How to Create a Bootable SeaTools USB – SeaGate Linux

SeaTools is a diagnostic tool to check your hard disk for errors and failure. Its an extremely useful tool to have around as hard disks fail all the time and recognizing a failing hard disk can save you a lot of trouble in the long run.

You can get a copy of the bootable iso from here: http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/seatools-dos-master/
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So here is a guide to create a bootable SeaTools USB drive for Ubuntu:

1. Install syslinux:
   $ sudo apt-get install syslinux
2. Format the USB drive and Repartition it as FAT
   Give it a name like  “SEATOOLS”
3. Mark the newly created partition as bootable – You can use Gparted to do this.
4. Copy “syslinux” master boot record to drive (The code below is assuming your drive is loacated at “sdb”):
   $ sudo dd if=/usr/lib/syslinux/mbr.bin of=/dev/sdb
5. Install syslinux on the drive partition:
   $ sudo syslinux /dev/sdb1
6. Mount drive. You can do this by reinserting the drive or by using a command like:
   $ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
7. Copy the MEMDISK bootloader from /usr/share/syslinux/memdisk to the drive:
   $ cp /usr/lib/syslinux/memdisk /media/SEATOOLS
8. Copy the SeaToolsDOS223ALL.ISO to the drive
9. Create a file named ‘syslinux.cfg’ on the drive, with this in it (use correct .iso name):
   DEFAULT SeaTools
   LABEL SeaTools
   LINUX memdisk
   INITRD SeaToolsDOS223ALL.ISO
   APPEND iso

Thats it you’re done 🙂  Try booting with it. Here’s what my usb stick looks like at the end of all of this:

$ ls -l
total 3136
-r--r--r-- 1 username username 32768 2013-12-22 17:44 ldlinux.sys
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username 25244 2013-12-22 17:51 memdisk
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username 3137536 2013-12-22 13:22 SeaToolsDOS223ALL.ISO
-rw-r--r-- 1 username username 97 2013-12-22 17:54 syslinux.cfg