How to Create an Oracle Hardware Installation Assistant USB Flash Drive Manually on a Linux (Red Hat/SUSE) System With Syslinux

Before You Begin

• This procedure requires the use of parted utility version 1.8.6 or later. Do not use earlier versions of parted.

• You should have already downloaded the Syslinux and Oracle Hardware Installation Assistant archive files. See How to Get the Syslinux and Oracle Hardware Installation Assistant Software.

1. Extract the contents of the syslinux-version.tar.gz archive file using the following command:

   # tar -zxvf /path/syslinux-version.tar.gz

   where path is the path to the directory that contains the Syslinux archive file and version is the Syslinux version number.

2. Insert the USB flash drive into a working USB 2.0 port.
3. Use the tail command to identify the USB flash drive’s device name.

   # tail /var/log/messages

   You should see the device name (such as, sda or sdb). Example output is shown below:

   Nov 12 13:19:29 server kernel: scsi 4:0:0:0: Lexar, Inc. USBdisk PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
   Nov 12 13:19:29 server kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] 1030750208 512-byte hardware sectors (1030 MB)
   Nov 12 13:19:29 server kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
   Nov 12 13:19:29 server kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
   Nov 12 13:19:29 server kernel: sdb:
   Nov 12 13:19:29 server kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
   Nov 12 13:19:29 server kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0

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   Caution - Possible unintentional data loss. Be sure to confirm and make a note of the device name of the USB flash drive (/dev/sda, /dev/sdb). The instructions listed here require you to delete existing partition(s) on the USB flash disk. Making a mistake in identifying the device might cause you to erase a hard disk.

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4. Create a single boot partition on the USB flash drive using parted, as follows:

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   Note - This procedure requires the use of parted utility version 1.8.6 or later. Do not use earlier versions of parted.

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   Note - These steps require superuser (su - root) access.

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   1. If Linux has automatically mounted the device, unmount it first using the following commands:

      # umount /dev/sdX1

      where X is the drive letter for the USB flash drive (for example, /dev/sda or /dev/sdb), and 1 indicates the first partition.

   2. Use parted to delete all partitions and create a new boot FAT32 partition:

      # /sbin/parted /dev/sdX

      where X is the drive letter for the USB flash drive (for example, /dev/sda or /dev/sdb).

      The parted command prompt appears.

   3. Enter the following commands in the order listed and follow the prompts to create your boot primary partition:

      • (parted): mklabel

        You are prompted to create a disk label type. If msdos is not listed as the default, you need to enter msdos at the appropriate prompt, as shown in the example below:

        Warning: The existing label on sdx will be destroyed and all 
        data on this disk will be lost. Do you want to continue?
        Yes/No: yes
        New disk label type? msdos

      • (parted): mkpartfs

        Creates a new partition on the disk. Answer the prompts to confirm that this is the primary partition, fat32 format, spanning the entire disk minus the last megabyte (starting at 1, and ending at -1). Example output is shown below:

        Partition type? primary/extended? primary
        File system type? [ext2] fat32
        Start? 1
        End? -1

      • (parted): set 1 boot on

        Sets the boot flag for this partition.

      • (parted): set 1 lba on

        Sets the lba (Linear Block Addressing) flag for this partition.

      • (parted): print

        Displays the current settings for the new partition. Example output is shown below:

      Model: Lexar, Inc. USBdisk (scsi)
      Disk /dev/sdb: 1031MB
      Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
      Partition Table: msdos
      
      Minor   Start   End     Size    Type     Filesystem  Flags
       1      16.4kB  931MB   1031MB  primary  fat32       boot, lba
      (parted)

      • (parted): quit

        Quits the parted utility.

5. Navigate to the Syslinux mbr directory:

   # cd path/mbr

   where path is the directory to which you extracted Syslinux.

6. Locate the Syslinux master boot record file mbr.bin in the mbr directory and write it to the disk using the following command:

   # cat mbr.bin > /dev/sdX

   where X is the drive letter for the USB flash drive (for example, /dev/sda or /dev/sdb).

7. To create a label for the USB device, enter the following command:

   # mkfs.vfat -n OHIA /dev/sdX1

   where X is the USB device identifier (for example, /dev/sda or /dev/sdb) and 1 indicates the first partition.

8. Navigate to the Syslinux unix directory:

   # cd path/unix

   where path is the directory to which you extracted Syslinux.

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   Note - For later versions of Syslinux, the unix directory might be replaced with a linux directory. If so, replace the unix directory name with linux.

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9. From the Syslinux unix directory, enter the following command:

   # ./syslinux /dev/sdX1

   where X is the drive letter for the USB flash drive (for example, /dev/sda or /dev/sdb), and 1 indicates the first partition.

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   Note - In the next step you need to specify the mount point. If autofs is running, it might have auto–mounted the drive partition to some other mount point. If this happens, unmount it by entering the command:

   umount /dev/sdX1

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10. Mount the drive to a mount point by entering the command:

    # mount -t vfat /dev/sdX1 /mnt

    where X is the drive letter for the USB flash drive (for example, /dev/sda or /dev/sdb), and 1 indicates the first partition. For this example, the mount point is /mnt.

11. Extract (unzip) the contents of the HIA-version-usb.zip archive file to the USB flash drive by entering the following command:

    # unzip -q -d /mnt ~/path/HIA-version-usb.zip -x “source/*”

    where path represents the path to the directory where the .zip file is located, and version represents the Oracle Hardware Installation Assistant version number. The “source/*” parameter excludes the any source files from the extraction to save time and disk space.

12. Unmount the USB flash drive:

    # umount /mnt

13. Remove the flash drive from the client machine.

    The USB flash drive is now ready to boot the Oracle Hardware Installation Assistant application.

Next Steps

How to Boot the USB Flash Drive and Launch Oracle Hardware Installation Assistant