USB Flash Drive Boot Problems

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: USB Flash Drive Boot Problems
started by: kbranch

Posted by kbranch on Feb. 23 2004,04:07

First of all, I'm using a USB 1.1 128 MB Lexar JumpDrive.

The closest I've managed to come to having it actually boot on any of the 3 USB boot capable computers I've tried it on is an "Invalid or damaged Bootable partition" error. I've tried taking the modified .tar from < here > and tried to run syslinux on it, but I'm not even sure that that much worked.

If I try to run syslinux on any MS OS except Win98 I get an error saying that Windows won't let it directly access the hard drive. If I try it on Linux (DSL from a CD or a Lindows Live CD I have laying around) it tells me that it can't find mcopy and dies.

I've also followed the instructions found < here >, but that also results in the "Invalid or damaged Bootable partition" error

I suspect that syslinux is the problem since it's about the only thing some of the things I've tried have in common, but I haven't the slightest idea of what to do.

Any ideas?

Posted by kbranch on Feb. 24 2004,23:16

Well, my 3 day old pen drive just decided to self destruct for no reason. Any chance the problem was just that there were some bad sectors on it?

Posted by kbranch on Feb. 26 2004,05:34

I just got my replacement drive. I also got syslinux to run properly on Mandrake 9.2. Didn't do any good though, I'm still getting the same error.

I've seen posts here saying that they've gotten 128 meg Lexar JumpDrives to work right, anybody want to tell me what I'm missing?

Posted by kbranch on Mar. 27 2004,22:34

bump

Posted by tim on April 14 2004,06:04

FYI, I tried everything I could think of, including downgrading my BIOS on my Epia 5000, to no avail. I thought I had it working once, using the spblinux MBR, not syslinux, but then wasn't able to reproduce it reliably. I finally broke down and bought the CF IDE adapter, and am trying to figure out how to boot DSL off the USB stick using grub from a small CF card.

One thing I've been thinking of trying if I get this to work is using grub directly on the USB stick. That might be an option for you if can only use USB.