DSL/USB hides other usb partitions on XP

Forum: USB booting
Topic: DSL/USB hides other usb partitions on XP
started by: nuaimat

Posted by nuaimat on June 23 2006,17:13

hi everybody
i have installed dsl on my GENX 256MB flash,
apparently the installation scripts makes more than one partition on the usb flash (sda).

everything goes fine , dsl boots when i set the bios setting to boot from USB-HDD but ..
when i plug my usb drive on windows xp, only one partition appears inside "my computer", when i try to discover where is the problem by opening XP's disk management the flash drive appears to have two partitions :
- one which have the only 50MB to holding the dsl files (appears correctly and works fine)
- another partition with about 180MB but has no drive letter and doesn't appear on my computer , when i try to format or "add a drive letter" to this partition , an errors appears saying "the drive is disabled , restart windows to enable it"

i have restart windows , but the problem still exist
a whole 180MB of my flash memory is inaccessible inside XP !!

any help will be so useful
thanx in advance

other infos :
DSL version is 2.3
Windows XP SP2
CPU is 2.4 GHz/512K cache
RAM 512 MB
Motherboard : intel 845P

Posted by nuaimat on June 24 2006,23:20

won't anybody reply ??

please help me guys !!

Posted by roberts on June 25 2006,06:57

If you have one small partition then it would appear that you used the USB-ZIP install script. Seeing the second parititon is really an XP issue. You can thank Gates. Prior versions of Windows can see it but not XP. If you use the USB-HDD install script it will make a single large partition that XP should be able to see. Try that and hope your BIOS will still be able to boot from it.

Posted by cbagger01 on June 26 2006,02:34

Yes.

Boot from the DSL livecd.

Then after boot plug in your USB drive.

Wait 15-20 seconds.

Choose DSL USBHDD install from the menu.

After USBHDD install finishes, your 180MB will reappear.

Posted by humpty on June 26 2006,17:10

If you can't boot from usb-hdd install. post again, I have a dirty method for swapping the two usb-zip partitions (yes you can have all you cake and eat it).

Posted by nuaimat on July 06 2006,00:17

hi , sorry guys , i didn't reply earlier because my flash was lost

i've found it today , and try the USB-HDD method , after finishing it correctly reports the whole 256MB on XP , but when i restart the PC and try to boot it , the bios says something like "Not a bootable device"

any suggestions ??

Posted by deslock on July 12 2006,00:05

Quote (humpty @ June 26 2006,13:10)

If you can't boot from usb-hdd install. post again, I have a dirty method for swapping the two usb-zip partitions (yes you can have all you cake and eat it).

I'm in the same boat as nuaimat. My PC (Compaq EVO) will boot DSL from my USB flash drive if it was created with the USB-ZIP method (from within DSL ala Apps >> Tools >> Install to USB Pendrive), but not with USB-HDD method. With the USB-ZIP method, both partitions show up fine under Linux and OSX, but Windows only sees the 50MB DSL partition.

I also tried creating the flash drive for DSL following steps I read at < pendrivelinux.com > , but it wouldn't boot at all.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks!

Posted by humpty on July 13 2006,14:33

Alright, this is for those of you who can only boot from USB-ZIP but want the 1st partition as the big partition that XP can see.

There's basically 3 steps.
a) reverse the partition sizes by hacking 1 line of code in the usb-zip script. run it.

b) move the knoppix image from 1st partition to the 2nd.

c) change the boot line in syslinux.cfg.

Details are found here: < http://petepr.hopto.org/dsl/guides.html#Boot_Pen_Swap >

Posted by deslock on July 13 2006,14:47

Quote (humpty @ July 13 2006,10:33)

thanks!

Posted by deslock on July 14 2006,21:19

Quote (humpty @ July 13 2006,10:33)

< http://petepr.hopto.org/dsl/guides.html#Boot_Pen_Swap >

Damn! Damn damn! I'm SOL as I have a 2GB pendrive and mkdiskimage has a 1024 cylinder limit (according to the error message that came up). More on this here:
< http://syslinux.zytor.com/archives/2006-May/006856.html >
< http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24549 >

However, I was able to follow the steps to setup a friend's 512MB drive: it now boots DSL and also displays the large partition in Windows. Oddly enogh, the last step wasn't needed: I looked in syslinux.cfg for the bootline and didn't see it. I moved the Knoppix file to the 50MB partition and it still boots even with syslinux.cfg not being edited.

For posterity (in case the original page disappears), here are the complete steps:

Quote

1. Do a normal usb-zip install.
2. Open bash shell terminal and: sudo sfdisk /dev/sda

This will show you how many cylinders are taken up.
basically 1 cylinder is about 1M. So the 1st partition will be 50, but your
interested in the value of the 2nd partition, say 'X' cylinders. Write this down.

3. Make a copy of pendrive_usbzip.sh,
cp /usr/sbin/pendrive_usbzip.sh ~/dirty_job.sh
Edit the copy and look for this line: mkdiskimage -1 /dev/$DEVICE 50 64 32
Change '50' to 'X' (the value you found before).
Save the script.

4. Run the script
sudo ./dirty_job.sh
This will create a big partition 1 and a 50 mb partition 2.

5. Move the /knoppix directory from the big partition to the small
partition.

6. Edit syslinux.cfg (in the big partition) and edit the bootline
to boot the knoppix image on sda2 and get other files from sda1.
i.e fromhd=/dev/sda2 restore=sda1 mydsl=sda1