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[solved] isohybrid problem

Sat Jan 14, 2012 10:36 pm

Dec.16 build and earlier (back to Nov 26) are isohybrids. Dec 27 and Jan 08 builds are not

The last couple of builds were supposed to be isohybrids, but they are plain isos. Still investigating the cause. Snapshot is supposed to do this for you, but you can fix it with:
Code:
isohybrid snapshot-20120108_1042.iso
or
isohybrid refracta-606_20111227.iso
then dd the resulting image to your usb stick, and it should boot.

An easy way to check if the iso is isohybrid or not is to open it with hexedit. If it starts with several pages of zeros, it's not isohybrid.
.

Re: isohybrid problem

Sun Jan 15, 2012 12:38 am

Problem fixed in refractasnapshot-base and refractasnapshot-gui, version 9.0.2-3
New debs available at github - https://github.com/fsmithred/refracta
(or 'git pull origin master')

Re: isohybrid problem

Sun Jan 15, 2012 6:40 am

sorry to disappear from chat but life interrupted

I wanted to tell you that the snapshot I made with the jan8 release was not a hybrid either....but...well...

I will try the new debs and report back.
Last edited by meandean on Sun Jan 15, 2012 7:04 am, edited 1 time in total.

Re: isohybrid problem

Sun Jan 15, 2012 7:03 am

good to go!

Re: isohybrid problem

Sun Jan 15, 2012 1:55 pm

Code:
isohybrid 'snapshot-20120108_1042.iso'
dd if='snapshot-20120108_1042.iso' of='/dev/sdX'

works fine here, the stick boots to Refracta system.

More verbose with progress bar:

Code:
isohybrid -v 'snapshot-20120108_1042.iso'
dd 'if=snapshot-20120108_1042.iso' | pv -fprt -s 700m | dd of='/dev/sdX'

Observations:

The (installed) system sees the stick as a cdrom and mounts it in /media/cdrom

Gparted sees the entire medium as "unallocated space" Therefore it seems impossible to use the stick for anything other than one iso (can't do persist, save data, edit menus) Presumably any attempt to make a partition will trash the isohbrid function as it will write a new partition table. A bit unfortunate, for a 16GB device! But that is (presumably, I never used it before) the nature of isohybrid.

Any method of live usb gives excellent performance speed compared to a CD

Need to watch out, using dd, best not be root and do
Code:
dmesg|tail

just after plugging the stick to be sure of what /dev/sdX actually is

Re: [solved] isohybrid problem

Mon Jan 16, 2012 10:39 pm

Isohybrid is good if you just want a quick and easy way to boot the iso for installation without burning a CD. If you want persistence and the ability to use the entire usb stick, your way (described above) and my way (downloadable) are better.
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