SFS file not found error when booting live Puppy Linux

Question

This is a very old problem that is still with us (Puppy Linux cannot boot and http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=84558 are 4 years old; an 8-year-old posting exists).

There are many solutions posted and none of them work for me. In my case, I'm trying to boot to a live USB flash drive of Tahrpup (tahr-6.0.5.iso) installed on the flash drive using a Windows computer by running unetbootin-windows-657.exe. All software is 32 bits, and the USB drive is 8 GB formatted FAT32. The target computer is Asus HE1000 with 1 GB of RAM and around 200 GB per disk partition. Creation of the live Linux Puppy flash drive was done on a Windows 8.1 computer.

When booting, the "sfs file not found" error message happens no matter what "solution" I find on the Web that I try. And alternate boots switch between Windows XP on the C: hard drive and puppy on the USB flash drive no matter how I set the BIOS, so the power button has to be held down for a long time twice for each boot of puppy. So frustrating; need advanced help.

Solution 1

Here's what I noticed. During the install, when it asks "Do you want to have a install with a initial RAM disk (initrd.gz)?"

Answer "No", because the default install of the initrd.gz look for a USB storage mounted device, which isn't there when installed.

Solution 2

Had the same problem. Tryed different USB creating tools without luck. I am using 16G usb drive (smallest I was able to find these days). Then I thought maybe this is the problem. I used Partition Magic to resize it to 4G. Fixed the problem for me.

Solution 3

I have "slacko-6.3.2.sfs file not found" problem with Slacko 6.3.2 (but file IS on drive). Before Puppy Linux work good for three years (2016 - 2019), then today I have this boot problem. I think problem happen because try install different Puppy Linux (Bionic Puppy) on this drive.

Solution: I erase whole USB drive then reinstall Slacko 6.3.2 use slacko-6.3.2-uefi.iso use Unetbootin and USB drive boot normal again.

Comments

[David Spector]

I've given up on using Linux other than on remote webservers.