Booting Corsair Flash Voyager


Forum: USB booting
Topic: Booting Corsair Flash Voyager
started by: schemer

Posted by schemer on April 15 2005,18:41
Has anyone had success getting a Corsair Flash Voyager (1GB) to boot USB?  If so, which method?
Posted by schemer on April 24 2005,23:28
Corsair Flash Voyager 1GB USB Flash Drive

Prepare the USB flash drive
    Boot Linux with the drive connected (I’ve used a live Knoppix 3.6 CD)
    Switch to root (not required if you boot “knoppix 1”)
      # su
    Check the current geometry on the drive (most likely recognized by the kernel as /dev/sda)
      # sfdisk -l /dev/sda
    Mine showed the following results:
      63488 cylinders, 1 head, 32 sectors
    Multiply the three to obtain the total number of sectors:
      63488 x 1 x 32 = 2031616
    Supposedly, the boot partition should be less than 1024 cylinders, and 32 sectors per cylinder.  So, I’ve adjusted the geometry as follows:  total number of sectors / 32 / 1024 = # of heads
      2031616 / 32 / 1024 = 62
    And so, I’ve adjusted my geometry using sfdisk
      # sfdisk -f -C1024 -H62 -S32 /dev/sda
    sfdisk will next ask for the partition info.  I’ve decided to have everything on one partition:
      sda1:0 1024 e *
    Press <ENTER> for all the others, (sda2, sda3, sda4)
    Basically, this sets the first primary partition (/dev/sda1) to start with cylinder 0 and end with cylinder 1024, it’s of type “e” (Win95 FAT (LBA)), and bootable (“*”)
    Reboot to reload with correct partition table for the USB flash drive

Format the USB flash drive
    Boot Linux with the drive connected (I’ve used a live Knoppix 3.6 CD)
    Switch to root (not required if you boot “knoppix 1”)
      # su
    Format the drive
      # mkdosfs /dev/sda1

Make the USB flash drive bootable
    Boot Linux with the drive connected (I’ve used a live Knoppix 3.6 CD)
    You will need to download the bootusb and the DSL image files.  I’ve used bootusb-0.8.img and dsl-1.0.1.iso, and put them in my /home directory.  If you’re not able to copy the DSL image file to the /home directory, then store it at another location on your hard drive(s) and use that instead of “/home” below.
    Switch to root (not required if you boot “knoppix 1”)
      # su
    Write the boot sector
      # syslinux -s -o /home/bootusb-0.8.img /dev/sda1
    Now, mount the drive
      # mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
    Create a temp directory and mount the bootusb image file
      # mkdir /mnt/tmp
      # mount -t vfat -o loop=/dev/loop0 /home/bootusb-0.8.img /mnt/tmp

    Copy files over to the drive and unmount the bootusb image file
      # cp /mnt/tmp/* /mnt/sda1
      # umount /mnt/tmp

    Mount the DSL image file
      # mount -t iso9660 -o loop=/dev/loop0 /home/dsl-1.0.1.iso /mnt/tmp
    Copy files over to the drive and unmount the DSL image file
      # cp -r /mnt/tmp/KNOPPIX /mnt/sda1
      # umount /mnt/sda1

All done.  Try it on a PC that supports booting from USB.

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