USB Flash and NO hard drive

Forum: USB booting
Topic: USB Flash and NO hard drive
started by: tanuki

Posted by tanuki on Feb. 21 2006,05:32

OK, I finally got it to boot off a pendrive, but I want to run this system with no hard drive. When I pull the hard drive (or disable the IDE control in BIOS) DSL starts loading, then goes to a blank screen and freezes.

My machine is a Via something (its late, I'm tired and sick, please forgive I don't feel like rebooting the machine just to figure it out, and no I don't have documentation).

I have 384 megs of ram, which should be sufficient to go without needing swap space.

Is there a boot option I can use to get around this lock-up?

Posted by cbagger01 on Feb. 21 2006,05:50

Does booting with:

dsl vga=normal xsetup

help?

Posted by tanuki on Feb. 21 2006,13:32

Its a Via 8000

And well, that changed the screen it locked up at, instead of a black screen. I now get a blinking curser, but nothing else.

I know people run these as driveless systems, and I'm certain this is a DSL configuration issue, I guess its looking for the harddrive so it can do...something...

Posted by doobit on Feb. 21 2006,13:40

I'm using DSL with no hard drive on a VIA Epia CL6000e motherboard. The first thing I did was go into the BIOS and disable every boot option except the USB Hard drive one. It works like a charm.

Posted by tanuki on Feb. 21 2006,14:04

I already tried that, no joy in mudville. But thanks for the suggestion.

Posted by doobit on Feb. 21 2006,14:19

I would say reinstall DSL to the pendrive from the apps->tools->install to pendrive menu using the liveCD. Install as a HDD pendrive because the VIA BIOSs recognize that. You don't need swap space, but boot with the cheat codes: dsl vga=788 toram noapm