USB booting :: Boot from floppy and usb



Hi Everyone,
I have a car computer that boots frugal DSL from a compact flash card in an IDE adapter no problem.  

When working on the next version of my software I use a second CF card attached to my laptop via a usb card reader.

Unfortunately my laptop can't boot from USB.

I'm thinking I should be able to do a full frugal install to the CF and while it is in my laptop boot from a floppy and point it at the CF card.  All the boot files should be on the card so when I stick it in my car computer everything works.

Do I need to make changes to the standard boot floppy to make this work.  I have seen discussions on getting the live CD to boot this way but not USB.

Also is a ZIP install the same thing as a Frugal install?

David
From my experience, the usb-boot floppy auto-scans your partitions for the knoppix image, so there's no need to edit. If no luck them try editing syslinux.cfg and add something like fromhd=/dev/sda1.

usb-zip and usb-hdd installs are all frugal.
Hi Everyone,
The penny has dropped!
Most people here will probably go "Well Derrrr" :)

I created a standard boot floppy AND as usb boot floppy.
I booted from the standard floppy with my live CD in the drive.
(although my system can boot from CD)

Then did a Tools, Install to USB Pendrive, USB-ZIP drive

Then I stuck the USB boot floppy in the drive and rebooted from the USB key.

This isn't exactly what I wanted to do but it was my first boot from USB.

Normally I have my CF card in  a IDE adapter and do a frugal grub install to that and it looks just like a HDD to the system.  But that computer now lives in my car.  I'm trying to set up DSL with my applications all nicely configured without haveing to sit in the car for ages.  I did install the first release before installing it in the care but now I want to do updates.

When inside the house I want to use my USB CF card reader and the USB boot floppy but this is starting to not make any sence any more as the install types are simply different.

I think I'll have to find an old computer for in the house and buy a second CF to IDE converter that way the boot configuration can be identical.

Lucky I don't have a wife saying "you can't bring that old thing in here" :)

Thanks for your help along the way with this.

David
(Headly)
Have you tried booting the CF card (with usb-adapter) with the boot floppy in the house?
It should work.

The only difference between your installs is the boot-loader, everything else is the same.

original here.