F12 LiveUSB wont boot or install

[hiberphoptik]

During the bootup process of the LiveUSB (created from the latest i686 live iso downloaded today 2009-10-19) the proess dies with this message:


booting init 3:
--------------------
No root device found

Boot has failed, sleeping forever
--------------------

just booting with normal grub params:
---------------------
tried to remove a fb that we did not own

Boot has failed, sleeping forever
---------------------

I have found a few bugzilla entries and forum posts with similar messages but none of the suggested work arrounds will get me past the error, any advice?

thanks!:confused:

[Taoye]

I'm getting the same problem using the F12 beta live CD.

Attempting to boot normally results in the "tried to remove a fb that we did not own" error.

[AdamW]

how did you write the image to the USB stick?

can you see what component is printing the 'tried to remove a fb that we did not own' message?

[Taoye]

I created the USB stick using UNetBootin-windows-372. I could try creating the usb stick from my Ubuntu machine if anyone thinks that would make a difference.

The error verbatim:

[drm:drm_mode_rmfb] *ERROR* tried to remove a fb that we didn't own

Boot has failed, sleeping forever.

[AdamW]

Please try with livecd-iso-to-disk , the Fedora-recommended tool, instead...using unetbootin is kind of outside our installation guidelines.

[hiberphoptik]

I used the fedora provided tools and get that error, I am able to get success with a nightly build, however the beta ISO will not boot at all

creating a bootable USB from an ISO here:

http://alt.fedoraproject.org/pub/alt/nightly-composes/desktop/

will work for me, however no matter what I do the broadcom wifi will not go (tried rpmfusion packages as well as the official broadcom firmware that worked in F10 and 11)

If you are still getting this error with the beta live USB try one of the nightly build isos

good luck!

[Taoye]

Okay, I created a USB stick using the Fedora provided live CD creator for Windows, and it successfully booted. I suppose it was a problem involving whatever unetbootin does. It's the first time I've had an issue with unetbootin!

[Jongi]

i have found that sometimes I have to manually run syslinux on the usb stick when running unetbootin. even after it completes successfully.

i still prefer it though as it allows the greatest flexibility across distros no matter which distro you want the USB stick to boot.

[AdamW]

right, I'm not saying unetbootin is a bad tool or anything, just that it's a bit beyond the control of Fedora so we mostly just worry about whether it works with the livecd-tools .

[bennachie]

Wherever possible, I use dd to make my usb sticks, and the process worked just fine with F12-beta. It's good to see that more and more distros are being formulated as hybrid ISOs, since that removes a major potential glitch from the overall installation exercise. Well done the Fedora developers.

However, just out of interest, I burned an F12-beta usb stick from the basic LiveCD iso using unetbootin 3.7.2, and got exactly the same error message as noted above. I haven't yet tried applying unetbootin to a DVD image but that might be worth checking.

[ozjd]

I had a similar error (I think, was a couple of weeks ago) but changing the boot order in bios to put the usb first and hard drive second solved it. After that I was able to boot and install without problems.

[bennachie]

No, that's a different issue, not related to the distribution or to unetbootin. Both the original contributor and I had already set the USB stick as the first priority in the BIOS list, and the LiveCD boot process was under way when the error occurred.

[AdamW]

it may be worth reporting this issue to the unetbootin developers, if it seems to affect everyone who tries to use unetbootin.

bennachie: the new hybrid ISO support is indeed great, but it's worth noting livecd-iso-to-disk is still the way to go if you want to use the persistent /home feature.

[pankajp]

I am unable to boot the live usb of F12 beta created using liveusb-creator on fedora 11. I get some sort of error like cannot find image linux. I tried creating the live usb twice but still no luck. Any ideas
EDIT: I tried the 64 bit version if thats of any relevance

[MuadNu]

I am unable to boot the live usb of F12 beta created using liveusb-creator on fedora 11. I get some sort of error like cannot find image linux. I tried creating the live usb twice but still no luck. Any ideas
EDIT: I tried the 64 bit version if thats of any relevance

+1. I have tried both unetbootin and liveusb-creator and I get the same issue. This didn't happen with F12 alpha.

[AdamW]

can you try it with livecd-iso-to-disk (the command line tool) and the --format --reset-mbr parameters, to make sure it's not something about the pre-existing layout of the key that's breaking it?

[pankajp]

I got over the problem by using the dd method of the hybrid iso. Its really cool for one time installation if you dont need any data on the usb.

[carltp]

it happened for me with both liveusb-creator as well as unetbootin. thinking my usb was wacky, i tried again using an F11 iso - this worked. am now about to try the command line above. will report back.

[wellandpower]

I have a similar problem, except for me I have installed a new system from a DVD and on boot the computer cannot find the boot and "sleeps forever".

I am just about to try and install again to see if I can get it to work.

[wellandpower]

Still the same. "no root device found". going to search Bugzilla.

[MuadNu]

I got over the problem by using the dd method of the hybrid iso. Its really cool for one time installation if you dont need any data on the usb.
What's the right way to do this? I mean, what options should I pass to dd?

[carltp]

After using the command line, it worked fine:

livecd-iso-to-disk --format --reset-mbr f12-beta.iso /dev/sdX

[MuadNu]

After using the command line, it worked fine:

livecd-iso-to-disk --format --reset-mbr f12-beta.iso /dev/sdX

This doesn't work for me, I get the same error. I've tried different USB keys, and I've tried both with other distros and they work. So I'll try to use the dd method, though I'm not sure what are the right parameters to pass to it in this case.

[bennachie]

su
dd if='fedora.iso' of=/dev/sdX bs=4M

The easiest way to select the input file is to drag and drop the ISO image from the desktop (or wherever) to the terminal window. Be careful in selecting X, which identifies your USB stick. I usually check with GParted first, just to be sure. Note that you only want a single letter (b, c, d, or whatever is appropriate, not b1, c1 etc).

[MuadNu]

su
dd if='fedora.iso' of=/dev/sdX bs=4M

The easiest way to select the input file is to drag and drop the ISO image from the desktop (or wherever) to the terminal window. Be careful in selecting X, which identifies your USB stick. I usually check with GParted first, just to be sure. Note that you only want a single letter (b, c, d, or whatever is appropriate, not b1, c1 etc).

Thanks for the suggestion (and I didn't know about the drag and drop to the terminal hint, that's a good trick!).

Unfortunately, this didn't work either, and it's actually worse. When I turn on my laptop and press F12 to get the boot device menu, the computer gets frozen, seemingly while accessing the USB drive (it has a light which keeps flashing). I don't know what else to try (I've tried different USB drives already, and this one actually works with unetbootin and other distros).

[MuadNu]

I still can't install F12... I keep getting the same error, no matter what I try. Any other suggestions? (I guess I could/should file a bug).

[AdamW]

I'm not really sure - can't you do it the boring old-fashioned way and write the image to a CD? :)

[MuadNu]

I'm not really sure - can't you do it the boring old-fashioned way and write the image to a CD? :)

Not really, my laptop doesn't have a CD drive :(...

[Gödel]

Try this, it assumes usb stick is /dev/sdb, it will reset the disk so you'll lose any files on it.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=100
parted /dev/sdb mklabel msdos
parted /dev/sdb mkpartfs p fat32 0% 100%
parted /dev/sdb toggle 1 boot

Now transfer the iso image using 'livecd-iso-to-disk <iso image> /dev/sdb1' or unetbootin.

[MuadNu]

I tried this, and now I can boot, but then I get the same old error. Does anybody know what may be causing it at least?

[Gödel]

It's probably an syslinux issue, try with the livecd-iso-to-disk script on the iso image (it's in the LiveOS dir), and make sure syslinux is the latest version:

su -
yum --enablerepo=rawhide update syslinux
mkdir /mnt/iso
mount -o loop <path to>F12-Beta-i686-Live.iso /mnt/iso/
/mnt/iso/LiveOS/livecd-iso-to-disk <path to>F12-Beta-i686-Live.iso /dev/sdb1

[VernDog]

su
dd if='fedora.iso' of=/dev/sdX bs=4M

The easiest way to select the input file is to drag and drop the ISO image from the desktop (or wherever) to the terminal window. Be careful in selecting X, which identifies your USB stick. I usually check with GParted first, just to be sure. Note that you only want a single letter (b, c, d, or whatever is appropriate, not b1, c1 etc).

Thanks for this tip!.
This works great for me anyway. I never thought of doing it that way. I had the usb stick already formated to fat32.

BTW you can use a simple 'fdisk -l' to find the correct usb drive instead of having to fire up gparted. Besides I don't have it installed.

[MuadNu]

It's probably an syslinux issue, try with the livecd-iso-to-disk script on the iso image (it's in the LiveOS dir), and make sure syslinux is the latest version:

su -
yum --enablerepo=rawhide update syslinux
mkdir /mnt/iso
mount -o loop <path to>F12-Beta-i686-Live.iso /mnt/iso/
/mnt/iso/LiveOS/livecd-iso-to-disk <path to>F12-Beta-i686-Live.iso /dev/sdb1
Thanks again for your help, but I tried this and I still get exactly the same. I guess at this point I should file a bug.

[Gödel]

I can duplicate the error if I just allow a Dell laptop to auto boot from the usb stick, but If I instead hit F12 to get a BIOS boot menu and select the usb stick manually all is fine. I have seen this issue before with booting usb images of various types and some BIOSes mislabelling the disks unless you manually specify the order in someway (hitting F12 at boot for me)

Incidentally, since the iso images in F12 are all hybrid images a direct copy (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FedoraLiveCD/USBHowTo#Direct_Copy) ought to work, it will be especially useful for the DVD install images, which have required external tools like unetbootin or a messy livecd-iso-to-disk hack in previous fedoras. In fact you don't even need dd, cp will do

cp <F12-version>.iso /dev/sdb

Check the image is correctly copied using qemu:

qemu -m 512 /dev/sdb

If that boots, then it's definitely a BIOS issue with disk labelling (0x80, 0x81 etc), so try setting the usb stick as the first disk in the bios menu if you can.

[Gödel]

Ah, a further discovery ..., I can duplicate the error on my Dell laptop ("no root device found") if I restart with the usb stick plugged in. If instead I shut down then power on it boots fine. So looks like my dell bios requires a cold boot.

[MuadNu]

Thanks for your help, Godel. In my case I've been always using the boot menu. I just tried setting the USB stick as the first boot priority, but I got the same error. Also, I've tried this also after rebooting and shutting down.

I'll try your suggestion of simply using cp and then checking it with qemu later today and I'll post back.

[Gödel]

I think qemu will boot it ok, but looks like your bios is particularly fussy. You get the same sort of problem when booting floppy disk images directly copied to usb sticks, at least on certain bioses (like dell laptops).

As a last resort, you can install grub on the usb stick and boot the livecd using that. It requires a few steps since grub can't directly boot iso images, you instead copy the contents of the iso to the stick.

su -
umount /dev/sdb
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=1
parted /dev/sdb mklabel msdos
parted /dev/sdb mkpartfs p fat32 0% 100%
mkdir /mnt/tmp
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/tmp/
grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/tmp/ /dev/sdb


Then copy the contents of the iso image across:

mkdir /mnt/iso
mount -o loop <path to>F12-Beta-i686-Live.iso /mnt/iso
cp -r /mnt/iso/* /mnt/tmp/

and finally, create the file /mnt/tmp/boot/grub/grub.conf with these lines
title F12 LiveCD i686 Beta
root (hd0,0)
kernel /isolinux/vmlinuz0 ro root=UUID=ABCD-1234 rootfstype=auto liveimg quiet rhgb
initrd /isolinux/initrd0.img

The UUID of the usb stick can be found by typing 'blkid' (it will be 8 chars for fat32)

then umount /dev/sdb1, and test with qemu. That should now boot.

edit: use qemu-kvm if you have virtualisation enabled cpu, it's much faster

[MuadNu]

I just tried your suggestion. I tested it in qemu, and I could get to the grub menu, but then when I try to boot I get "error 15: file not found". I checked everything, the stick has the right files, I used the right uuid. So I'm not sure what to do next. Maybe I should just wait for the RC or the final release, though I somehow guess I'll have the exact same issue with those. Thanks again for all the suggestions.

[lio_013]

i used liveusb-creator from fc10 to creat the live usb and it boots very good
but whem im trying to install i get the following bug at the creat custom layout
partition choice

http://pastebin.com/m5ad523f6

[Gödel]

I just tried your suggestion. I tested it in qemu, and I could get to the grub menu, but then when I try to boot I get "error 15: file not found". I checked everything, the stick has the right files, I used the right uuid. So I'm not sure what to do next. Maybe I should just wait for the RC or the final release, though I somehow guess I'll have the exact same issue with those. Thanks again for all the suggestions.

File not found means grub couldn't find the files in the hd(0,0)/isolinux directory, which means something must be wrong with the partitioning. Press 'c' at the grub menu and type 'find /isolinux/vmlinuz0', it should return '(hd0,0)'. If not please post the result.

(use 'qemu -m 512 /dev/sdb' to test, or qemu-kvm if available)

[MuadNu]

File not found means grub couldn't find the files in the hd(0,0)/isolinux directory, which means something must be wrong with the partitioning. Press 'c' at the grub menu and type 'find /isolinux/vmlinuz0', it should return '(hd0,0)'. If not please post the result.

(use 'qemu -m 512 /dev/sdb' to test, or qemu-kvm if available)

I just tried it and I got "(hd0,0)". I'm not sure if this makes a difference (maybe I should have mentioned it before), but using the 64 bit version of the live cd, so I'm running qemu-system-x86_64 instead of qemu. If I run qemu I get exactly the same though (the "file not found" error).

[Gödel]

I haven't tried the x86_64 livecd, but I wouldn't expect it to make a difference. Still, that grub error is a puzzle. Can you enter each of the 3 lines in order at the grub prompt, use tab completion for the files in /isolinux to ensure grub recognises them:

root (hd0,0)

kernel /isolinux/vmlinuz ro root=UUID=ABCD-1234 rootfstype=auto liveimg quiet rhgb

initrd /isolinux/initrd0

then type 'boot', do you still get error 15 at any stage?

(If not check your grub.conf is correct)

[MuadNu]

I haven't tried the x86_64 livecd, but I wouldn't expect it to make a difference. Still, that grub error is a puzzle. Can you enter each of the 3 lines in order at the grub prompt, use tab completion for the files in /isolinux to ensure grub recognises them:

root (hd0,0)

kernel /isolinux/vmlinuz ro root=UUID=ABCD-1234 rootfstype=auto liveimg quiet rhgb

initrd /isolinux/initrd0

then type 'boot', do you still get error 15 at any stage?

(If not check your grub.conf is correct)

I found the error. By using tab completion as you suggested I figured out that in the second line I need /isolinux/vmlinuz0 ... (that is, I needed to add the 0). Now I can boot in qemu, but the booting process takes forever and I couldn't see any messages. Anyway, I need to test it now for real, but I'll have to wait a while before rebooting my laptop. I'll post back.

[Gödel]

Yes, booting with unaccelerated qemu is very slow. If I haven't got qemu-kvm I only use qemu to test the initial boot sequence is working.

(sorry for the typo, I edited to add the '0' now)

[AdamW]

lio: that looks like an actual bug in the installer, not related to this thread. Could you start a new thread, or file a bug for it? Thanks.

[MuadNu]

Now I tried it in my laptop (with my usb stick following Godel's suggestions), I could boot but... same error :(.

[Gödel]

You mean the error 'No root device found?"

Is your laptop the only machine that won't boot from the usb stick, can you boot any other machine from it?

As I said, I can duplicate the problem, but easily circumvent it by doing a cold boot, so I assumed a bios deficiency, but if this issue is unique to Fedora 12 Beta for your laptop (you say it worked ok in Alpha) then filing a bug report might be worthwhile.

Curiously, I saw this problem in the alpha snapshot releases whereas you say alpha worked ok.

EDIT: Note that you can now copy any other fedora LiveCD to the same usb stick just by repeating the 'cp -r /mnt/iso/* /mnt/tmp/' above (after mounting the livecd iso image and the usb stick on /mnt/tmp), so perhaps try copying the alpha image just to check that boots ok, then you definitely know it's a beta problem.

[nparafe]

In my case i can't boot from the usb as well from the live cd. The boot process is hanging with a message sleeping forever in both cases. I also notice that the laptop is overheating when the boot hangs. I think it is a kernel issue, because i haven't managed to boot the 2.6.31 kernel from any distro i use. (ubuntu & fedora).

[Gödel]

The issue seems to be with the "root=" part of the kernel boot line either in syslinux or grub menu. You can reproduce the error 'No root device found' by hitting 'a' at the grub boot (if you created a grub usb boot stick as described) and changing the UUID.

The default is something like root=live:LABEL=F12-Beta-i686-Live, using UUID instead ought to work, but muadnu still can't boot.

One last thing to try is labelling the fat32 partition (using mtools package) and using root=LABEL=MYLABEL

mlabel -i /dev/sdb1 ::MYLABEL

do this as root and ensure drive is unmounted, remove and reinsert afterwards. Label must be in CAPITALS for fat32.

[MuadNu]

You mean the error 'No root device found?"

Is your laptop the only machine that won't boot from the usb stick, can you boot any other machine from it?

As I said, I can duplicate the problem, but easily circumvent it by doing a cold boot, so I assumed a bios deficiency, but if this issue is unique to Fedora 12 Beta for your laptop (you say it worked ok in Alpha) then filing a bug report might be worthwhile.

Curiously, I saw this problem in the alpha snapshot releases whereas you say alpha worked ok.

EDIT: Note that you can now copy any other fedora LiveCD to the same usb stick just by repeating the 'cp -r /mnt/iso/* /mnt/tmp/' above (after mounting the livecd iso image and the usb stick on /mnt/tmp), so perhaps try copying the alpha image just to check that boots ok, then you definitely know it's a beta problem.
Yes, I mean the "no root device found" error. I just tried my USB stick in a different machine and worked with no problems.

I'm going to copy the alpha iso and see what happens (it should work, since it worked in the past). By the way, I had the alpha release installed, but after some updates (long before the beta release) I couldn't log in any more: I got the gnome login screen but everything worked amazingly slow (mouse, keyboard) and I couldn't manage to get past that.

After I try the alpha again I'll file a bug.

[Gödel]

If you can, try the relabel method with the beta first (ie change the fat32 partition label to MYLABEL, and edit the grub kernel line to 'root=LABEL=MYLABEL' as described above).

[MuadNu]

I tried the alpha release and I could boot (for some reason I couldn't install it, but that's another story). Still can't boot the beta. I filed a bug (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=532146).

[Gödel]

Did you try the relabel to MYLABEL for the beta? I'm pretty sure this bug is related to an earlier one about the "root=" part of the kernel boot line, and if you try the relabel it would confirm this, which would be useful for the bug report.

[MuadNu]

Did you try the relabel to MYLABEL for the beta? I'm pretty sure this bug is related to an earlier one about the "root=" part of the kernel boot line, and if you try the relabel it would confirm this, which would be useful for the bug report.

I somehow missed that post. I'll try it tomorrow and post back.

[JimboJones]

I've got the same problem, Acer timeline 4810T and SanDisc Micro 2GB. Relabelling and changing the kernel boot param did not work for me. I wish I new more and could give better details. If need be let me know and I'll post whatever might help.

Freakin Ubuntu 9.10 works, but I like Fedora :D

UPDATE (5 Min later): OT, but for completeness, it does boot with the cd-rom.

[AdamW]

it would help if new reporters would explain exactly how they've tried to write the image to USB. there's at least four major possibilities - livecd-iso-to-disk, livecd-creator, dd, and unetbootin - and configuration parameters fo all four.

[MuadNu]

I tried the label trick, and I still get the same result. Should I add this to my bug report? I'm not sure what this means, so I don't know what to write.

[Gödel]

There's some confusion here about the exact error generated and the method for creating the liveusb. I've been assuming "No root device found" error, which ought to be fixed by the UUID trick or a relabel. The other error (which MuadNu reports in the bugzilla) "Tried to remove a fb that we did not own" I have not seen myself, and may be a kernel issue.

For clarity, and in order for the fedora developers to really help, you should use the livecd-iso-to-disk script to install, state which version of livecd-tools you have (or state that you're using the script supplied on the iso image) and which version of syslinux.

For the record, with F12-Beta-i686-Live the only error I sometimes see is 'No root device found (followed by "Sleeping forever") if I do a warm restart rather than power off/power on on a Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop. If I instead set the usb stick up using grub and use root=UUID or root=LABEL with a custom fat32 label I never see the error. I have no boot issues on various netbooks and an AMD based desktop I tried.

[MuadNu]

To clear some of the confusion, I see both errors (I'm going to add that to bugzilla). That is, I see something like
No root device found.

Tried to remove an fb that we did not own

Boot has failed, sleeping forever

[miles]

To clear some of the confusion, I see both errors (I'm going to add that to bugzilla). That is, I see something like
No root device found.

Tried to remove an fb that we did not own

Boot has failed, sleeping forever


yeah, this is what happened on my AAO - 2 wks after I installed beta - I think it might have been related to an update (around 10/29). Happened after machine was shut off - then when it was turned on again. There is some nasty bug here.

[MuadNu]

yeah, this is what happened on my AAO - 2 wks after I installed beta - I think it might have been related to an update (around 10/29). Happened after machine was shut off - then when it was turned on again. There is some nasty bug here.
That's interesting, thanks for pointing it out. So, first, this seems to be definitely related to something with some Acer bios (how new is your AAO?) and, second, it's not only happening when trying to install, it also happens with existing installations.

[MuadNu]

One more piece of information. F12 doesn't boot, but Ubuntu 9.10 does, so I decided to try another distro. I tried Arch (the last "release"), and I got a very similar error message. It was phrased differently, but it said something like "could not find root device" and then passed me to a command prompt so that I could try to fix it (but I obviously didn't know what to do). Maybe I can use that to see what's going on if someone more knowledgeable helps me...

[MuadNu]

Here I go again... The short story: the issue seems to be restricted to the live cd. I still can't install though...

Now the long story... Today I decided to give the RC compose (or is it TC this time?) a try. Since there's no live cd at the link where I got it, I tried the netinstall and, well, it boots. The problem (which I've seen before) is that then when Anaconda starts, it doesn't find the image from which to install. The point is that it doesn't see the usb disk. (The dvd installer gives me the same error).

I tried to put the image in a partition in my hard drive and point Anaconda there. This works, the Anaconda graphical installer shows up, but after the partitioning step I get an error saying something like "cannot mount image #1".

I saw the same issue with F11 (the final release) but after all this time (and a lot of trouble installing F11) I'm not sure anymore how I solved it.

After doing this, I got the yesterday's live cd daily compose and tried it. I got the same error as before (the "no root device" stuff). Thus, this error seems to be related to the live cd and not other install methods. But, unfortunately, the other installers don't work either for me...

[AdamW]

how did you transfer it to the USB stick exactly?

[MuadNu]

For the netinstall and the dvd, I first tried unetbootin and then I tried livecd-iso-to-disk following this post (http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=205596).