USB booting :: New Updated Install to Pendrive

Robert,

The new USB install to pendrive USBHDD script worked like a charm on my Lexar Secure 1GB drive (thanks again guys - you know who you are).

The standard USBZIP script would not work with my Dell BIOS, but I restored the original Lexar factory raw "dd" image and then tried again with the USBHDD script and it worked fine.

My only advice is that the questions in the usb script were somewhat confusing.

I needed to answer "No" to USBZIP and then a second question appeared and said "Yes" to USBHDD.

I was unsure if the second question was going to appear and I took a best guess and said "No" to the first question.

Otherwise, nice job!

No more playing with Dell USBkey boot utility in Windows any more.

Thanks for the feedback, cbagger01.
I am glad to hear that we finally have a DSL based solution for you and your Dell BIOS machine.

When others have failures booting their usb memory device, I wish they too would share what brand their BIOS is. What their BIOS options are, etc.

It would be nice to know and document what may work based on the whole picture and not just brand of usb flash memory device.

It has been very challenging to try to understand the requirements and all the parameters that come into play when boot these usb memory devices without the crutch of MS Windows and windows based formatting utilities. But maybe that is wishful thinking going up against the windows monolopy. But I felt these two new versions to install were worth sharing.

Since, I only had a single menu option "Install to Pendrive" and I wanted previous versions of DSL to be able to use these two new scripts, I made answering N to the USBZIP install then download and start the USBHDD script. I know it is not the best. But tried to be backward compatible.

i tried to made an botable usb pen (it was formatted fat32) and all i got is an pen 50 mb instead of 256 . How can at least reformat it with the correct size ?
Thx

you should have 2 partitions if you followed everything correctly.
1 parttion is 50 megs the rest of your pendrive is partitioned out as storage for linux. (i believe thats the right terminology)

I was wondering
is it possible to make it so that its
50 mb linux (ext2)
rest is in FAT

so when i plug it into windows, it just sees 1 drive that it can use

actually, is it possible to make it so that it works alongside with being a normal USB thumbdrive (FAT to store files, etc)

edit:
also, if i run the usb-zip script, and I want to restore to the original geometry
am i screwed?

thanks

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