https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=726756 https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=726756#c1 Matt Barringer changed: What |Removed |Added ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Status|NEW |NEEDINFO InfoProvider| |howard.bryan.webb@gmail.com --- Comment #1 from Matt Barringer 2011-11-07 11:02:18 UTC --- Could you try writing the image to your USB key using dd, to see if this is an Imagewriter bug, or a general bug with the ISO? This is the first time installation DVDs have been hybrid isos, so it might be a problem there. dd if=openSUSE-DVD-Build0025-i586.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=1M Should do the trick (but be careful about the device path you're writing to!) -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=726756 https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=726756#c3 Matt Barringer changed: What |Removed |Added ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Status|NEW |NEEDINFO InfoProvider| |snwint@suse.com AssignedTo|mbarringer@suse.com |bnc-team-screening@forge.pr | |ovo.novell.com Summary|imagewriter: produces an |12.1 hybrid isos are "not |image on USB that is "not |readable by the |readable by the |partitioning tool parted" |partitioning tool parted" | --- Comment #3 from Matt Barringer 2011-11-07 13:57:35 UTC --- Steffen, are you the right person to assign this to? -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=726756 https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=726756#c5 Steffen Winterfeldt changed: What |Removed |Added ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Status|NEEDINFO |NEW CC| |snwint@suse.com InfoProvider|snwint@suse.com | --- Comment #5 from Steffen Winterfeldt 2011-11-07 17:28:42 CET --- That's normal. isohybrid creates a partition table that looks strange to some partitioning tools (1st partition starts at sector 0 instead of >= 1). When you 'dd' the iso to the usb disk, just don't attempt to modify it. It's not necessary anyway. To use the usb disk in a normal way later, wipe the partition table and create a new one. -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=726756 https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=726756#c7 --- Comment #7 from Bryan Webb 2011-11-07 19:19:46 UTC --- I assume comment #5 is to me, the reporter... Thanks for the rapid feedback! I'm not sure that "looks strange to some partitioning tools" is or should be normal. Why? (A) USB sticks are becoming more popular than CD/DVD media,and (B) it is NOT that the partition table looks strange to some partitioning tools, it is that the consequent error messages are scary to the user, and (C) the level of expertise required to deal with the consequences of this situation is quite high. Rationale: (1) Originally, to create the disk, I used imagewriter. Later at your request, I tried dd. Same results. (2) I never tried to modify the ISO image. I just tried to show you that the image is bad, according to YaST2->DiskPartitioner/parted, and fdisk. (3) I investigated this area because of the problem reported in Bug#728634, a real killer for me. (4) Regarding "To use the usb disk in a normal way later, wipe the partition table and create a new one"... (a) I found that, as expected, fdisk can fix it (though it complains explicitly about the problem as noted above). (b) Yast2->DiskPartitioner is more problematic. In addition to the initial warning I mentioned, where it says: The partitioning on disk /dev/sdc is not readable by the partitioning tool parted, which is used to change the partition table. You can use the partitions on disk /dev/sdc as they are. You can format them and assign mount points to them, but you cannot add, edit, resize, or remove partitions from that disk with this tool. Indeed, using right click on /dev/sdc1, there is no option to "remove" the partition, but there is one to "delete" it. Try that and you get another scary popup. [inconsistent wording bug] If you try to "delete" /dev/sdc, a popup confirms it. However... /dev/sdc1 is NOT removed from the list, AND attempting to now "Add Partition" to /dev/sdc yields another scary msg, and refuses to add the partition. I did not see a way to format /dev/sdc using Yast->DiskPartitioner. I could create a new partition table, but then it asked "which type?" MSDOS or GPT? Which to choose? No Help available from DiskPartitioner on this point (and I haven't tried it). (5) You might say, "Well, go plug it into your Windows7 box and fix it there". That doesn't work. Windows7 recognizes it is unusable, offers to format it for you, then fails. The USB stick is unusable, unless you know about fdisk. OK, there's a bunch of problems here, and putting the currentISO image on a USB stick is a good way to unit test a bunch of different programs, however I submit that the user has got to be a professional sysadmin or developer to work around this issue. Who else knows about fdisk? Or would click the "Expert" button in DiskPartitioner? The problem appears to be an imagewriter issue to the normal user, and imagewriter has been promoted by the openSuSE project. If this is not causing the problem in Bug#728634, *I* can get by. But I bet a bunch of other people can't. P.S. Do you suppose the bad ISO image format is why imagewriter on Windows7 throws a popup at the end of the write operation saying that it failed? -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.

https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=726756 https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=726756#c9 --- Comment #9 from Steffen Winterfeldt 2011-11-17 15:38:08 CET --- The chosen way (to produce an iso that has also a partition table and can be accessed as disk) is a compromise to make it easy to the user to get a bootable usb media to install from. There are other ways (like with the mkbootdisk script provided on our iso) that are technically more perfect but seem to be too complicated for general use. Just copying the iso has its shortcomings, as you can't really re-partition the device, not all disk space is used, etc.) but accomplishes its task which is to provide an installation medium. The described effects are all known and have been discussed at length at the respective mailing lists at the time isohybrid was released (afaik). In summary: the isohybrid way is not perfect - but works surprisingly well. -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.novell.com/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are on the CC list for the bug.