Re: Install from USB flash drive

["Thomas Schmitt" <scdbackup@gmx.net>]

Hi,

me:
> > This is obviously because there is no MBR in the System Area of
> > the ISO image.

Robert Millan: 
> There should be, I implemented it.  As long as grub-mkrescue is used
> to produce the images.

I see.
mini.iso bears Preparer ID "XORRISO-0.5.6 2010.05.04.100001 ..."
and several strings "GRUB 1.98+20100804-14".


> But I think it's only used for ISO images produced directly by D-I
> (i.e. not debian-cd).

There seem to be different production paths:
Daily debian-testing-kfreebsd-amd64-businesscard.iso is by xorriso 1.1.0.
The image debian-6.0.2.1-kfreebsd-amd64-netinst.iso , which caused this
thread, was made by genisoimage.
Both have no MBR. Both ISO production programs could include one.


So it would be mainly about asking debian-cd to produce a MBR boot image
and to tell genisomage or xorriso to include it (by option -G).

If i understand my elderly copy of grub-mkrescue right, then there
is created a general boot image part:
  grub-mkimage -d ${pc_dir}/ -o ${core_img} --prefix=/boot/grub/i386-pc \
        iso9660 biosdisk
which gets prepended an El-Torito specific header:
  cat ${pc_dir}/cdboot.img ${core_img} > ${iso9660_dir}/boot/grub/i386-pc/eltorito.img
and a header (MBR) for disk booting:
  cat ${pc_dir}/boot.img ${core_img} > ${embed_img}

I would assume that the first two steps already happen when the
ISO images get produced.
The third step would be quite trivial then.


Have a nice day :)

Thomas