Clonezilla Live USB won't boot
Package: live—boot
Version: clonezilla-live-20210609-hirsute-amd64
Machine: mac-mini 2018, 64GB RAM, 1TB SSD
Created the usb on Windows using Rufus 3.14 and on Linux using the following procedure:
GNU/Linux Method A: Manual
WARNING! Confirm you
have the correct path name before executing commands!
Failure to do so could cause loss of data or your
GNU/Linux not to boot!!!
/dev/sdd is a device path name
/dev/sdd1 is a partition path name
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- Download
the Clonezilla Live zip file.
- If you already have a FAT or NTFS partition on
your USB flash drive then skip to the next step (3).
Otherwise prepare at least a 500 MB partition formatted with
either a FAT16/FAT32 or NTFS file system.
If the USB flash drive or USB hard drive does not have any
partition, you can use a partitioning tool (e.g. gparted,
parted, fdisk, cfdisk or sfdisk) to create a partition with a
size of 500 MB or more.
Here we assume your USB flash drive or USB hard drive is
/dev/sdd (You have to comfirm your device
name, since it's _NOT_ always /dev/sdd) on your
GNU/Linux, so the partition table is like:
# fdisk -l /dev/sdd
Disk /dev/sdd: 12.8 GB, 12884901888 bytes
15 heads, 63 sectors/track, 26630 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 945 * 512 = 483840 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000c2aa7
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdd1 * 1 26630 12582643+ b W95 FAT32
Then format the partition as FAT with a command such as
"mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sdd1"
WARNING! Executing the mkfs.vfat
command on the wrong partition or device could cause your
GNU/Linux not to boot. Be sure to confirm the command before
you run it.
# mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sdd1
mkfs.vfat 2.11 (12 Mar 2005)
- Insert your USB flash drive or USB hard drive
into the USB port on your Linux machine and wait a few seconds.
Next, run the command "dmesg" to query the device name of the
USB flash drive or USB hard drive. Let's say, for example, that
you find it is /dev/sdd1. In this example, we assume /dev/sdd1
has FAT filesystem, and it is automatically mounted in dir
/media/usb/. If it's not automatically mounted, manually mount
it with commands such as "mkdir -p /media/usb; mount /dev/sdd1
/media/usb/".
- Unzip all the files and copy them into your USB
flash drive or USB hard drive. You can do this with a command
such as: "unzip clonezilla-live-2.4.2-32-i686-pae.zip -d
/media/usb/"). Keep the directory architecture, for example,
file "GPL" should be in the USB flash drive or USB hard drive's
top directory (e.g. /media/usb/GPL).
- To make your USB flash drive bootable, first
change the working dir, e.g. "cd /media/usb/utils/linux", then
run "bash makeboot.sh /dev/sdd1" (replace
/dev/sdd1 with your USB flash drive device name), and
follow the prompts.
WARNING! Executing makeboot.sh with the
wrong device name could cause your GNU/Linux not to boot. Be
sure to confirm the command before you run it.
The messages are the same in both cases:
This Live System image failed to boot.
Please file a bug against the 'live—boot' package or email the Debian Live
mailing list at (debian—livefllists.debian.org>, making sure to note the
exact version, name and distribution of the image you were attempting to boot.
The file /boot.log contains some debugging information but booting with the
debug command-line parameter will greatly increase its verbosity which is
extremely useful when diagnosing issues.
live-boot will now start a shell. The error message was:
Unable to find a medium containing a live file system
BusyBox v1.30.1 ( Ubuntu 1:1.30.1-6ubuntu2) built-in shell (ash)
Enter 'help' for a list of built-in commands.
(initramfs) help
There is no way to see the contents of boot.log at the (initramfs) prompt
and the file is gone after rebooting linux so what it contained is anyone's guess.
Also, there is no guidance about how or where to add the debug command-line parameter so, not being a mind-reader, I didn't so that.
Thank you,
Dan Essin
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