Missing Operating System
Forum: USB booting
Topic: Missing Operating System
started by: fez
Posted by fez on Dec. 07 2004,21:57
< Had > some problems to get dsl on the usb stick.In the meantime everything's (nearly) fine. dsl is on it and it works properly on my home computer. It's an i-buddy Desknote from Elitegroup/ECS.
Unfortunately it doesn't work with my laptop at work, a hewlett packard hp nc8000. I set up usb as the first boot device but when I turn on the computer, with the usb stick plugged in, I get:
| Quote |
| Missing Operation System. |
Anyone's got an advice?
Posted by fez on Dec. 08 2004,21:30
I did the usb install with my "crapbook", the desknote. Or is it necessary to make it with my hp?
Posted by usul on Dec. 08 2004,22:01
. Hey Fez
Sound like the HP's BIOS can't read the USB Pendrive as a bootable device. Did you check the BIOS settings on it?
It may not be able to boot from USB or you may need to change some settings to do so
Maybe a BIOS upgrade would sort it out. I had to upgrade the Embeded Controller and BIOS version of an IBM T40 before it would boot from USB
HTH
.
Posted by fez on Dec. 08 2004,22:10
Forgot to mention, that usb is set up as first boot device.I'm pretty scared of doing a bios update cause it's not my own laptop (work). But maybe it's the only solution.
Or should I involve our it-hotline? Gotta think about it. Could be hard to argument: "erhhh, I'd like to boot from usb." - "Why would you do that? You already got a perfect customized (*lie*) Win system on it?"
Posted by usul on Dec. 08 2004,23:33
.Hey Fez
Funny you should say that, because I work in IT and I would never let any of our users boot into linux off their USB Pendrives because they can't even navigate their way round Windows.
But Im sure your OK
.
Posted by fez on Dec. 09 2004,15:05
The hd is secured by SafeGuard Easy. There's no possibility to access it outside Win. So it's impossible to boot from stick, navigate round Win and mess up the hd, if you mean that.
Posted by fez on Dec. 22 2004,22:50
Turned out that a Bios update doesn't help.So I called the hp hotline. They suggested to format the usb stick as supperfloppy and do some googling about this issue....
cfdisk:
Btw. what option do I have to set up to get a superfloppy formated usb stick? Couldn't find any usefull information with google.
Posted by nessie on Jan. 05 2005,10:31
Hi!I had exactly the same problem with a USB key on my computer few days ago. It appeared that it was just my USB key which was not recognized as bootable (I had also "USB flash Disk" written on screen on boot and then "Missing Operating System"), even if I could boot on it on another PC. I don't why but some PCs can recognize my key as bootable and other, no. I've tried with another brand USB key and everything is all right with the other. Perhaps you should try with another USB key (other brand).
Good luck!
Posted by fez on Jan. 05 2005,14:15
Turned out that I had to format the stick as superfloppy. 
Now it works. But not with dsl. Tried a different distro. Not as useable and mature as dsl but so much eye candy.
Posted by nessie on Jan. 05 2005,15:29
How have you formated the USB key as superfloppy?
Posted by fez on Jan. 07 2005,13:45
| Code Sample |
| mkdosfs -I /dev/sda |
Then I copied the distro on the stick and did:
| Code Sample |
| syslinux /dev/sda |
Maybe you've got to change minirt24.gz. I had to replace all sda1 through sda in .linuxrc.
Posted by Tyraldur on Jan. 08 2005,20:30
Hi fez,thanx for this Thread, my USB-Stick works with HP nx7010 after a Bios update and your help
But did your wireless Card works or did you know how i can install it?
Sorry for my bad english, iam from german and i read more than iam write.
greetings Tyr
Posted by fez on Jan. 09 2005,00:47
What wlan have you got?pcmcia, usb, centrino-wlan? Chip (e.g. prism2, atheros)?
Didn't try to run centrino-wlan on my working machine. But at home it works properly (usb-wlan, Netgear MA111(prism2-chip)) with my crappy Elitegroup Desknote:
- I go to /etc/wlan change wlancfg-DEFAULT to wlancfg-<mySSID>
- add my SSID in wlan.conf
- set up resolv.conf with the correct ip (access point IP)
- start a script that I made to get my wlan finally started:
| Code Sample |
| #!/bin/sh wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_ifstate ifstate=enable wlanctl-ng wlan0 lnxreq_autojoin ssid=<mySSID> authtype=opensystem ifconfig wlan0 <computer's IP> netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast <IP> route add default gw <access point IP> |
). But I'm also too lazy to set up with WEP, which doesn't protect anyway.| Quote |
| iam from germany |
Posted by Tyraldur on Jan. 09 2005,12:02
I try to use the centrino card in the notebook, donīt have any other and donīt wont any other.iam found this < ipw2200.sourceforge.net > and now i dont belive that any current live-cd works with my card and will try to create my own distribution based on DSL with driver inside. :lol: itīs a choke, donīt know how to do this, but its a great idea