March 23, 201016 yr Hello, I've ordered some good parts, and am looking forward to putting this thing together, but I have no access to a PC....am I dead in the water as far as making the USB drive? I have Snow Leopard on a MacBook Pro, but after lots of reading and searching I still don't see how I can create the drive with OSX. Is there a link as to how to use the Terminal or some other creative means to do this? I could try to get someone to do it on their PC for me, but it seems that would be a hassle...wouldn't I need to repeat that every time there's some sort of update? Perhaps the best answer is to use Boot Camp, and buy the cheapest OEM copy of Windows that I can find, and just consider it part of the cost of doing unRaid business in an up til now Mac only environment? Thanks in advance.
March 23, 201016 yr I have no access to a PC....am I dead in the water as far as making the USB drive? I have Snow Leopard on a MacBook Pro, but after lots of reading and searching I still don't see how I can create the drive with OSX. Is there a link as to how to use the Terminal or some other creative means to do this? I could try to get someone to do it on their PC for me, but it seems that would be a hassle. Don't you have any tool on the Mac that can partition disks? If not, you could simply get VirtualBox for the Mac, and some Linux distro, for example Parted Magic and use that. Install and run VirtualBox, create a new virtual machine, set it up to grab raw access of your USB disk, and boot it from the Linux ISO image. Once it's up and runing, use Parted Magic to create a FAT32 partition on the USB disk. Make sure you label that partition UNRAID! Syslinux the the USB disk, copy the files from the unRAID distro to it, and you're done. Now that you have VirtualBox, you might as well make yourself one virtual unRAID server, and use it as a SandBox. wouldn't I need to repeat that every time there's some sort of update? No. When you update unRAID, you just replace two files on the flash key over the network, and that's all. You don't even need to remove the flash key from your server. Perhaps the best answer is ... buy the cheapest OEM copy of Windows Please don't ever say that again!
March 23, 201016 yr Same here. I spent a frustrating 1.5 hours + a half hour of travel time last night with someone that has VISTA pc and could not get it to work. Granted some of it was not being familiar with the PC but even the owner could not get it to install on the flash drive. We got all the way to the dialog box and entered the command "m:\syslinux.exe -ma n:", n being my flash drive. Tried variations of it and got a few error messages "like can't find ..." then it all seemed to work with no errors but also no file on the flash drive. this should have been a 2 minute job.. I'll never take my Mac sfor granted again.
March 23, 201016 yr The Mac users aren't alone - Fat32 is no longer included in Windows 7 as a standard formatting option. This means that even Windows 7 users either have to track down a Windows XP computer (don't remember if Vista will work or not), or download a special utility. Apparently it is also still possible from the command line.
March 23, 201016 yr You can always boot your computer from a CD with a Linux distro. Nothing simpler than that.
March 23, 201016 yr Ok. I just found that I can format to FAT 32 right on the Mac With disk Utility. Much easier than on a PC. http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=375750 Now to install the software...
March 23, 201016 yr You can always boot your computer from a CD with a Linux distro. Nothing simpler than that. That sound like the best solution. I really don't want to install something, as suggested, for a one time use in my system that may cause problems later. Off looking for a Linux Distro.
March 23, 201016 yr Ok. I just found that I can format to FAT 32 right on the Mac With disk Utility. Much easier than on a PC. http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=375750 Now to install the software... You can format the drive from OS X via Disk Utility like you said. But running syslinux on the mac will not work, or at least it does not for me. Your best bet is probably VirtualBox (Free) and then a linux distro installed in it. From there you can run syslinux.
March 23, 201016 yr Your best bet is probably VirtualBox (Free) and then a linux distro installed in it. Right. And you don't even need to install the Linux distro on the virtual machine. You can simply boot the virtual machine from the LiveCD ISO image.
March 23, 201016 yr Your best bet is probably VirtualBox (Free) and then a linux distro installed in it. Right. And you don't even need to install the Linux distro on the virtual machine. You can simply boot the virtual machine from the LiveCD ISO image. Doesn't VirtualBox need to be installed in OSX?
March 23, 201016 yr Doesn't VirtualBox need to be installed in OSX? Yes. I also get more use out of it then just a one time use though. I use VM Ware Fusion for more than just unraid related stuff.
March 23, 201016 yr Author Install and run VirtualBox, create a new virtual machine, set it up to grab raw access of your USB disk, and boot it from the Linux ISO image. Once it's up and runing, use Parted Magic to create a FAT32 partition on the USB disk. Make sure you label that partition UNRAID! Syslinux the the USB disk, copy the files from the unRAID distro to it, and you're done. Thanks for the help...I hope that the steps become clearer once I actually download Virtual Box this weekend and take it for a spin... In the meantime, does the new 'virtual machine' exist on my Mac, or is it on the USB stick? Does the Linux ISO image come along with Virtual Box? Sorry for the dumb questions, I have led a very sheltered Linux and Windows-free life!
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