Does USB install format the USB drive or just copy files?

[neilloffhagen]

Hi,

I'm wondering when you use the auto USB install, does the USB install format the USB drive or just copy files? Reason I ask is that I carry the USB drive to different sites I work at and occasionally need to be able to copy files from it to Windows machines and if the USB formats it as ext3 (for example) the windows machines won't be able to see any of the data stored on it.

Appreciate repsonses.

Neil.

[n8siv]

It just copy,s the files it will still work on "yuk windose"

[neilloffhagen]

Thanks for clairfiying that. I'll go ahead and do the install this lunch time. It is a pain to have to use windows at work, but I'm trying to find a distro that I can use at work, that wil run from CD or USB and that will do all I need to. The only thing I think will be a problem is conecting to the exchange Server to get email. I know it can be done with Evolution. But iI think I saw an older post saying that getting evolution to run under Puppy is not too easy, if at possible?

Thanks again,

Neil.

[hobbit]

I installed Puppy on mine just the other day and it WAS formatted (Puppy 1.0.4) - the one file I had on it was gone after the Puppy install. (Luckily it was also on my PC HDD )

The USB key format is still recognised by windows - I haven't checked but I assume it's FAT.

[neilloffhagen]

Thanks for that. I copied all my files to my HD first and then tried the USB install. It failed No real error message, just said there was a problem and stopped. I'll try tonight on my newer PC. This oner I'm using is a few years old, so might be a problem with the USB? I can read and write to it in Windows and when I boot off the PuppyCD. I couldn't boot off the USB drive in DSL on this PC but could on my one at home.

Not urgent, so I can wait til later this evening to try again.

Neil.

[neilloffhagen]

Success Like most problems, if not all, it was user related I'd been formatting the USB as FAT32 and it should have been FAT? Well, at least formating it as FAT got the USB install to work.

Now need to see if I can get Evolution working in Puppy? I know there is BeatrIX, but it has a lot of stuff missing compared to Puppy. I suspect this may be a dead end task?

Neil.