Issue

Blocked when installing Debian to second step Detect and mount CD-ROM.

I'm trying to install a Debian net-install ISO using master, but it fails at this step. According to a comment on cobbler#1518:

nacc:

I think I recalled now what is needed. When you use Debian or Ubuntu (in my experience), you need to replace the kernel and initrd from the full ISO with that from the netinstaller. Can you verify this fixes the issue?
So, what I'm suggesting is use the *DVD-1.iso and then copy over to /var/lib/cobbler appropriately the initrd & kernel from the corresponding netinst.iso.

I also tried with Debian stable ISO or Debian live one, but still facing the same issue.

Workaround

None found yet, except of using another OS (windows, archlinux work OK) or maybe another USB installer software. See comment #85 (comment)

There is one more workaround within multibootusb itself. Make bootable USB from imager option. Let me know if you find any other solution exist.

@mbusb: I tried that but it doesn't work. I did:

1. Install the Debian netinstall ISO via imager ISO option
2. Run qemu from CLI (due to #88): `
3. Select 'Install' (and/or 'Graphical install', same output), then press [enter], [enter], [enter].
4. Then 'No common CD-ROM drive was detected' appears.

edit: I also tried making the USB stick 'bootable', but with no changes.
edit2: to ensure that the ISO is working, I tried (and succeeded) to use it directly using: qemu-img create -f qcow /tmp/vdisk.img 1G && qemu-system-x86_64 -hda /tmp/vdisk.img -cdrom debian-7.8.0-amd64-netinst.iso -boot d -m 1024.

Anyone succeeded to install Debian via multibootusb? @mbusb?

Work-around

I finally succeeded using the following work-around (for amd64):

1. Download debian netinstall from debian-installer website: debian ISO for amd64.
2. Download hd-media files (bootloader and kernel files) for amd64 (i386 one won't work). Must get initrd.gz as well as vmlinuz.
3. Use multibootusb to create the Debian entry, as usual
4. Then mount the partition, say in /mnt.
5. Replace vmlinuz and initrd.gz with the hd-media ones (assuming they are in the same folder as the current prompt):
6. Copy debian ISO on the USB stick direcly: cp debian-stretch-DI-rc2-amd64-netinst.iso /mnt/multibootusb/. You can also put it in /mnt/multibootusb/debian-7.8.0-amd64-netinst/, but in that case Debian installer will yield that it could not find the ISO and will ask if you want it to search more. You have to hit Yes.

Hi,

I have this problem on a (very) old laptop, i386 arch.
The setup starts but 'cannot mount the CD-ROM'.
Any workaround would be appreciated :)

Documented this in official site http://multibootusb.org/page_faq/#debiann-no-common-cd-rom-drive-was-detected

Closing the issue.

Better workaround:
For many installers, mounting the flash drive (say, /dev/sdb1) to /cdrom does the trick. However, in this case that still fails because the iso contents are not directly on the drive but in a subdirectory. So what if we instead mount that subdirectory at /cdrom?
We'll have to mount the drive itself somewhere else. For example
mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/flash
Then, we can 'mount' the folder with the installer contents onto /cdrom by making a symlink:
ln -s /mnt/flash/multibootusb/nameofdebianimagehere/ /cdrom
That's it!

Notes:

• This can be accomplished in the installer menu item for launching a shell session, which will then return to the installer, or you can hit Ctrl+Alt+F(5 or any other number) to switch to a tty session, then return by looking for the tty the installer was on.
• Obviously you should ls /mnt/flash/multibootusb/ to see what your target folder should be. Also, tab completion is your friend!
• You may need to rm /cdrom first so you can replace it with the symlink.
• Don't forget the -s, hardlinks can't cross devices so this must be a symlink.

This issue should be reported to upstream (debian). Other distros work fine without this treatment.

@Erudition Can i get a link to the debian bug report?

I tried to use the suggested workarounds, but they didn't work for me.
I tested:
debian-9.2.1-amd64-netinst.iso
debian-live-9.2.0-amd64-xfce+nonfree.iso

I can't mount any existing partition though they are shown by blkid.
ls -la /dev/sdb* shows that /dev/sdb and the multibootusb partition /dev/sdb1 do exist.
Using the graphic installer I tried in a shell:
mkdir /flash
mount -t ext4 /dev/sdb1 /flash
I only got an error message that the device does not exist. The mount command fails completely.

Now the reason is clear:
The mount command simply can't work because the module ext4 is missing in busybox in all Debian ISOs.

is there a script we can put in the usb drive during boot that will tell grub to run the special mount for the debian disto's ? debian iso installed onto a single usb boot seem to work fine. whats the difference, I am new to this. thanks

Any of you tried booting Debian directly from ISO? Does the same issue occur in direct ISO booting as well?

Couldn't get the debian-9.3.0-amd64-netinst iso to work after making a bootable usb with unetbootin due to the error described in this issue. The workarounds suggested here didn't work either (possibly due to a lack of linux know-how but I did follow them to the best of my abilities). Ended up trying rufus 2.18 instead of unetbootin and used the 'Write in DD Image mode' option that is presented after clicking 'start'. This way I could install debian just fine.

I ran into this while trying to create a multiboot system that includes an installer for Kali. I installed the hd-media kernel and initrd.gz along with the ISO as documented. I found that it would work if I started a shell, umounted /media, and then retried. I guess it can't mount the USB device at /hd-media if it's already mounted at /media. Editing /usr/lib/fetch-url/file in the initrd to umount /media after copying the preseed file also made it work first time. I checked the initrd for Stretch and that file has not changed but the issue doesn't occur there anyway because I find that /hd-media is already correctly mounted. I don't know what's changed but I guess this fix will eventually make its way into Kali.

Should anyone still be encountering this - if Debian has been given some persistence storage in multibootusb, try uninstalling that and then redoing it, but with 0MB persistence - maybe that's more likely to work?

I remember having this issue with Tails (which is 'built upon Debian') and similarly, I appear to have managed to avoid the 'No common CD-ROM drive' message the second time around once I got rid of the persistence and the installer so far appears to progress onwards with my dry run.

Similarly, the ISO straight onto a blank USB also works for me.

debian-live-9.7.0-amd64-gnome.iso with MultiBootUSB 9.2.0 in Fedora 28.

I'm experiencing the same issue today directly with Debian Buster netint ISO file, downloaded from https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/

The funny workaround is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F5E-qs93zQ