Can't boot usb flash drive

Booting, installing, newbie
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r3bol
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Joined: Wed 31 Aug 2005, 10:56
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Can't boot usb flash drive

#1 Post by r3bol »

I installed PL from my CD distro onto my USB flash MP3 player using the .sh script. Everything seemed to go OK with the installation, but it wont boot. Here is the message I get...

Searching for boot record from USB RMD-FDD..OK
Remove disks or other media.
Press any key to continue.

The files on the disk are as follows...
image.gz
syslinux.cfg
usr_cram.fs
vmlinuz

My BIOS has detected my USB device and I have given it boot priority.

I am no expert at this type of thing, but I was wondering if it was something to do with the FAT partition. According to my disks manual, it needs to be FAT 16. Is it possible that PL needs FAT 32 to work or maybe something else?

Thanks.

Swank1

#2 Post by Swank1 »

I am in the middle of the same situation...

Haver you set your BIOS boot priority to USB-ZIP, USB-FDD, or USB-HDD. I believe USB-ZIP is the correct choice, but I am still learning....

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Ian
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Location: Queensland

#3 Post by Ian »

I have installed Puppy to pen drives with no problems, I just bought them connected to the USB port, ran Puppy live CD and installed from the CD.

I did not have to reformat or do anything, it was straight-out-of-the-box stuff and I believe that they come preformatted as FAT 16.

You may have to disable plug and play in the BIOS.
I can't remember if my BIOS is set to boot USB-HDD, USB-ZIP or SCSI but I know I had to try a couple to get it to work as different BIOS's boot different ways.

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r3bol
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#4 Post by r3bol »

I couldn't find and PLUG & PLAY options in my BIOS. Might they perhaps be called something else?

OK, so I checked the following.

Out of the three, my BIOS only gives me the USB RMD-FDD option which is set as 1st.
1st USB RMD-FDD

When I reboot and go into the BIOS again it detects my device...
1st USB RMD-FDD MUSIC DI SK

When I try to boot I get this...

Searching for boot record from USB RMD-FDD..OK
Remove disks or other media.
Press any key to continue.


Then it boots Windows :cry:

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Flash
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#5 Post by Flash »

What brand and model of computer are you using? Have you access to a different computer you could try it on?

John Doe
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Joined: Mon 01 Aug 2005, 04:46
Location: Michigan, US

Re: Can't boot usb flash drive

#6 Post by John Doe »

r3bol wrote:I installed PL from my CD distro onto my USB flash MP3 player
I just tried to set this up for my dad. He has a USB Mp3 player and I was going to try to get him running linux off it.

A couple notes:

1-don't format the device if you want your player to keep working. I did a low level scan and found there are about 799 files on the device you can't see. On his (yours may be different) they where in directories like, ANN.gif, ANN.wav, ANN.jpg. By default the device should be FAT16 anyway.

2-I couldn't make it work. I'm using the same boot floppy I used successfully on my device and the same files. I think the player does "something" when it fires up that makes it impossible to load.

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