[IDEA] Boot XBian from USB

[djEthen]

Hi,

Was reading that raspbmc supports USB installation which is more stable and less prone to crashes and can overclock to 1ghz without corruption. so any plans for this?

Regards,

[rikardo1979]

this option was always here
Start from USB

[djEthen]

I looked there but i dint find it before..
i feel dumb now

[kraleksandr]

So, I need to install xbian to SDcard with Installer for windows, then boot up my pi with this sdcard, then from my pi execute dd image to external drive, then modify /boot/cmdline txt. Right?

[CurlyMo]

Yes

[kraleksandr]

I do this and now it not boot says something like bad block device. I executed this
dd if=file.img of=/dev/sda2
and changed root location in /boot/cmdline.txt

Or I must dd to /dev/sda, then resize and create my current partitions?

[CurlyMo]

can you do a:

Code:

fdisk -l /dev/sda2

[kraleksandr]

It says that there is gpt and I need use something else to manage partitions.
Before dd this hdd has: MBR, ntfs(primary),ext4(primary).
Now - MBR, ntfs(primary),unformatted

[CurlyMo]

The easiest way is:
- Install XBian img to your SD card
- Boot xbian
- Login to shell with ssh
- dd if=/dev/mmcblk0p2 of=/dev/sda2
- Change /boot/cmdline.txt

This only copies the /root partition to your USB drive.

[kraleksandr]

What you mean by "Then copy only the /root partition to your USB drive."?

[CurlyMo]

I didn't phrase that sentence correctly

[kraleksandr]

Boot from class 10 SDcard: 65s
Boot from 250G HDD ext4: 4m 34s
D'oh ©

[CurlyMo]

Those i my experiences as well , still booting from SD is quit slow. I get 35 seconds here.

[namtih]

I wanted to test an usb installation today. How can I verify that the usb drive is really used?
My current setup:
1. Used win32diskimager to restore the img file to the usb drive.
2. Used win32diskimager to restore the img file to the SD card.
3. Changed SD card commandline.txt to "root=/dev/sda2"
4. Connected both devices and booted
5. But after exiting XBMC, I get the following output:

Terminal

root@xbian ~ # df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs 15469552 706896 14756004 5% /
/dev/mmcblk0p2 15469552 706896 14756004 5% /
tmpfs 39700 268 39432 1% /run
tmpfs 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
tmpfs 10240 0 10240 0% /dev
/dev/sda1 34662 10409 24253 31% /media/usb0
/dev/sda2 653228 610124 36452 95% /media/usb1
tmpfs 79400 0 79400 0% /run/shm
/dev/mmcblk0p1 34662 10409 24253 31% /boot
root@xbian ~ #
root@xbian ~ #
root@xbian ~ # more /boot/cmdline.txt
dwc_otg.fiq_fix_enable=1 sdhci-bcm2708.sync_after_dma=0 dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=tty2 root=
/dev/sda2 rootfstype=ext4 elevator=deadline rootwait quiet
root@xbian ~ #

As / is still labeled with "/dev/mmcblk0p2" it's still using the SD card, isn't it?
Did I miss anything?

[CurlyMo]

Why is there a newline after root= ?