Problems installing CentOS 7 with flash USB

    This article discusses the difficulties that a user may encounter when installing CentOS 7 from a USB flash drive, and also shows some solutions.

    More recently, on April 1, 2015, a new version of the CentOS operating system was released, namely 7 (1503).
    There are several installation options for this system: network installation, as well as * .iso images in versions from “minimum set” and “LiveCD” to “all inclusive”. However, when you try to install, you can come across some difficulties.

    The first difficulty. Using UltraISO
    For those who dealt with previous versions, for example, 6.6, the question of installing this system might not arise, because the process is quite simple: the image is recorded using the UltraISO program on a USB flash drive and successfully installed.

    With version 7, everything is not so simple: it turned out that when you try to open this image, UltraISO displays the following:

    Figure 1. The total size is 6150KB, while the image in the "Everythyng" version takes about 7GB

    Naturally, the attempt to record such an image to flash ended in failure: When you try to boot from USB Flash, nothing just happens.

    The complexity of the second. Using Fedora LiveUSB Creator
    The installation guide for RHEL 7 (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) suggests using the Fedora LiveUSB Creator utility, its interface is shown in Figure 2:


    Figure 2. LiveUSB Creator

    The process of unpacking the image itself is standard, it does not cause problems. Downloading from such a flash is possible, however, at the beginning of the installation, the message “This source does not fit” will be displayed in the “Source” section and you will be offered to try alternative installation paths: specify the image directly or try to install the system over the network.

    The complexity of the third. Using other bootloaders
    In attempts to install the system, attempts were made to use the following software:
    - ISO2USB for CentOS / RedHat;
    - UNetbootin;
    - Universal USB Installer;
    - LinuxLiveUSB Creator.

    It turned out that none of the above programs gives a normal result. Either the boot process freezes on the image of four penguins, or it does not happen at all. The answer to why this happens is found on the CentOS project’s official wiki page, in the “How to Set Up a USB Key to Install CentOS” section: “CentOS 7 installer image has a special partitioning which, as of July 2014, most Windows tools do "NOT transfer correctly leading to undefined behavior when booting from the USB key."

    Solution. Using ImageWriter
    By trial and error, it turned out that there is still a program that can create a boot flash from a * .iso CentOS7 image. This program is Win32DiscImager or ImageWriter, free to download. Its interface is shown in Figure 3.


    Figure 3. ImageWriter

    The interface, as can be seen from the figure, is quite simple and intuitive. When choosing a file, specify the *. * Mask in the file type, after which the image will be recorded to flash USB.

    Application of this method allows you to successfully download the CentOS installer from flash USB and perform further installation of the system.

    Thanks for attention. Good luck to everyone in the development of new systems.

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