Help getting tce's to persist on usb flash drive

[padr]

Hi all - this is my first post - hope I am doing things properly. I have been reading about Linux for some time and recently taken the plunge and have downloaded and successfully booted/explored live cd's for Puppy Linux, DSL and now Tiny Core. I am still very much at the learning stage !

My setup
Booting Tiny Core from CD with no problems. Can install tce's but cannot get them to persist ( saving to USB Flash Drive) across sessions/reboot.

USB drive is 2Gig. Have partitioned it, using Gparted under Puppy Linux, into sda1 and sda2 - file systems both  type ext2 - sda1 partition set as boot . Also set up tce directory on sda1 using Puppy Linux. In fact can boot Puppy from the USB so it seems the basics are in order. This post is being made from Puppy ( booted from the USB drive - I am still too much of a learner to be able to set the USB for multiboots so am only booting TinyCore from CD).

Booted from CD several time using boot code tce=sda1 and waitusb=10 but unable to get persistence of installed tce's. Booted aging using these codes but also pause bootcode to see any error messages.

Error messages obtained .
Buffer I/O error on SDA1 ( several times)
mount: you must specify the filesystem type
chown: /mnt/sda1/tce: no such file or directory

I can see sda1 in Puppy and also see the tce directory so it appears to exist and the USB appears to be operational but for some reason Tiny Core cannot mount ?

As I have said I am very much a newbie/learner and may be missing something obvious - hope the above is sufficient ( and not too long or rambling !) for somebody to advise me or point me in the right direction

Help!

[^thehatsrule^]

After a while in TC, can you mount sda1?  Anything in `dmesg`?

[padr]

Thanks for your reply

No - still cannot mount sda1 ( using Mount Tool on Control Panel ) even after a little while say 5 or 10 mins.

When I run 'dmesg' there are mutilple messages along the lines of :
"attempt to access beyond end of device
sda:rw=0,want=2040263, limit=1"

Also a number of mesages along the lines of :
"Buffer I/O error on device sda1, logical block"

In fact the Control Panel mount tool will only allow hda1 to be mounted. If I run "fdisk -l" from a root shell Hda is definitely the hard drive and sda1 the flash drive.

In case it was a hardware issue with the particular USB drive - seems unlikely given that another distro can access - I also tried booting from CD with a different usb flash drive , which is formatted as FAT32 , plugged in and could not mount it either using the control panel mount tool.

[^thehatsrule^]

What's your output of fdisk -l for the sda section?

I guess you get similar errors with your other drive?

This might help: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=359

[padr]

Thanks for your suggestion. I looked through the link you provided.

I tried deleting the partition and creating just one FAT32 partition using gparted. I then also ( belt and braces !) reformatted the usb stick again in Windows as FAT32. Still no luck however getting TinyCore to mount the USB drive.

I came across another question in LinuxQuestions -   www.linuxquestions.org/questions/printthread.php?t=318392 which seemed relevant to my problem. This suggested making sure a volume label was attached - so I did this and it resolved a quirk in the way the drive was behaving in Windows but still no luck with TinyCore.

The mount command gives a "can't read superblock" message. The Fdisk -l output is to the effect the "Partition 1 has different physical / logical beginnings (non-Linux?)"

Finally ( it is a question of persistence after all !! ) tried a different brand ( two in fact ) and success !! TinyCore TCE's now persist on the non-Transcend sticks across sessions   

So it looks like there is some issue with detection with Transcend USB sticks/TinyCore ? The Transcend sticks which I cannot mount in TinyCore work OK in Puppy linux, DSL and under Windows .

However I now have tce's carrying thorugh from one session to another so all is well for now at least - maybe the above will help to track down where the issue lies.

By the way - I did need to use the waitusb=5 bootcode

[^thehatsrule^]

Maybe you could get 'better' results if you start with a zero partition table, or just zero it out, i.e. `dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda` (or just the mbr I guess)
Then create a partition, and format it using `mkdosfs /dev/sda1` (do you know if you tried fat16, or fat32, or?)

If the above doesn't help you, then that's about all the tips I can give atm... the problem is something in the kernel, so it could be pretty hard to track down.

[curaga]

I think GParted seems to create nonstandard partitions. Cfdisk does better.
Some of the errors were because the Gparted-created partitions were larger than the device.

[padr]

Thanks to ^thehatsrule^ and curaga for your help and suggestions.

I tried the zeroout and mkdosfs option  but still not able to mount the drive.

Also came across a very similar thread where curaga was helping out earlier at dsl forums damnsmalllinux.org/f/topic-3-1-20101-15.html which had similar suggestions. It looks like the answer in this case may be simply as suggested there that different distros vary in the way they handle USB sticks.

As per my previous message I now have the tce's persisting on another brand USB stick so I am going to reluctantly leave the problem for now - maybe when my Linux knowledge is a bit more advanced I will be able to come back to it . I do have to say that this experience has taught me a lot about partitions/file systems / and the way Linux names the various devices ( hda/sda/sdb etc). In fact for any other newbie reading this thread I would say be careful to make sure which disk / partition you are working with or you could accidentally delete data which you need.

Thanks again for you help.

[padr]

For the benefit of others who may be struggling as I was (am ?) to get started I set out below my experience so far with Tiny Core. I am very much a newbie and I am using the experience to try to learn more about Linux

Here is how I got PPR/TCE working for me

I boot from CD and store extensions on USB sticks.Using this setup:

1. When booting for the first time you need to include a boot code ( when asked) as follows  "tce=xxxn" ( do not include the "") where xxxn represents the name of the device/partition where you want to store the extensions. For me my USB stick is sdb1 so that is what I enter but you will need to check out the appropriate name for your system/device ( the name can change depending on the order you insert USB sticks etc.)

2. Having booted into TinyCore you can then use the app browser to browse and install selected extensions - they should be automatically saved on the USB stick in a directory called tce .

3. On subsequent boots they will appear and be available for use without having to download them again. You will probably need to specify a bootcode of waitusb=5 on these subsequent boots to give the system time to find the extensions. I do not think it is essential to also use the tce bootcode on these subsequent boots as my understanding is that tinycore scans for an existing tce directory automatically.

I also found that some brands of USB sticks worked whereas others did not.

I hope this helps. I found I had to proceed on a trial and error basis so you do need to be very careful if you are creating or deleting partitions as if you are not sure about drive/partition names you could easily accidentally damage your main drive / OS.

If anything I have posted above is incorrect or misleading hopefully somebody more expert will pick up on it  so that us newbies will not go too far wrong !

[mikshaw]

the way Linux names the various devices ( hda/sda/sdb etc).

I always get a little nervous when formatting USB devices for that reason.  In fact, it isn't always just USB.  I have one distribution that got my CD and DVD swapped...it took several minutes to realize why it kept telling me there was no media in the drive.

1. When booting for the first time you need to include a boot code ( when asked) as follows  "tce=xxxn"

Maybe this is splitting hairs, but I would say the word "need" is a bit strong.  If you've already download extensions before you install, you can create a tce directory and drop the extensions into it.  After that point TC should automatically detect the directory (assuming it can read the device and filesystem).  Of course, your solution is a simpler one, and results in a tiny piece of a second taken off boot time, but the one sacrifice you must make is having to find out what that device name is in TC before using it.

[gax]

yes, this is just what happens with my system:
I boot from CD with two USB stick(s) / SD-card(s) in card-readers (connected to a hub already at power-on) and get them randomly attached as sda1 and sdb1 when running TC,
whereas with DSL I always get them in the same order, just depending on which slot they are attached to (for months now).

[tobiaus]

if it helps, you can use the uuid to represent the usb device with the latest version.

that means not only is it always the same from boot to boot, but from computer to computer, regardless of how many drives you're using or what order you plug them in.

[padr]

Update:

Downloaded TinyCore 2.0rc1 tonight and used the iso and unetbootin to create a bootable USB stick ( one of the original two Transcend sticks which I could not previously mount). Success ! . Tried also mounting the other previously unmountable stick - it also is now mountable.

Looks like there is more support in TC2 for these pendrives ?. Either way I'm happy as they are now working for me. 

From browsing the forum topics I notice that a lot of the newbie type queries seem to relate to persistency questions - might it be possibe to have a subforum for newbie/beginner questions ? For anyone else trying to get their head around tce/tcz/etc I found this reply http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=1218.msg7558#msg7558  particularly helpful.

Thanks for help to date

padr