Thoughts on USB booting

[H8ROADS]

I'm having a hell of a time booting from USB from one of my HP blades. Known good USB thumb drive, and multiple others I've made just to be 1000% sure have all failed. Using the ILO, I've attempted to pass through the USB drive and boot from it that way as well to no avail.

I need to boot into ubuntu so I can update the firmware on my Mellanox card. I have spare blades, so my worst case it so swap to another blade, but it sure would be nice to update this guy rather than chunk it. Thoughts on a methedology for booting that I could employ here? My only other thought has been to try a USB CD just on the off chance its thumb drives that aren't jiving, but I've had no issues with any of the other blades.

 

[Patriot]

Just passthrough the iso with ilo...

 

[Patrick]

Just passthrough the iso with ilo...

I mount LiveCDs over management interfaces all the time to do these types of tasks.

 

[H8ROADS]

Just passthrough the iso with ilo...

That's not sufficient, because I need something with writable storage. so I can copy the firmware and utilities to it for me to update. the ubuntu 12 server cd isn't a live cd as the server distros are only installers. ISOs do pass through just fine.

 

[Patriot]

That's not sufficient, because I need something with writable storage. so I can copy the firmware and utilities to it for me to update. the ubuntu 12 server cd isn't a live cd as the server distros are only installers. ISOs do pass through just fine.

So mount the update disk...

 

[H8ROADS]

Sorry, let me be specific. I need to boot to a ubuntu 12.10 server live cd (which doesn't exist), so I created one on USB with unetbootin but I can't get it to boot due to these usb issues..hence the problem. I'm looking into creating my own custom live cd now, but was looking for alternates on how to get 12.10 server booted on usb since that was my easiest option.

Also, its not as simple as mounting an update disk..there is no update disk. I have specific custom scripts and binaries which I need to have so I'm looking into merging them into the iso as well.

 

[Patriot]

I just linked the support pack update disk... That should contain any firmwares that need to be updated on all devices.

Since you want to spin your own, does your custom ISO work on another server? You said you have booted with these keys on other servers but have you done this exact thing on all of them?

 

[pricklypunter]

This might be way off course, but if nothing else works, what about booting with pixie and then running your updates?

 

[abulafia]

If you can boot ISOs but not USB, but the USB passes through functionally, perhaps boot a non writeable ISO and pass through a USB or other local storage, and then mount rw the writeable local storage somewhere on the LiveCD's created file system? Even if the mount point you need to write to exists on the temporary LiveCD, perhaps mirror the files to the local writeable area and preedit the fstab/mtab to go for the second dev/sdX?

Is this maybe a BIOS issue with booting from USBs without the hard disk flag, like Windows to Go?