Strange flash thumbb drive setup

Please post any bugs you have found
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kutalion
Posts: 16
Joined: Sun 29 Aug 2010, 05:27

Strange flash thumbb drive setup

#1 Post by kutalion »

Hello,

Some time ago I had a problem with my laptop booting from flash and I used various methods for overcoming this problem for booting into Puppy. One of them was the build-in puppy-to-flash installer. I've tried all of the options there. It didn't help though.
The problem is that when I run the USB-FDD option my flash drive *physically* split into 2 parts. Now the drive is recognized as two devices - the first is 1.44 USB-FDD device and the other a normal USB Flash Drive. Windows 7 reads the two without a problem really (it's rather annoying though) and Vista (and probably XP) have serious problems reading the 4 Gigs part. This leaves me with only 1.44 USB-FDD on these systems which is quite bad and makes my USB Flash unusable.
My question is can I undo what the Puppy installer had done to my Flash and turn it single device again.
By the way in hardinfo Storage list I see the USB and two devices two and they have differences.
The device info for them is similar

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Model             USB DISK Pro
Vendor            USB DISK Pro
Type              Disk
Revision          PMAP
Under the second dropdown list I get differences

For the USB-FDD i get:

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Controller          scsi5
Channel             0
ID                  0
LUN                 0
And for the rest I get

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Controller          scsi5
Channel             0
ID                  0
LUN                 1
I don't see the device under the USB list there or by typing lsusb in terminal.
So can I make my Flash one agian or will it be divided forever?

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rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

Re: Strange flash thumbb drive setup

#2 Post by rcrsn51 »

kutalion wrote:My question is can I undo what the Puppy installer had done to my Flash and turn it single device again.
From the Menu -> System menu, run Gparted. Delete the current partitions and make a new one formatted as fat32.

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rjbrewer
Posts: 4405
Joined: Tue 22 Jan 2008, 21:41
Location: merriam, kansas

#3 Post by rjbrewer »

Run bootflash again (hdd).
Just use the first part that does the format.

Inspiron 700m, Pent.M 1.6Ghz, 1Gb ram.
Msi Wind U100, N270 1.6>2.0Ghz, 1.5Gb ram.
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Les Kerf
Posts: 317
Joined: Sun 24 Jun 2012, 13:30

#4 Post by Les Kerf »

I ran into the same problem trying to use Bootflash. The only one that worked for me was USB-HDD.

I tried repeatedly with different brands of thumb drives, different versions of Puppy, and different computers, but the options of USB-ZIP, USB-FDD, and ComboFormat have never succeeded in installing Puppy for me. I never tried ISO-9660.

I finally gave up trying and concluded that it is buggy, but don't know enough to try to fix anything.
Les

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bigpup
Posts: 13886
Joined: Sun 11 Oct 2009, 18:15
Location: S.C. USA

#5 Post by bigpup »

when I run the USB-FDD option my flash drive *physically* split into 2 parts. Now the drive is recognized as two devices - the first is 1.44 USB-FDD device and the other a normal USB Flash Drive.
That is what that option is suppose to do.
Make one partition that is the size of a 1.44 floppy disk and look like a floppy disc to computer.
The rest is made into a normal partition for storage.
What the installer is suppose to do is install the boot files to the 1.44 partition and put Puppy main files on the normal partition.
If computer is an old computer that will only boot from a floppy disk drive, it is suppose to fool it into thinking that is what is there.

This working seems to be very dependent on hardware you try it on.
The info page when you first start Bootflash tells you about this option and why you may want to use it.

For normal USB booting select the USB-HDD option.
The things they do not tell you, are usually the clue to solving the problem.
When I was a kid I wanted to be older.... This is not what I expected :shock:
YaPI(any iso installer)

kutalion
Posts: 16
Joined: Sun 29 Aug 2010, 05:27

#6 Post by kutalion »

So no help, huh.
rcrsn51 wrote:From the Menu -> System menu, run Gparted. Delete the current partitions and make a new one formatted as fat32.
You didn't get the point I get two DIFFERENT devices /dev/sdb AND /dev/sdc the first device is just a megabite and the other is the rest.
rjbrewer wrote:Run bootflash again (hdd).
Just use the first part that does the format.

Nothing of significance had really happened my /dev/sdb is now USB-HDD so is the /dev/sdc but they did not become one agian.

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rcrsn51
Posts: 13096
Joined: Tue 05 Sep 2006, 13:50
Location: Stratford, Ontario

#7 Post by rcrsn51 »

kutalion wrote:So no help, huh..
So try this:

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dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=1
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdc bs=512 count=1
Then run Gparted.

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