USB booting :: Partitionning my usb pendrive

I want to split my usb device into 2 partitions, 1 containing DSL (let's say sda1), and from which the system boots if i wanna boot from usb, and another partition that windows can read(sda2), where i can files that has nothing to do with dsl, so basicly windows will read sda2.

Any help is highly appreciated,
Thanks in advance,
Joe.

Hmmm.. Did you have problems or did you not try yet ? I think you can partition your key like any other drive. Personnally, I use the program ''parted'' (apt-get install parted), simple and efficient (one terminal for the program, one for the man, and no problemo

)

i tried, i made a patition of 55 megs (for dsl) and another one for my files, i had 2 problems,
The utitlity to install dsl on pendrive wouldn't let me install on sda2 or sda1 it takes the whole sda.
2nd problem is that windows is reading the 55 mesgs partition.

my limited experience with partitioning USB thingys and them using them in windows is the windows NEVER see's the second or subsequent partitions, it only see's the first partition of the USB thingy.

I've read others comments on that, but I do not know if that is a "set in stone" rule or not.

I just did a USB-ZIP install to a USB thingy, it made two partitions on it's own, one small one for DSL and the rest free.

I'm a little late on this one, but incase anyone wants to do a multiple partition USB stick install with DSL...

1) Install DSL to the USB stick as you normally would.
this will erase the entire drive space and set up one big partition (SDA1)

2) once you are satisfied that it is working that way, boots up etc...
Use another Linux machine(B) with the parted program installed
on it, to modify the drive. Plug your usb drive into machine B, let it recognize
the drive, but make sure it is not mounted, or unmount it if it automounts.

3) Run parted and resize the partition to the size you want the bootable
DSL partition to be. ( I set mine to 100Megs) . Then create a second partition
of type fat16 using the rest of the drive. Write the changes and exit

4) assuming the new partition is sda2, you will need to format it
mkfs.vfat /dev/sda2

And you are done. 2 partitions. (On Windows XP, I can actually see both partitions)

Here is some parted help:
Parted User Manual

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