diskboot.img Documentation problems

[Jerry Williams]

Not sure if this is really the right group to post this to.

The docs need more work and maybe some packages need some changes as well.

http://fedora.redhat.com/docs/install-guide/fc6/en/sn-preparing-usb-media.ht
ml

I would suggest changing anaconda-runtime
/usr/lib/anaconda-runtime-mk-images.x86 to change the README that goes into
/images/README to have a link to the installation guide.

The installation guide really isn't correct when it comes to using the
diskboot.img file. Should almost include
/usr/share/doc/syslinux-3.31/README.usbkey in the installation guide.

It might have worked fine for a floppy, but the usb device has a partition
table and the image doesn't include the partition table, just a file system.

So to use the command dd if=diskboot.img of=/dev/sdd is not correct.

WARNING!!!  WARNING!!! Be very careful using these commands!
You could erase your hard drive!
You need to use dmesg to find out what the name of your usb device is.
I am using /dev/sdd which might cause problems it that is not your usb
device or is your normal hard drive device name.

The instructions I have seen look something like:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdd
/usr/lib/syslinux/mkdiskimage -4 /dev/sdd 0 64 32
which creates the /dev/sdd4 partition
Then dd if=diskboot.img of=/dev/sdd4 works fine.
Or
/usr/lib/syslinux/mkdiskimage /dev/sdd 0 64 32
dd if=diskboot.img of=/dev/sdd1

The problem that I see is that if you have a large usb device it can take a
long time to write zeros over the whole thing and then format the whole
thing just to turn around and write a small file system over it.

This is where the small 16MB flash card that came with your camera is a good
thing to use in a usb adaptor. :)

If all that needs to happen is to wipe out the partition table on the drive
then dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdd count=1 works fine.
You should look at /usr/share/doc/syslinux-3.31 to help figure out the
numbers for mkdiskimage if you have a large usb flash drive.

/usr/lib/syslinux/mkdiskimage /dev/sdd 13 64 32 is much quicker and has
enough room for diskboot.img image.  But may not work on all devices.
I had problems with a 1GB device.