Booting External HDD
Forum: USB booting
Topic: Booting External HDD
started by: Sebastian
Posted by Sebastian on Feb. 10 2005,12:35
Since a while I use an external hdd.The HDD itself is from Toshiba (20Gb 2.5") and mounted in a 2.5" external casing.
The External casing is usb1.1 and usb2.0
It has 2 partitions, 1gb fat16 16k and 19gb fat32 32K
First of all had problems with cfdisk, concerning mounting and read/write. Solved it and can open cfdisk, partition 1 is bootable (the fat16 one).
Used the dsl-installer which didn't work because of the format. Later on when the right format choosed could use installer but no file's appeard.
Did copy the knoppix folder to partition 1, booted with boot floppy, no problems can boot dsl.
Put the floppy's files on partition 1, and used syslinux -f -s, al appeared normal, but then strange things go happen
Without boot floppy, loads the DSL Bussiness Card Logo, and the prompt for F2/Enter. Normally here should appear BOOT: with the blinking cursor but it just doesn't appear.
It just hangs, and nothing helps except re-booting...
On almost any machine with good USB I can boot with floppy, and use dsl from the hdd.
Anybody has any solutions to booting with hdd only (no boot flop)...
The reason for al this, is that I use alot of different computers (ict student), and want to acces my file's with out the problems of local/roaming profiles under windows. So i decided that the external hdd could be used in combination with a os (preferably linux). So i can put everything i want on it, and use it everywhere (almost). I first figured out knoppix would be a great deal (had some experience with it). But i ranned into dsl and figured out this would be perfect since it is so small.
I hope anybody has any solution or advice...
Sebastian
Posted by Sebastian on Feb. 28 2005,14:22
Figured out, that the "frozen screen" must be because the usb-drivers can't be found.I did try modifying the minirt24.gz / linuxrc
It seems the howto was written for the old linuxrc...http://rz-obrian.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/knoppix-usb/
Since i run dsl from usb hdd with floppy, i can't mount the boot.img or minirt.gz, because then i can't acces floppy/usb to write files to.
I hope anybody has any idea how to edit the linuxrc and put the modules in the right folder.
Regards;
Sebastian
Posted by cbagger01 on Feb. 28 2005,17:27
Did you try creating a boot floppy using the DSL 0.8 USB boot floppy image?It should contain the USB driver files in the minirt24.gz
Posted by Sebastian on Mar. 01 2005,08:02
Yes i did make a floppy using rawwrite and winimage.With rawwrite i can make a floppy, which i can boot with (so floppy and usb hdd).
With winimage i can write the bootusbimage directly to the hdd.
Both methods work on floppy, but not on the hdd.
I read several howto's but at the moment i'm just stuck at this point.
I do see some more posts on the internet with peeps who seems to have the same problem, no good solution to the problem mostly.
anyway thanx for the reaction...i hope you have any idea what my problem could be.....
By the way, i try'd dsl embedded, so i can use it with windows. With boot floppy i can boot. Without floppy, i just hangs after the logo, just before the boot: promt should appear.
Posted by . on Mar. 09 2005,04:09
I managed to boot a usb 20gig HD with the use of a floppy. This is what I did to get it to work:
1. Partition external usb hard drive 2 gigs FAT, 17 gigs ext2
2. Use the usb pre-made floppy image and write to floppy.
3. extract the latest dsl iso to the fat partition on the
Posted by Sebastian on Mar. 10 2005,15:33
As i mentioned before, i can boot with boot floppy, that works. But without it, it loads the dsl image...
Then the line that says something like press F2 for more options blablabla...
Then the "boot:" should appear but it hangs beforehand.
I would really like using dsl without floppy.
Floppys always seem to have problems (like dust on the surface of whatever) half the time they dont work.
Plus all i want to take with me is the 20gb usb external drive, so i can use whatever computer i want, and use my own system, my own files, my own music etc.
If i would take floppy, cd, usb or whatever, i should buy a bigger bag for my stuff
Do you tried booting without the floppy? Does it work? And if it doesn't, what do you think might be the problem/solution?
I Also tried feather and puppy 2 weeks ago....no luck either.
Both seem to boot, then does something (dunno anymore), and then doesnt seem to find some files.
If you boot floppy only, it states the same message, like it can't find some files or whatever...Puppy or feather dropped me to a limited shell.
I will install puppy and feather next week....Then i will be able to describe the things that happen a little better ;)
p.s. sorry for the english...