[arch-general] Help with making a bootable usbkey from arch for ssd drive firmware update

Mike Cloaked mike.cloaked at gmail.com
Tue Jan 15 16:57:56 EST 2013


If anyone can help or suggest links to solve the following problem I would
appreciate it.

I have a new system built with an Intel DQ77KB motherboard with a Crucial
mSATA M4 SSD, and a Crucial SATA M4 SSD drive. I want to install arch on
this system and indeed preparing a usbkey with the archiso install media
using dd to write the usbkey boots just fine.

Also the latest PartedMagic iso written to a usbkey also boots fine so that
I can format the SSD drives (both of them). Looking at the system profile I
can see all the peripherals, including all the RAM and both SSD drives.

However before starting the arch install I want to update the firmware on
the SSD drives. This is available from the Crucial website either as a
Windows 7/8 .exe (which I can't use) or a "manual" firmware update file
which is an iso (containing memdisk from syslinux, and a floppy image file
boot2880.img)

Running the "file" command on the boot2880.img file after loop mounting it
gives:

# file /mnt/iso/boot/isolinux/boot2880.img
/mnt/iso/boot/isolinux/boot2880.img: x86 boot sector, FREE-DOS Beta 0.9
Bootloader KERNEL.SYS, code offset 0x3c, OEM-ID "FreeDOS ", sectors/cluster
2, root entries 240, sectors 5760 (volumes <=32 MB) , sectors/FAT 9, serial
number 0x2b6112fe, label: "BOOTABLE   ", FAT (12 bit)

Writing the iso to a usbkey won't boot - the screen goes blank and nothing
happens when I write the iso to a usbkey with a FAT32 key with the boot
flag.  I have tried isolinux and that does not seem to work. I have tried a
bootable grub2 usbkey and that does not work - all are prepared from a
working arch linux laptop.

I have following numerous "recipes" for making the usbkey from various
sources on the web and none seem to work at all!

The odd thing is that for syslinux I can't even get a menu item on the
screen when booting the key - nor for grub 2.

I have used two different makes of usbkey - both 4GB....same result - and
both keys will boot fine with the archiso or PartedMagic.

I don't know if I am doing something fundamentally stupid but this is
driving me nuts! I have used gparted, as well as fdisk, as well as trying
parted to reformat the usbkeys. Nothing I do seems to work!

There must be a good step-by-step guide somewhere on how to get a usbkey
with sysylinux to boot the firmware updater - which seems to have a floppy
image file (boot2880.img) and uses memdisk to boot it - though the version
on the iso file is about two year old whereas arch current memdisk in
syslinux is up to date.

If anyone can help advise on how to make a bootable usbkey to execute this,
I would really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.
-- 
mike c


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