USB booting :: which usb modules to load and load order?



I have two USB 256 pen drives one with DSL 1.5 from the store.  I need sata so I'm using 2.1 and it works from CD.  The pen drives are not reliably found in DSL, sometimes as /mnt/sdc1, sometimes /mnt/sdb. I have tested them with SUSE 9.3 x86_64 and Knoppix 4.0 and Win XP.  They mount, read, and write.  Half the time DSL doesn't find them at all or they are not in the /mnt folder.

I suspect this is related to the speed at which the system boots, the probe phase.  Which kernel modules should I load and in what order?  In expert mode I load: sata_nv.o, usbcore.o and usb-storage.o.  I have lots of usb stuff on the machines around here. USB hub with card reader on the Dell Monitors, USB card reader floppy drive.  USB printer with card reader, USB keyboard with downstream ports and usb mouse.  I only plug the pen drives into the mother board ports.

The USB mouse stops working after awhile.  I get a limited number klicks so I'm trying to figure out how to use elm without a mouse, any help files for that!  Looks like it's CLI untill I get this sorted out.

Good news is I can read and write to my sata hard drive partitions, except the WIN XP partition.  Firefox and XMMS work just fine.

Thanks for all the hard work.
Pen drives can be formatted in different ways.  In your case, the SATA hard drive is probably found at "sda", so your first USB or Firewire mass storage device (external hard drive, floppy, CDRW drive, memory card reader, printer with a memory card reader, pen drive, etc) will be detected at "sdb" with data partitions at "sdb1" etc

The detection process determines the order of the device names for each physical device.  If you have something hanging from a USB hub, it usually takes longer for it to be detected and "enumerated".

In fact, even the location of the PC's USB ports can be affected.  Usually the ports in the back of the computer are scanned first before your front panel ports.

USB mice and keyboards should always be plugged into the rear ports of the PC if possible.
I have a lot of different places to plug in my usb drives and of course the back of the computer is the most inconvienient.

Should DSL be able to find the drive if I plug it in after boot up?

Right now I want to install to it then boot from it with a floppy drive  later.

By having a seperate floppy for each computer I use I hope to work around differnt bios, network cards, and mount points.

Does this sound like a workable portable solution?

Thanks Mort.
I gave you an answer. I didn't say that you were going to like it :)

You can get one of those USB extension cords like the ones that come with a memory card reader.  Also, if you disable FAST BOOT in the BIOS, your chances of detecting the USB devices on the front ports in time improve.

A USB boot floppy + pendrive solution will work on just about any computer that has a real floppy disk drive.

You don't need a separate floppy boot disk for each computer. The standard USB boot floppy should work 99% of the time because almost all USB capable computers use either UHCI OHCI or EHCI type USB controllers and the USB boot floppy has a driver for each type.
FYI, why not just boot with:

dsl sata

cheatcodes if you are using DSL 2.1RC installs?
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