very dumb question regarding flash drive for OS

[WarheadsSE]

You can use a swap file, a partition isn't necessary

[regder]

I buggered something up. Tried to reformat to a smaller size and now I have no clue what's going on with the drive. I can't seem to write to it

fdisk -l shows this

Disk /dev/sda: 2000.3 GB, 2000365289472 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243197 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1024 8225248+ 83 Linux

When I go to the next step, I get the following write error

wget http://archlinuxarm.org/os/pogoplug/mke2fs
Connecting to archlinuxarm.org (206.217.130.189:80)
wget: can't open 'mke2fs': Read-only file system

[moonman]

Ok, you need to $this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'cd /tmp')
then step 4,5,6...10

[regder]

Reinstalling now.

Thanks for helping me with my dumb questions!

[regder]

Still no luck getting it to boot into arch linux. Redid the install from scratch twice now.

From what I can see, it looks like it's not mounting the hard drive. When I do fdisk -l it shows up, but when I do the df command it doesn't show

Pogoplug:~$ fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 2000.3 GB, 2000365289472 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 243197 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1400 11245468+ 83 Linux


Pogoplug:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/mtdblock2 32.0M 12.3M 19.7M 39% /
none 125.0M 4.0k 125.0M 0% /tmp

[regder]

Bueller, Bueller, Bueller?

Please?

[moonman]

What size partition did you create? It wouldn't be mounted in pogo firmware so it's fine that it isn't.
You need to manually mount it. /tmp is the only writable directory in pogo (stock firmware).
So to make other steps work you need to
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'cd /tmp')
then step 6,7 will work

[regder]

Thing is, I'm able to go through the install process without any errors now, it just won't boot into arch linux for some reason. Boots into the regular pogoplug software. If I swap out my external hard drive for a flash drive, it will boot into arch linux no problem.

Thanks my fellow Canuck!

Forgot to mention, it's a 10gb partition. Partition table is below

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 1217 9775521 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 1218 1340 987997+ 82 Linux swap

[moonman]

Ok, then the problem is partitioning of the hard drive. If you are not that familiar with command line utilities, then download a Gparted live cd and partition the hard drive with first partition being < 20GB, ext3, labeled "rootfs" then extract archlinux tarball on it as root(you can do that in pogoplug, or using the gparted livecd,just make sure you are root)

[moonman]

nevermind my last post, did not see that you edited your post.

This is strange and I am running out of ideas now. Maybe try a different hard drive? Maybe it takes too long to spin up.