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I have a Bootable USB that I created which is running basic redhat 7.5. the job of this USB is to be used as a boot device that will boot a basic version of Linux so that I can try and install an OS on a specified drive. For example:

  1. Boot from USB

  2. get into basic Linux to be used as a "File host/Repository/AdminTool"

  3. get information on the systems disk's and available storage(the bare server disks that's the USB is inserted too)

  4. Select a location to install the OS on from the basic Linux OS that is running

  5. Install the gzip.raw image file onto the specified hard drive.

For even more clarification:

  1. start linux from bootable usb

  2. choose image to install

  3. with the help of Linux, and the selected gzip.raw image, point to the systems hard drive that you want to install the new OS on

  4. execute the installation of the specified os on the specified drive.

This one is a pretty confusing one, but the idea is that I am trying to create a sort of USB drive that could be used as an OS recovery tool and a field deployment tool. I have tried a few different things, and so far the best I could come up with was Create the Bootable USB and mirror itself onto one of the system hard drives. However If I could get it to work the way intended I could esentially pick and choose whatever Images I would like to install on whichever hard drives I would like.

Thanks for your help in advance.

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  • You fail to mention any architecture, but PC mass storage requires the device to be partitioned, i.e. MBR or GPT. Linux will assign device names to each partition of the storage device.
    – sawdust
    Commented Jun 29, 2018 at 23:52
  • Hi Sawdust, I'm halfway through the project, but I was able to get the raw.gz to boot. Also thanks for your feedback but the Cool part of the raw.gz is that since it is a live image capture, it boots as is, without any need for mbr or gpt.. I successfully was able to use zcat to specify the drive location and extract the image, and then boot from the new USB. The only thing is that you have to format whatever "Device" you want as fat 32 if if linux. maybe this is where the mbr/gpt comes into play?
    – RickwhoPrograms
    Commented Jul 16, 2018 at 13:51

1 Answer 1

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Seeing as nobody was able to come back with a good solution, I figured I would post this here as I found a way to do it. In hopes of helping anyone else who has run into this unique issue! So the Raw.Gz is a live system image capture made by something like Kiwi Imaging tool, and it is simply compressed gz style. By issuing the following commands, lshw -class disk, you can see all of the disks on the local machine you are running. After finding whatever destination disk you desire, simply run:

 zcat "image.raw.gz name here"  > /dev/yourdiskhere

I was successfully able to make this work going from USB - USB, and from USB - Hard Drive. Really handy trick! The only thing to note is that you will want to make sure the destination device is formatted appropriately (fat32 exfat ntfs). Hope this helps if anybody stumbles upon it!

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