"Create a USB startup disk" does not create bootable USB sticks - GRUB Error 17

[John Ward]

This is prevalent in Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex BETA.

PROBLEM: I receive GRUB Error 17 when I create one of these bootable USB sticks and try and boot off it.

METHOD: I updated Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex on the 18th October and found in the Administration menu under System a new entry called "Create a USB startup disk". I have a 4GB stick (OCZ Rally II) and I ran the programme (which I had to do administratively) and selected an Intrepid Alpha ISO that I had on an external HD and it detected successfully my 4GB stick.

I clicked Create and it went through the process, finished, and I tested it in a laptop that has no problem with USB stick booting and I get GRUB Error 17 on screen and thats where it stops.

I've tried creating the stick with the Documents and Settings area enabled at 300MB and without any Documents and Settings area and still the same.

The MBR is not being created correctly or something like that.

[robsstartrek (robs-startrek)]

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2008/10/06/usb-ubuntu-810-install-from-windows-non-persistent/

have you tried to use the info on this page to get grub working , this method works for me with usb drives 4GB drive I used
sandisk branded used

[robsstartrek (robs-startrek)]

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2008/10/15/ubuntu-810-persistent-flash-drive-install-from-live-cd/

theirs also this one too but I like the other one more, I am tried of burning disks with linux, and prefer to just use a usb drive for them now since you can update a usb drive better than a readonly disk etc..

[Antoine Amarilli (a3nm)]

Seems to be a proper bug.

[Antoine Amarilli (a3nm)]

Woops, sorry for the above unhelpful message...

I also tried to create a bootable USB stick using usb-creator, and am getting GRUB error 17 when trying to boot off the stick on at least two different machines. It seems that GRUB is not correctly configured on the stick.

[John Ward (automail)]

Personally I think you're right Antoine, this IS a bug and not just a
problem created by myself. The operations are simple:

STEPS:
1. Insert a USB drive into your computer or laptop.
2. Run "Create a USB startup disk".
3. Select an ISO disc image of an Ubuntu Operating System (for example).
4. Select or confirm your USB key in the bottom section and make sure it has
enough space (I use empty 4GB sticks).
5. Optionally, set Documents and Settings size or turn this option off.
6. Click Create or whatever it is.
7. Theoretically, when operation is finished you should have a fully
functioning bootable USB stick with an Ubuntu installation on it ready to be
inserted into a machine and booted off.

REALITY: When process is finished the USB key is not bootable on machines
that can boot from USB sticks. GRUB Error 17 appears immediately during boot
process.

This suggests to me that this programme to the ordinary user, while easy to
use and difficult to make mistakes does not in fact create successful
bootable USB sticks and that is a bug.

[Matthew Williams (matthew-d-williams)]

Exact same problem here but using the final release of 8.10.

[John Ward (automail)]

A batch of updates around the 31st October included an update for usb-creator which seemed to solve the problem for me. If you've updated your Ubuntu installation up to that date at least (if not up to today) you should have the updated usb-creator and hence I recommend you try making a USB disk again and see how it goes.

[Chamila Mihiripenna (chamila-mihiripenna)]

I downloaded the .iso on Saturday (8th Nov 2008). I guess that's the latest
version. I tried several times and still it crashes after reaching 99%

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 5:50 AM, John Ward <email address hidden> wrote:

> A batch of updates around the 31st October included an update for usb-
> creator which seemed to solve the problem for me. If you've updated your
> Ubuntu installation up to that date at least (if not up to today) you
> should have the updated usb-creator and hence I recommend you try making
> a USB disk again and see how it goes.
>
> --
> "Create a USB startup disk" does not create bootable USB sticks - GRUB
> Error 17
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/285713
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

[John Ward (automail)]

So the creation of the startup USB stick actually crashes? Possibly you should re-download the ISO image or use another ISO image from another Linux distribution, if that doesn't crash then there probably a problem with the 8.10 image you downloaded. Thats the quickest thing to try.

[Antoine Amarilli (a3nm)]

Matthew Williams: I also used the final release.

John Ward: I used the Live CD with no updates. The Live CD worked fine, so it seems unlikely that the image was broken, and I used the CD as the image to install on the key.

[petri (stenudde-gmail)]

I have the same problem, boot with USB stalls with Grub error 17 with no change to edit grub.

I have tried this with different Live CDs with or without other drives plugged the result is always the same: error 17.

A little bit annoying to see the status "Invalid" at the top of this page. This would have been a nice way to show folks at work "how nice Ubuntu is, it installs even on USB flash drive!".

[Antoine Amarilli (a3nm)]

I can't see why this bug should be invalid. Changing status to "New".

[Evan (ev)]

Please do not post additional issues in this bug report, it makes it very hard to track bugs. Rather, please file them as separate bugs.

Regarding error 17 in GRUB, I'm assuming you intentionally or unintentionally installed GRUB to your USB disk at one point as usb-creator uses syslinux, not GRUB. Regardless of how it got there, usb-creator handles this scenario in 0.1.11 by writing syslinux to the MBR.

Can someone who was experiencing this issue please try usb-creator from my PPA (https://launchpad.net/~evand/+archive) and report back here on whether or not it fixes the issue?

Thanks

[Antoine Amarilli (a3nm)]

Hi Evan,

I don't think I installed GRUB on the USB key after using usb-creator. I'm pretty sure I rebooted straight away after using usb-creator. However, it might be possible that a GRUB install was present on the key *before* I used usb-creator.

I don't have time to retry the installation right now, sorry (but thanks for your help).

[John Ward (automail)]

Possibly I had Backtrack 3 on this stick in the past and it probably installed GRUB. But I'm thinking, shouldn't usb-creator clear out the stick completely (well at least MBR info) and install it's own MBR freshly without keeping conflicting MBR's / other crap on the stick that will cause this problem, or is this a bug in itself.

Whenever I install Backtrack 3 on any stick, it never fails in telling me that it will "...destroy any previous MBR on the stick so be careful etc." Why can't usb-creator do this.

[petri (stenudde-gmail)]

I added the repository lines and upgraded usb-creator to Evan Dandreas version. After 30 minutes the creation had advanced to 22% (tried about three times) so it didn't work for me. I uninstalled usb-creeator, unticked the deb-lines and installed the "original" version.

This time the creation took about 15-20 minutes and this time it did work. I remember it did it quite faster at first NO GO -versions. The grub I had left was from previous "real" installation of Ubuntu on the flash drive. Obviously the usb-creator doesn't create a fresh MBR as John Ward says but Evans version does.

apt-get doesn't remove every depedencies when uninstalling a program and maybe there was something good left from Evans version. Or the 30 minutes trials at the beginning did it.

[John Ward (automail)]

I'm surprised that your image transfer took so long, transferring an image to my sticks (OCZ Rally II's) takes about 2 - 3 minutes.

Anyway, apart from your unfortunate problems with Evan's version, I'll give it a shot as well and report back.

[John Ward (automail)]

Before I installed Evan's version, I tried "Create a USB startup Disk" once more on two USB drives - a Kingston Data Traveller II [4GB] and an OCZ Rally II [4GB] -

Before I started, I ran GParted [To install "sudo apt-get install gparted" - it then should be in System -> Administration as Partition Editor] and formatted the sticks with a fresh FAT32 file system.

On the OCZ I created a "Documents and Settings" area of about 400MB and didn't create any on the Kingston key.

Restarted my machine and everything booted and loaded fine using both sticks, the "save my changes persistence file" is genius as well, although thats for another day. Did updates recently come down for usb-creator. The last time I created sticks it cured the problem with Error 17 and I got the Ubuntu selection screen (success?) but as soon as I picked the first option, Ubuntu started loading and ran into ACPI errors. This time around I used the exact same image file but did it on a different computer and it made successful sticks that booted the whole way into Ubuntu. Thats weird in my opinion.

[aurelieng (aurelien-grosdidier)]

@John Ward : did you notice if your key was booting using syslinux or grub ?

[John Ward (automail)]

I'll test it now and tell you, I do see a quick thing pop up before the menu
appears and I'm pretty sure it says it there.

2008/11/28 aurelieng <email address hidden>

> @John Ward : did you notice if your key was booting using syslinux or
> grub ?
>
> --
> "Create a USB startup disk" does not create bootable USB sticks - GRUB
> Error 17
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/285713
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in "usb-creator" source package in Ubuntu: Incomplete
>
> Bug description:
> This is prevalent in Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex BETA.
>
> PROBLEM: I receive GRUB Error 17 when I create one of these bootable USB
> sticks and try and boot off it.
>
> METHOD: I updated Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex on the 18th October and found in the
> Administration menu under System a new entry called "Create a USB startup
> disk". I have a 4GB stick (OCZ Rally II) and I ran the programme (which I
> had to do administratively) and selected an Intrepid Alpha ISO that I had on
> an external HD and it detected successfully my 4GB stick.
>
> I clicked Create and it went through the process, finished, and I tested it
> in a laptop that has no problem with USB stick booting and I get GRUB Error
> 17 on screen and thats where it stops.
>
> I've tried creating the stick with the Documents and Settings area enabled
> at 300MB and without any Documents and Settings area and still the same.
>
> The MBR is not being created correctly or something like that.
>

[John Ward (automail)]

Very quickly I notice SYSLINUX appear before the menu. So it's SYSLINUX obviously.

[Vit Svarc (vs-pb)]

I had the same problem, usb-creator didn't overwrite the boot sector.
Version from ppa archive overwrites the sector correctly with syslinux.

[Adam Niedling (krychek)]

Petri has replied to Evan's request. Setting back to new.

[Adam Niedling (krychek)]

I'm trying to create a startup disk on a 16gb kingston pendrive and I get this error message: "Non-System disk or disk error. Replace and strike any key when ready." Is this the same issue? I also tried to reformat it as fat32 but it didn't work either.

[Terrax (tball-es)]

I tried installing Evan's usb-creator (usb-creator - 0.1.11~ppa1).
But I can't run it:

:~$ usb-creator
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/usb-creator", line 21, in <module>
    from usbcreator.gtk_frontend import GtkFrontend
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/usbcreator/gtk_frontend.py", line 25, in <module>
    import gnomevfs
ImportError: No module named gnomevfs

I'm running kubuntu 8.10 with kde 4.2... The usb-creator in the repository works fine.

[rkh (bobhughesemail)]

I encountered something like this as well. I used a fresh from the box 4gb drive, went to Create a USB startup disk, tried to install xubuntu 8.1 on it. However, I received a message like Adam Niedling -"non-system disc," etc and not the grub 17 error.

What worked was reformatting to fat32, partitioning the drive and then doing Create a USB startup disc.

[Nikolaus Rath (nikratio)]

Looking through the comments, it seems that usb-creator does not install a new MBR.
I can confirm this for Intrepid. Steps to reproduce:
 1. Manually install grub on the USB drive
 2. Verify that grub boots correctly
 3. Run usb-creator.
 4. Try to boot from the USB drive. It only gets up to "GRUB". But if the MBR had been installed, it shouldn't even get there but directly start syslinux.