problem getting usb drive to boot

[penguin128]

running 12.04 Ihave a maxtor 100g usb drive, downloaded a mageia3 iso instalation dvd ( sorry just thought I would look at it) used dd to "burn" image to usb drive, it worked, changed bios to boot usb and when it comes up it is just a black screen with a curser in top left hand corner, the isb drive is formatted to fat32 , any ideas? what else I can check? change? thnx in advance for any help';;;;;;;;

[heir4c]

Use a usb-stick to boot up with, not a usb-drive. (I never try it with a usb-drive, but if it will work use the following):
Use Multisystem or Unetbootin to make the live-usb, not 'dd'.
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/multibo...sb-from-linux/
Unetbootin: you install it via UbuntuSoftwareCenter.

[oldfred]

Moved to otherOS since not Ubuntu.

What video card. With Ubuntu I have to add nomodeset with all boots of live installers or first boot after install. Once I install proprietary nVidia driver then I do not need nomodeset.

How to set NOMODESET and other kernel boot options in grub2 - both BIOS liveCD & grub first boot ( also UEFI with grub)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1613132
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions

Never dd to another larger drive. You just erased the entire drive as you overwrote the first 700MB of the drive including old partition table. dd is ok if a smaller flash drive that you are ok with totally overwriting, but I prefer any of the other methods as dd is dangerous if you do not understand consequences.


Powerful command, but often misused and then nicknamed "dd" Data Destroyer
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ommand-362506/

[penguin128]

Thnx for the help, using the usb ONLY for additional distros,

[penguin128]

Gheez do I feel idiotic, what I tried worked only when using dd NEVER NEVER put a number behind the of= drive,,, redid the dd and rebooted to iso and up she came,,,
Thnx to all who replied

[oldfred]

If you have a hard drive or larger flash drive and want to boot a variety of ISOs, you can just install grub to device and copy as many ISO as will fit. Most ISO now will boot with grub2's loopmount, a few will not.

This will boot an ISO from a hard drive.
ISO Booting with Grub 2 from Hard drive - drs305
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/ISOBoot
Examples - you may copy & edit for your path & ISO version
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Gr...OBoot/Examples
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1549847
Boot ISO from harddrive. To install it would have to be different partition
[SOLVED] Using grub 2 to boot an iso off hard drive old examples
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1535864

On a couple of my larger flash drives I have a full install of Ubuntu as a backup way to boot and then several repair ISO, gparted, partedmagic, Boot-Repair Remix, other Ubuntu etc that I can also boot from grub with loopmount.