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icw

- icw
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:19 pm

## Making snapshot bootable on USB

Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:31 pm

Hello all, I'm trying to recover a hard drive on my computer that had debian. Luckily, I made a snapshot with Refracta before but I'm having issues trying to make a bootable USB.
From my windows virtualbox of debian, I've tried to setup a bootable USB with no success. I've downloaded the packages from http://sourceforge.net/projects/refracta/files/tools/ so I'm assuming that is correct versions to use. I'm using this versin of refracta: refracta2usb 0.9.7 2014-12-27
I made a screenshot of what I've done so far and the error messages it has thrown at me.
http://imgur.com/L8EGXCJ
My only speculation is that maybe this doesn't work too well through virtualbox and permissions start getting in the way. Not really sure of what to make of it.
fsmithred

- fsmithred
- Posts: 2101
- Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:13 pm

## Re: Making snapshot bootable on USB

Mon Aug 03, 2015 10:00 pm

I avoid using usb with virtualbox. It's supposed to work, but my VM usually crashes when I try to do it.
Anyway, I've seen that error before, but at the moment, I don't remember what the problem was. If you're running Debian 8 (Jessie) then that's the problem. You need to use a newer version of refracta2usb. There's one in the Testing folder at sourceforge with "sid" in the name that should work. If not, use the beta that's here -
http://distro.ibiblio.org/refracta/file ... a06.tar.gz
Unpack the tarball, change to the directory that's created, su to root and run ./snapshot2usb. You might need to install archivemount first.
If you run the version you have with the -d option, you'll get a lot more output in the error log, which is in ~/.refracta/refracta2usb.log. There might be some clues there.
You can ignore the gtk errors.
icw

- icw
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- Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:19 pm

## Re: Making snapshot bootable on USB

Mon Aug 03, 2015 11:16 pm

Awesome, yes I'm using debian 8 jessie and that beta tar file ended up getting me past those errors. Currently installing now. Appreciate it
icw

- icw
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- Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:19 pm

## Re: Making snapshot bootable on USB

Tue Aug 04, 2015 9:53 am

Getting black screen with flashing cursor on bootup. Followed the instructions on the website for refracta2usb for preparing a usb. I chose the ISO2 menu choice that works with findiso.
I noticed in the snapshot2usb Help ". A skeleton
syslinux folder will be copied to the flash drive with the menu
config and help files"
Yet, I don't see a folder on that usb drive. Here is a screenshot of my usb after refracta2usb. It contains two screenshots of the USB folders: http://imgur.com/btiyddn,7k7Ji9T
icw

- icw
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:19 pm

## Re: Making snapshot bootable on USB

Tue Aug 04, 2015 10:01 am

Going to try this for configuring grub bootloader:
boot-refracta-or-other-debian-live-iso-from-grub2-menu-t367-10.html
Sigh, no luck. Here is the command I put in. /dev/sdb2 is the first partion on the usb drive that I suppose was to hold the boot loader. I played around with different formats for that particular partition from fat32, ext2 with no success. I get this kind of result...
grub-install --boot-directory=/media/icw/A7E0-DCCC/boot/ /dev/sdb2
Installing for i386-pc platform.
grub-install: warning: File system `fat' doesn't support embedding.
grub-install: warning: Embedding is not possible. GRUB can only be installed in this setup by using blocklists. However, blocklists are UNRELIABLE and their use is discouraged..
icw

- icw
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:19 pm

## Re: Making snapshot bootable on USB

Tue Aug 04, 2015 8:06 pm

I'm just having a terrible time. Trying this option now...
dd if=/home/icw/Desktop/snapshot/snapshot-20150701_2155.iso of=/dev/sdb
Any fool proof tutorials I can use to upload a debian 8 snapshot to USB and boot it from?
fsmithred

- fsmithred
- Posts: 2101
- Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:13 pm

## Re: Making snapshot bootable on USB

Wed Aug 05, 2015 1:24 am

The syslinux folder should be in the root directory of the flash drive. The kernel, initrd and other stuff should be in a directory that you got to name when you chose ISO2. And in that case, the other stuff should be the iso file itself.
Put grub in the mbr of the device, not in a partition. Use /dev/sdb instead of /dev/sdb2 as the target.
Now that you've used dd to put the isohybrid image on the stick, if you want to use one of the other methods, you'll need to zero the first few megabytes of the stick. There's more info in the refracta2usb help.
fsmithred

- fsmithred
- Posts: 2101
- Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:13 pm

## Re: Making snapshot bootable on USB

Thu Aug 06, 2015 5:36 pm

Had any luck with it?
For the first situation (no syslinux directory) you should be able to fix it by running Reinstall Bootloader in the Tools menu.
If you try with snapshot2usb again, please run it with the -d option, and if it doesn't work, let me see the error log. Thanks.
icw

- icw
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2015 8:19 pm

## Re: Making snapshot bootable on USB

Fri Aug 07, 2015 6:28 pm

First of all, thank you Red for trying to help me. Means a lot. I certainly got further with your help.
Second, I did not get it working. I ended up just reinstalling from scratch. Currently using clonezilla to make images. I couldn't get refracta to work in two days I toyed with it. I'm simply ignorant of how to manually do these things and clonezilla appears to be more automated for my special needs :/
Thanks again.
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