USB flash won't boot 1.0.3. (Solved)

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prashphutita
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue 21 Jun 2005, 10:55

USB flash won't boot 1.0.3. (Solved)

#1 Post by prashphutita »

Hullo All,

I used Puppy V1.0.3 live CD to install Puppy Option 2 bootable USB drive. I had pre-formatted the Transcend 1 GB flash drive to FAT16, which Puppy recognised as being suitable for the installation. The install went to step 8 (ie. everything seemed to complete correctly in the script).

On the USB drive, I can see

image.gz

ldlinux.sys

usr_cram.fs

vmlinuz

and

syslinux.cfg contains:

default vmlinuz root=/dev/ram0 initrd=image.gz
append PSLEEP=25 PHOME=sda1 PFILE=pup100-none-262144 PKEYS=us

I have an Award BIOS on a Gigabyte PCI Express GA-8I915P Duo (Pro) mobo. I have exhausted all the possibilities for 1st Boot device, ie.

USB-HDD

USB-ZIP

and

USB-FDD

I used the latest SysLinux. Looking inside of IdLinux.sys shows that it is indeed V3.08

*** Please, anyone, what can I do to make this work? Thanking-you in advance...
Kindest Regards,

Prashphutita (Melbourne, Australia)

User avatar
Flash
Official Dog Handler
Posts: 13071
Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 16:04
Location: Arizona USA

Re: USB flash won't boot 1.0.3

#2 Post by Flash »

prashphutita wrote:<> I have an Award BIOS on a Gigabyte PCI Express GA-8I915P Duo (Pro) mobo. I have exhausted all the possibilities for 1st Boot device, ie.

USB-HDD

USB-ZIP

and

USB-FDD

I used the latest SysLinux. Looking inside of IdLinux.sys shows that it is indeed V3.08

*** Please, anyone, what can I do to make this work? Thanking-you in advance...
The exact same motherboard as this post.

nduanetesh
Ultra Super-stud
Posts: 168
Joined: Fri 06 May 2005, 02:36

#3 Post by nduanetesh »

Check this soon-to-be-expanded-when-I-get-around-to-it wiki page.

http://www.goosee.com/puppy/wikka/TroubleBootingUSBKeys

Something that I haven't added to that page yet...

I personally have had trouble getting keys to boot using a version of syslinux later than 2.11. I don't know what changed when, but you might want to try downloading syslinux 2.11 and giving that a shot.

good luck

ND

prashphutita
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue 21 Jun 2005, 10:55

#4 Post by prashphutita »

Thank-you very much, nduanetesh, for your speedier-than-the-speediest reply... it did get me on the right track straight away! Yes, it was a case of the old "Award BIOS treats USB drive as if it is a Hard Disk Drive" trick, as explained in your excellent WIKI.

Hmm, the logic does make sense, in a convoluted way. All I needed to do was set the Hard Disk Boot Priority to have the (bootable) Flash drive as the first priority.

I am concerned, though, at the amount of data which is being read from the USB drive at boot-up time, as well as the tons of data being written back to the USB drive when saying Bye-Bye. Even with this fast Flash drive, it takes several minutes.

*** Is there any way around this? I take it that all the user's preferences, etc. are being retrieved/ restored.

P.S. My apologies for the "double-posting": it was accidental (I am new to this Board!) BTW, I *had* been exercising patience, having waited a full two days for my postings to appear... or so I thought. By pressing the "Start a New Thread" button, all I succeeded in doing was to send the messages to myself. I'm still not sure what I'd done there.
Kindest Regards,

Prashphutita (Melbourne, Australia)

nameless foo

#5 Post by nameless foo »

Reducing to size of the pup100 file to the amount you actually need will reduce the zeroing that occurs when shutting down. I cut mine down to 10240 which just takes a few seconds. The only thing I added to puppy 1.0.3 was my bookmarks.

nduanetesh
Ultra Super-stud
Posts: 168
Joined: Fri 06 May 2005, 02:36

#6 Post by nduanetesh »

I agree that writing to and from the key at boot and shut down can seem to take forever. It's not so bad if you've got a USB 2.0 key in a USB 2.0 connection, but if either one is running at USB 1.1 speed, it can seem eternal. You are correct in thinking that all of your personal settings (and pretty much everything you've changed in the file system) are being written back to your key. Unfortunately, other than changing your hardware, I don't know how to work around it, but nameless foo's suggestion sounds like a good idea...

Nameless foo, how does one go about shrinking the pup001 file? The only way I can think of is to force it to be created as a small file initially, but this would be a very akward and heavy-handed method. How did you do it?

prashphutita, I'm glad I could help. It's always nice to know that you've given somebody some advice that actually worked!

ND

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