Bitcoin Forum

I am still stuck.  Have formatted every way I can.  Have wiped the flash drive raw with windows manager.  Have done everything I can possibly think of and I just cannot get BAMT to boot from these flash drives.

Farthest I have got is the splash screen where its all fire and it says choose fail safe or regular blah blah then it crashes.

I cannot even get to that screen anymore.

Tried it on many different machines, so it has to be something with my flash drive.

Tried multiple different BAMT image files.  Versions 4 and 5.

I have about 10 of the same flash drive.  I know these work with linux.  I am a linux n00b ... just need help.

5 BTC to winning answer.

Have you tried to use it to boot any other Linux distro?

What make/model/size is the USB drive?

4gb Kingston DataTraveler G3

Have not tried any other linux distro but I have used these to install windows 7 on my other rigs and it boots juts fine to the installer.

It seems when I put BAMT on the drive, my mobo cannot see it.  So I figured something has to be wrong with my formatting or .. .fudge I dunno I am so stressed out lol

Those ones work fine. You're saying your mobo can't pick it up?

I'm assuming your running Windows 7 right now, here is a quick tutorial so you can check you're doing it right, as there are many differents methods to doing this, but this is the best IMO.

1. Download UNetbootin from here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/unetbootin/files/UNetbootin/575/unetbootin-windows-575.exe/download

2. Download a BAMT ISO from here:
http://bamter.org/download.html

3. Run the UNetbootin EXE, select diskimage, ISO from the drop down & select your BAMT ISO (don't try and extract the ISO)

4. Select your USB drive in the drive dropdown and press ok. It'll do all the work for you.

5. Now restart your PC and enter your BIOS using DEL or F2 (or whatever key it is for your motherboard). You'll need to make sure USB is the top on your boot priority. Nice guide on this here: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ss/bootorderchange_2.htm

6. After you've done that restart again and hopefully BAMT should boot.

I just edited my post and added a tutorial

Thank you sir, I will try this now and if it works, I will send you the bounty instantly.

Which one is the iso?  I thought those were all img files on that site.

Or are iso and img the same?  lol sorry I am a windows guy.

The flash drive cannot be seen in my BIOS like I can see it when I have a Windows image on there.

BIOS has no idea that a flash drive is plugged in with this linux distro.

dsfgldf fhf kla[w4tr

OK that is strange. As a test, open up UNetBootin and this time select distribution, then Ubuntu and "12.04_Live". It has to download that image file so it'll take a bit longer this time (unfortunately). See if that boots/is detected by BIOS.
Try this first, I missed one of your posts. I didn't realize BAMT was an img file, I can't remember if that was OK or not when I did this, but try converting it to ISO first before writing it, MagicISO: http://www.magiciso.com/download.htm

What make/model is the mobo BTW? I heard about some mobo's (Foxconn) that had strange problems with Linux distros. Have you ever ran a Linux distro on these boards?

Gigabyte and I heard the same thing about them and I found an article on the 'other' bitcoin forum about them too.  But I know for a fact that the person before me who owned these (I bought out a guys BTC operation) had linux working on them before with these exact same flash drives.

Also, I have tried it on an MSI mobo and an ASUS mobo.  Same result.  That is why I think its something wrong with the image.  But I have done this before on other rigs and it has worked.  In fact the board I tested it on was this MSI board right next to me and it worked just fine.

I am so confused and this is frustrating the hell out of me.  I have like 10 cards sitting here with no hdds and not mining and 11 cards on the way.  With a pile of flash drives and a not working BAMT image.

and what is wrong with win32diskimager ?  is there something bad about it?

That can put img files on flash drives.  but its NOT for me!!!!!!!!!!1

This is why I hate Linux lol I never have issues like this with Windows.

And I am not stupid lol I was an IT Admin for T-Mobile call centers for 8 years.

This sh****t is MAKING ME ANGRY.

Back to windows.

Don't give up yet!

First of all, format the drive using a half-decent program instead of Windows' built in junk. Download bootice here (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CF4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.softpedia.com%2Fget%2FSystem%2FBoot-Manager-Disk%2FBootice.shtml&ei=K3nBT87DC8XOiAKZ3emrCA&usg=AFQjCNEiWUJM8bh_SvWGFwLfrOmbREclnw), extract the rar, and open the executable. Select your drive in the drop-down menu and click "Parts Manage". Click "Reformat USB Disk", select "USB-HDD mode (Single Partition)", and format the drive.

Now burn the image file to the drive. Download the win32diskimager binary here (https://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer/+download). Open the .exe (ignore any warnings), select your BAMT .img file (NOT a converted .iso), select your drive, and click "Write". When writing is complete, click "Exit".

Now insert the USB drive into your mining machine. At this point, you should be able to see and boot from it. If not, enter your BIOS and look for anything relating to USB boot. (An "Enable"/"Disable" toggle for example) Unfortunately I can't give specific instructions as BIOS's vary wildly, but it should be pretty apparent. Enable USB booting and you should be good to go.

Hopefully that will fix it. This isn't a Linux issue at all; probably just an issue of formatting and writing the drive correctly. Good luck!

Pure Debian does not support all motherboards/chipsets, gigabyte 890fxa doesn't like it while some MSI do. It may be a hardware compatibility issue, check the BAMT site and the Debian site for issues.

Try an alternative to BAMT, like Kano's guide, which walks you through setting up xubuntu, for schnitz und giggles. ;)

download this http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

dd if=/usb/drive of=/path/to/image

I'm don't know why win32diskimager isn't working for you, but as suggested above, the other option is to use dd - that's what worked for me. I recommend making a live CD or usb from some standard linux distro (i.e with unebootin). Then go to terminal after you boot it up and use the dd command as described on the BAMT download page to write the image to your usb. You will first have to type "sudo fdisk -l" to figure out the name of your usb ("sda," "sdb," etc.). Yeah, its a pain to have to boot up with a different distro just to make a bootable BAMT usb, but BAMT is a *very* non-standard distro, so it is not straightforward to make the usb like it is for Ubuntu etc. Before you give up, give it one more shot using dd. You are facing a steeper learning curve than normal here since you are starting with a weird linux distro, but once you get over the hump, linux is a great OS to mine with.

OP: Is this fixed? What additional help do you need?

I think the issue is that my mobos do not work with BAMT.

I have seen several others with the same issue and same gigabyte mobo.

Just for shits and giggles, make sure your mobo has usb boot listed as the first thing to look for in the bios.

LOL yeah, it works when my FDD has Windows on it.  Just not BAMT

did you try this? (http://www.bitcointrading.com/forum/index.php?topic=416.msg1149#msg1149)

You may have a bad copy on your flash drive.  I'd say, rewrite it :/

What model is your motherboard? Or did I miss that  ???

Anyway I had a hell of a time using my Gigabyte motherboard until I flashed the BIOS.

These motherboards are currently reported to have issues with BAMT according to their HCL:
Gigabyte 890FXA-UD5 - Unable to boot from .img (BAMT and Debian Live image tested)
Gigabyte 990fxa-UD3 rev 1.0 - Unable to boot images with paritions? Doesn't work.

-http://bamter.org/redmine/projects/bamt/wiki/Hardware_Compatibility_List

You may find a "interim fix" for this problem but it will alway come again in some other manifestation to make your life difficult. The only way you will never finally solve it is to go to each machine that has a Gigabyte M/board. Remove the board, go to an open window and throw the FFFing board as far away as you can!!!!!

Posted by a Gigabyte owner, dont want the Bounty, happy to help another sufferer

Don't throw that board if it's capable for mining.
For the sake of your sanity and speed, why not use an 2.5" HDD you must have lying around your workbench collecting dust. Considering it's small power draw, at least you will be mining pronto. Just use dd and image BAMT on that hdd and mine away. Imo, this is much better solution than reverting back to windows, as far as there is BAMT available.

I had exact same issues with kingston 4gb and managed to fix it by doing two things:

1 - I wrote the bamt img file to usb using dd from command line. making sure that the write speed was not too fast for the usb -  these Kingstons seem to have a pretty crap write speed. You do this by making sure NOT to specify any BS= parameter at the end of the dd command


2 - I had been plugging the Kingston into a usb 3.0 port and this also did not work. It must be a usb 2.0 port

These combined fixed it for me.