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Topic: USB Boot: "Flashy Cursor of Death", Having problems booting from USB stick

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ke4nt1

Group: Members
Posts: 2329
Joined: Oct. 2003

Posted: Sep. 22 2004,04:21

cbagger01,

Here are some partition tables of SUCCESSFUL frugal installs to USBkeys
using the "Install to USB Pendrive" or frugal_usb.sh script ..

These 4 were provided by roberts..

> > Kingston:
> > Disk /dev/sdb: 64 MB, 64487424 bytes
> > 4 heads, 32 sectors/track, 984 cylinders
> > Units = cylinders of 128 * 512 = 65536 bytes
> >
> > Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> > /dev/sdb1 * 1 983 62896 6 FAT16
> >
> > Lexar:
> >
> > Disk /dev/sda: 129 MB, 129499136 bytes
> > 33 heads, 32 sectors/track, 239 cylinders
> > Units = cylinders of 1056 * 512 = 540672 bytes
> >
> > Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> > /dev/sda1 1 239 126176 6 FAT16
> >
> > Sandisk:
> >
> > Disk /dev/sdb: 64 MB, 64487424 bytes
> > 4 heads, 32 sectors/track, 984 cylinders
> > Units = cylinders of 128 * 512 = 65536 bytes
> >
> > Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> > /dev/sdb1 * 1 983 62896 6 FAT16
> >
> > Iomega:
> >
> > Disk /dev/sdb: 65 MB, 65011712 bytes
> > 32 heads, 32 sectors/track, 124 cylinders
> > Units = cylinders of 1024 * 512 = 524288 bytes
> >
> > Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
> > /dev/sdb1 * 1 124 63472 6 FAT16

And this one is from my key

SuperTalentFlash:

Disk /dev/sda: 519 MB, 519569408 bytes
16 heads, 32 sectors/track, 1982 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 512 * 512 = 262144 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 267 68336 6 FAT16
/dev/sda2 268 1982 439040 b Win95 FAT32

Notice they all use 32sectors/track with syslinux ..

I had to use "sfdisk -S 32" to force mine to 32 s/t

73
ke4nt

roberts

Group: Members
Posts: 4983
Joined: Oct. 2003

Posted: Sep. 22 2004,05:14

The MBR from SPB linux (spb2_mbr.sec) is helpful for stubborn devices. I may make it an option to the frugal_usb script.

However, the DSL team has only a limited access to a number of various devices and machines. When the script was in testing mode. It passed quite an array of devices. Both ke4nt and I have asked to see the format and machines that have an issue so that the script may be improved to handle even more devices and machines.

My goal is to always try to provide an all Linux soultion whenever possible and not have to reply on other OS in order make DSL boot/work.

cbagger01

Group: Members
Posts: 4264
Joined: Oct. 2003

Posted: Sep. 22 2004,06:42

FYI,

The above comment was not meant to be a criticism of the frugal install script. The script itself is cool and seems to work for most people. The only downside that I noticed was that when running from the Fluxbox menu, you could not see the error message because the rxvt window would disappear quickly. Maybe a "sleep 3" in the script would allow the user to see the error messages. However it was easy to read the error when run from a root terminal window command line.

I also needed to play with some settings in the BIOS to get the DELL-formatted USB drive to be recognized.

I also learned that if you push the <F12> key too quickly at bootup (before the USB drive LED lights up) you will not get a USB flash device option on the boot menu.

So I am tempted to blow away my custom FREEDOS/LOADLIN/DSL boot partition and start over from scratch with the usb frugal install script just to see if it will work this time around.

Or try out that special MBR.

Here is my post-DELL formatted bootable USB device partition table. Note that there is a small amount of unpartitioned space so the whole drive is not being used:

Disk /dev/sda: 131 MB, 131072000 bytes
8 heads, 32 sectors/track, 1000 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 256 * 512 = 131072 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 979 125296 6 FAT16

My original frugal usb partition table was also set to "32 sectors/track" although I am pretty sure that the other geometry-related values were different than the post-DELL formatted table.

Guest
Unregistered

Posted: Sep. 27 2004,13:37

rawrite32 won't write to A: drive under WinXP, how else can I get "linux24" and "minirt24.gz" ?

henk1955

Group: Members
Posts: 249
Joined: June 2004

Posted: Sep. 27 2004,13:50

@guest
1. linux24 and minirt24.gz are on the cdrom in /boot/isolinux
2. try to find winrawrite

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30 replies since Sep. 08 2004,12:13

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