[plug] Bootable USB hard drive

[Kev]

Gavin Chester wrote:


> Having said that, the only technical advice I can offer had been offered
> previously in another thread.  That is, all distros I know of give you the
> chance to create a boot floppy disk.  Using this floppy, you can then pass
> certain parameters that should allow the booting to continue from your USB
> device/drive.  At least, that's what I've read elsewhere, so I can't tell
> you what the parameters are ;-)  Have you tried this method?

No, I haven't.

> Maybe you don't have a floppy on each and every PC you want to boot?  Then,
> try burning a CD with the same boot parameters as the floppy might hold.
> One of those tiny CDs would be ideal since you could carry it in your
> pocket.  I don't think you want a bootable (knoppix) style distro CD because
> I hear that you want to boot the OS on the USB drive, not just mount your
> USB drive to access files.
> 
> As far as I know, if you _do_ manage to get your favourite distro to boot
> from USB, what is going to happen when you sit in front a PC that doesn't
> support USB booting devices?  In other words, the solution you are chasing
> is not a universal one, but the floppy/Cd boot is universal.  Just a
> thought.

I figure that I'll have a go along that route, but I eventually want to 
be able to boot from my USB devices.  What I don't understand is, what's 
the purpose of the USB***  selections in the "boot from" list in the BIOS?

During the boot process, the machine does attempt to boot from the USB 
device, but it fails every time.  ie the BIOS is definitely attempting 
to boot from the USB device.  As an aside, I also have a USB CD-ROM, and 
I can't boot from that either.  I've tried 5 different machines, with 4 
different CDs of 3 different OSes.  Once I have a machine booted 
normally, either USB drive mounts ok, and the USB hard drive appears in 
whatever partitioning tool I want to use.

It's all a little too baffling for now methinks  :-)

Thanx
Kev

-- 
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Kev Downes
kdownes at tpg.com.au  ph 0404 7 0808 2
We use and recommend Xandros 3.0.2
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