Boot RPi from USB - Paalikatu/Hub GitHub Wiki

(Originally from https://www.dropbox.com/s/8lic2paygbcfp11/RUN%20RASPBIAN%20FROM%20USB.txt?dl=0)

Install RASPBIAN on a usb flash drive.

  1. Get the SD card that you are going to use for the boot section and format it FAT32.
  2. Rename the card "boot".
  3. Copy all of the files from the usb drive to root of sd card.
  4. Edit the cmdline.txt file On the SD card, change /dev/mmcblkp2 to /dev/sda2 and save the file.

(dwc_otg.lpm_enable=0 console=serial0,115200 console=tty1 root=/dev/sda2 rootfstype=ext4 rootwait text)

  1. Place both usb and sdcard in the pi and boot.
  2. Go through the setup and let the installation take place.
  3. After installtion is complete and your at the home screen open the terminal.
  4. sudo fdisk /dev/sda.
  5. Press p then enter, take note of what block sda2 starts with, mine was 133120.
  6. Press d then enter.
  7. Press 2 then enter, this will delete the second partition.
  8. Press n then enter, this will create the new partition process.
  9. Press p for primary partiton, than enter.
  10. Press 2, then enter.
  11. Now you will see the first sector, now type in the block number you took note of earlier mine was 133120 and hit enter.
  12. Now you will see the end sector, choose the default by pressing enter.
  13. Now type w then enter, this will write the partiton.
  14. You will see a message about the kernel yaddah yaddah, just ignore this. Now reboot the system.
  15. After the system reboots, open the terminal and type sudo resize2fs /dev/sda2 and press enter.
  16. After the resizing process run df -h to make sure it has resized.
  17. Run sudo blkid, locate /dev/sda2 and look for the uuid=with random numbers.
  18. Copy the uuid= with random numbers. sudo blkid | grep "sda2" | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab
  19. sudo nano /etc/fstab.
  20. Replace /dev/sda2 with the uuid you copied, and remove the " " if there are any. The line should look like this, UUID= AND WHAT EVER THE NUMBERS ARE the numbers are unique to the device, save the file.
  21. Reboot.
  22. After reboot check the file, cat /etc/fstab.

The universal unique identifier (UUID), is a unique number that the file systems table will identify during boot. This should take care of the booting issues while rebooting with another flash drive attached.