USB booting :: Transcend 256 mb pendrive not booting



I have installed DSL in the pendrive(256mb transcend) I used the correct geometry and downloaded usbboot.img from LQ forums.

I did this from knoppix . . . (hd install)
I formatted the drive with mkdosfs.
I logged in as root and created a directory dsl in /mnt
I mounted usbboot.img to /mnt/dsl copied /mnt/dsl/* to /mnt/sda1
Then I umounted the dsl folder and mounted dsl image(1.0.1) in /mnt/dsl and copied /mnt/dsl/knoppix to /mnt/sda1
I unmounted the dsl folder, deleted it.
Now I "cd" into /mnt/sda1 . Everything was fine.
I unmounted the pen-drive and restarted the pc. I set primary boot  to usb-hdd once, usb-fdd once and usb-zip/mo once.
Nothing worked ...  DSL did not boot off pendrive.
Legacy and other support for pendrive is enabled.
Iam using a VIA P4M266 board.(original board)
I reformatted the pendrive in windowsxp and used flashboot trial to make it bootable.(in knoppix I used syslinux.)And installed DSL to hd ... Still the same result. Not booting. :(
Sounds to me like you've got mbr (master boot record) problems.

In my experience, i.e. entirely trial-and-error, I have had the best luck formatting the USB drive under linux using cfdisk.  First, I use fdisk to completely wipe out everything on the USB stick, then cfdisk to create a single FAT16 partition (hex value 06 from the available values in cfdisk).  IIRC, cfdisk also has an option to "make bootable", which I use.  Write the changes made in cfdisk and exit.

Then, I apply the 'mkdosfs' command to the new partition.  This may be redundant and pointless, but I'm just repeating what has worked for me.

After mkdosfs, I unzip a copy of dsl-embedded.xxxx.zip directly onto the USB drive.  You should end up with several files (boot.msg, dsl-linux.sh, dsl-windows.bat, readme.txt, ec.) and 2 directories (KNOPPIX, qemu) sitting right at the root of the USB drive.

Finally, I apply syslinux to the USB drive:  
syslinux  -s /dev/sda1 (where sda1 is the pendrive device).

That's the super-short and simplified version, because it sounds like you probably have half a clue already.  If you'd like more detailed instructions for the install, let me know and I'll be happy to provide them.

Back to my original point again, it sounds like your primary issue might be getting the mbr set up right in the first place.  fdisk, sfdisk, and cfdisk are your friends!

original here.