhite
I've just had to reinstall, small problems the only 32-bit installation disc I had turned out faulty ( I usually use a 64-bit desktop but I fried the chip when I tried to upgrade the HHD to an SSD boot partition and a HDD /home). The whole had installation turned out the installation getting worse each time I used it. This time I used a newly downloaded disk I waited for a good checksum.

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 19th, '13, 19:24
by doktor5000
Ok, but what about the status of your original problem in this thread?

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 19th, '13, 21:02
by dwhite
Once I get that Fedora 'iso on a stick' app to open and I'll try to put Mageia 2 on it
then I'll be somewhere.

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 19th, '13, 22:15
by dwhite
I've been tying to use the command line but without success yet.

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 19th, '13, 23:25
by doktor5000
As you don't post the commands used and what errors you encountered, i'm afraid i can't help you any further ...

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 20th, '13, 12:25
by dwhite
When I get the app to load I will

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 20th, '13, 12:54
by dwhite
Mageia-2-i586-DVD.iso selected
Verifying filesystem...
Setting /dev/sdb1 label to LIVE
Verifying ISO MD5 checksum
There was a problem executing the following command: `checkisomd5 "/home/dwhite/Mageia-2-i586-DVD/Mageia-2-i586-DVD.iso"`
A more detailed error log has been written to '/tmp/liveusb-creator.log'
ISO MD5 checksum verification failed

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 20th, '13, 18:48
by doktor5000
dwhite wrote:A more detailed error log has been written to '/tmp/liveusb-creator.log'

Mind to post the contents? My crystal ball is a bit foggy about that detailed error log ... :roll:

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Feb 28th, '13, 03:29
by Ken-Bergen
For what it's worth Mageia uses Hybrid ISO's and Fedora does not so thier application will likely fail.

For the Mageia and Mandriva Hybrid ISO's you'll have to use dd or Mandrivaseed.sh.
A major advantage of Mandrivaseed.sh is that it only sees USB devices so there's no possibility of overwriting a hard drive as can happen with dd.

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Mar 1st, '13, 11:31
by dwhite
Will look for a seed rpm then

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Mar 2nd, '13, 01:46
by Ken-Bergen
dwhite wrote:Will look for a seed rpm then
I don't think there's an RPM even for Mandriva.
Go to
ftp://distrib-coffee.ipsl.jussieu.fr/pu ... /iso/2010/
Download mandriva-seed.sh, make it executable, double click on the file in a file browser and follow the prompts.

Re: Mageia 2 on a Flash

PostPosted: Mar 5th, '13, 18:14
by dwhite
I did manage to find one but it needs libseed[-===3.2.0.1]