Install CentOS 6.6 Error on Boot

[1Raptor007]

Ok so here is the current situation...I have an old system (Pentium 4 / 2.66ghz / 512mb RAM / Onboard Video) and I have installed CentOS 6.6 using a bootable USB flash drive. It installed without the GUI and with the command line only. My problem is that it only boots when the original bootable USB flash drive is plugged in. If I unplug the USB and try to boot I get the following error message in white text on a black screen right after POST...

error: file not found.
grub rescue> _

Why did the install do something to the USB flash drive and make the installation dependent on the USB flash drive??? Shouldn't it load on the hard drive and not need the USB flash drive ever again???

I am so confused....any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

[gerald_clark]

Your cobbled up USB install media installed grub to the wrong drive.
Now you see why you were told to use dd or rawwrite.
You need to install grub to the hard drive.

http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/GrubInstallation

[1Raptor007]

I appreciate your help Gerald. I am using Windows 7 to create my bootable media as I do not have a running Linux box. dd and RawWrite don't appear to be compatible with Windows 7. I don't think it is the bootable media. I can install Ubuntu without a problem. I was able to increase the RAM to 1gb and I tried installing again. Attached are the screenshots that seem important. For Step One it seems like Hard Drive is the only reasonable answer. For Step Two /dev/sdb1 and /dev/sdb2 come back saying there is no image on those drives. I am pretty sure the USB is /dev/sda1 and it continues with install when that is selected.

So this time it didn't ask for a DESTINATION location but instead went into a GUI interface. The only thing that it shows is the mouse cursor on a black screen. I can move the mouse but there is nothing else happening. It has been this way for 30 minutes. Suggestions???

[gerald_clark]

Again you are ignoring instructions and doing it "your way".
Good luck.

[1Raptor007]

No, I'm really not trying to do it my way just trying to get it to work. I posted on the other thread about dd and rawrite. Can't find a Windows 7 version of that. All I find are programs talking about copying floppy disks

[TrevorH]

There are links to rawrite2 from the http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/InstallFromUSBkey article. That definitely runs under Windows 7 - I know, I've done it.

[gerald_clark]

I gave you a link to the wiki article on installing grub, which you totally ignored.

[1Raptor007]

Thank you both for your continued help. My apologies for not seeing the link to NetBSD Disk Image Tool [rawrite32] (http://www.netbsd.org/~martin/rawrite32/download.html). I downloaded it, installed it and ran it. I noticed that it didn't explicitly identify ISO files as supported but I continued anyway. I pointed it to my "CentOS-6.6-i386-bin-DVD1.iso" file (3.9gb) and wrote to my 16gb USB flash drive. So far so good. Upon booting my machine with the USB flash drive plugged in and making sure it was the first and only bootable device in the BIOS I received this...
===========================================
isolinux.bin missing or corrupt.

Reboot and Select proper Boot device
or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device
===========================================
So now it looks like the USB flash drive is not bootable. I don't see any options within rawrite32 to make the USB flash drive bootable.

To be clear I do NOT have a working version of Linux anywhere. The hard drive on the target machine has no operating system on it. It is essentially a blank disk.
Any further advice? Thank you in advance.

[1Raptor007]

Ok for this attempt I downloaded dd for windows. I thought this actually might do the trick. The first thing I did was got to command prompt and typed "dd --list". Below is what I got.
================================================
rawwrite dd for windows version 0.6beta3.
Written by John Newbigin <jn@it.swin.edu.au>
This program is covered by terms of the GPL Version 2.

Win32 Available Volume Information
\\.\Volume{7965a35e-d938-11e2-9489-806e6f6e6963}\
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume2
fixed media
Not mounted

\\.\Volume{7965a35f-d938-11e2-9489-806e6f6e6963}\
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume3
fixed media
Mounted on \\.\c:

\\.\Volume{7965a374-d938-11e2-9489-806e6f6e6963}\
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume4
removeable media
Mounted on \\.\f:

\\.\Volume{7965a375-d938-11e2-9489-806e6f6e6963}\
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume5
removeable media
Mounted on \\.\g:

\\.\Volume{7965a376-d938-11e2-9489-806e6f6e6963}\
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume6
removeable media
Mounted on \\.\h:

\\.\Volume{7965a377-d938-11e2-9489-806e6f6e6963}\
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume7
removeable media
Mounted on \\.\i:

\\.\Volume{f2cdd264-b2a8-11e4-9cbe-0019b902da8e}\
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume11
removeable media
Mounted on \\.\j:

\\.\Volume{7965a362-d938-11e2-9489-806e6f6e6963}\
link to \\?\Device\CdRom0
CD-ROM
Mounted on \\.\d:

\\.\Volume{7965a363-d938-11e2-9489-806e6f6e6963}\
link to \\?\Device\CdRom1
CD-ROM
Mounted on \\.\e:


NT Block Device Objects
\\?\Device\CdRom0
size is 2147483647 bytes
\\?\Device\CdRom1
size is 2147483647 bytes

Virtual input devices
/dev/zero (null data)
/dev/random (pseudo-random data)
- (standard input)

Virtual output devices
- (standard output)
/dev/null (discard the data)
================================================

I didn't see my USB flash drive under NT Block Device Objects so I tried the next best option "\\?\Device\HarddiskVolume11" because my USB flash drive is in fact drive letter J on my Windows 7 box.
So I issued the following command >>>> dd if=CentOS-6.6-i386-bin-DVD1.iso of=\\?\Device\HarddiskVolume11
After 1 hour of copying it finished with ...
===============================================
rawwrite dd for windows version 0.6beta3.
Written by John Newbigin <jn@it.swin.edu.au>
This program is covered by terms of the GPL Version 2.

7870464+0 records in
7870464+0 records out
===============================================
I inserted it into my target system and started it and I received the following ...
===========================================
isolinux.bin missing or corrupt.

Reboot and Select proper Boot device
or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device
===========================================

So through all of this I assume that the ISO to USB isn't writing properly. How can I find the right location for dd to work? Do I need to unmount it or something? Any help appreciated.

[TrevorH]

Have you checked the md5sum of your downloaded iso image against the list on the mirrors to make sure your download is correct?