USB Speed Question

Forum: USB booting
Topic: USB Speed Question
started by: KrazyPenguin

Posted by KrazyPenguin on Mar. 13 2006,02:04

I have gotten my USB to boot my computer.

I am using a Memorex mini travel drive @ 1GB storage.

I've set my BIOS to Flash/Zip.

My USB seems to boot really slowly. Slower than from the HD and slower than the CD.

I thought it was suppose to boot faster than CD-Rom.

Thanks.

Posted by kruser619 on Mar. 13 2006,02:05

Is your USB drive 1.1 or 2.0?

Posted by KrazyPenguin on Mar. 13 2006,02:21

I'm pretty sure it is 2.0.

The memorex stick is 2.0.

Posted by kruser619 on Mar. 13 2006,02:36

Oh.... both the computer and the stick are 2.0?

Posted by KrazyPenguin on Mar. 13 2006,02:38

Yes, both are USB 2.0

I confirmed this at Asus.com

and on the Memorex package it says USB 2.0 as well.

Thanks.

Posted by KrazyPenguin on Mar. 13 2006,02:40

Are the computer and stick suppose to be different???

You make it sound bad.

Posted by kruser619 on Mar. 13 2006,03:29

OH.. sorry.. i didn't mean to.. no, if both are the same, it will work. I was wondering because even with a 2.0 device, a 1.1 USB computer will run like crap. The problem must be out of my limited knowledge bank....

Posted by muezin on Mar. 16 2006,10:31

Hi
I have the same problem.
DSL boots from my USB-Stick (1GB DANE-ELEC, Stick and Laptop USB2.0), but the booting took more than 45 minutes (!).
Does anybody know about this probs?

thnx in advance...
muezin

Posted by doobit on Mar. 16 2006,13:27

My mini-itx boots from a USB stick in less than a minute. Shuts down in about 20 seconds.

Posted by humpty on Mar. 16 2006,15:11

what version DSL are you using? DSL2.0 has a bug which was fixed in 2.1 and upwards.

Posted by doobit on Mar. 16 2006,18:41

I'm using 2.3RC1 at the moment, but I had 2.1b on the USB before and it was OK. I actually think 2.3RC1 powers down faster.

Posted by KrazyPenguin on Mar. 16 2006,21:13

I've tried 2.2b and 2.3rc1 and both give the same results.

I took back my 1GB Memorex Travel Drive and bought a SanDisk Cruzer Mini USB Flash Drive 512 MB instead.

Same results :angry:

Some notes that may help:
- once DSL is loaded it's speed seems to be normal
- i did a speed test with music files, and I was able to copy and move them to the usb pendrive very quickly
- therefore, the speed problem seems to be booting only
- I checked my motherboard manual and it really is usb 2.0/1.1 compatible

I want to install grub and see if this helps, but I have a feeling it won't make a difference but you never know.

Also does anybody know the command using sfdisk and changing the sectors/track??

Here is mine:
Disk /dev/sda: 512 MB, 512483328 bytes
64 heads, 32 sectors/track, 488 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 2048 * 512 = 1048576 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 50 51184 6 FAT16
/dev/sda2 51 488 448512 b W95 FAT32

I'm pretty sure this can be done without altering the usb sticks data.
I know I read it somewhere I just have to try it.
Apparently some computers run better with a higher sectors/track when it comes to usb drives. But I don't really know cuz this is all new to me. I wouldn't mind trying 64/128/256 and seeing if there is any speed difference.

Enough babble for now, any help is appreciated and thanks in advance.
;-)

Posted by humpty on Mar. 17 2006,06:28

I don't thnk it's the geometry. 45-50mins is ridiculous, that's like 1mb/min!
Could be a device holding things up, exactly what do you see on the screen?

Posted by doobit on Mar. 17 2006,12:46

Do dmesg in a terminal to see if there were any hardware errors.

Posted by desnotes on Mar. 22 2006,11:28

What are the specs of your computer? I have heard of someone who boots with the embedded version taking 45 minutes to boot. He had an older computer with a Celeron processor and only 256MB of RAM.

Just as a test, how long does it take to boot if you boot from a CDROM?

desNotes