Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

Mr Doolie · Joined: 28 Jun 2005 Posts: 143

I just a real cool 4Gig pocket-sized external USB hard drive.
Can this be set up as a stand-alone bootable independant Puppy system?
I mean auto-booting with no grub or lilo on the main system drive? I want to be able to carry my puppy in my pocket and just boot him up at other people's houses (assuming of course that thier bios supports USB boot) without needing any extra floppy or boot disk. I see when you can do it with a thumbdrive.

How would I do this? Thanks.

papaschtroumpf · Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 250

That's how I use it, althgouh my current USB stick is only 128M (1G is in the mail)

See this thread: http://www.murga.org/%7Epuppy/viewtopic.php?t=911

Was real easy to do.

I don;t want to duplicate threads so I will add a few other comments to the thread above.

BarryK · Posted: Tue 28 Jun 2005, 19:29 Post subject:

I had a 40G laptop hard drive in an external USB case, but wasn't able to boot from it. I suspect that is because it was running off the power from the USB socket -- i think papasmurf commented on this in another thread?

Mr Doolie · Joined: 28 Jun 2005 Posts: 143

It just won't work. The Wizard shows the proper USB devices.

sda - The built-in Compact Flash reader
sdb - The built-in MS/SD/[something else] reader
sdc - The Toshiba external 4 Gig HDD

Then whe it goes to read them it craps out on sda and sdb (of course since there are no cards in there) and then it says "Can't mount sdc". Why not? It's a formatted FAT32 drive.

Does Puppy need special drivers to recognize an external HDD rather than an external Thumbdrive? I can't choose SDC1 as the save drive during the Puppy boot-up either.

Flash · Posted: Wed 29 Jun 2005, 22:56 Post subject:

I believe there is a forum thread where someone attempts to boot Puppy from an iPod HD, without success. Sad

Mr Doolie · Joined: 28 Jun 2005 Posts: 143

Maybe some other day. I tried my thumbdrive and it also shows up as sdc unmountable. Put the memory card into the built-in reader (sdb) and was able to use the puppy usb wizard to install Puppy (YAY!) but can't BOOT from the reader (BOO! Doesn't show up as a "USB-HDD" in the BIOS boot menu.). Put the card into the thumbdrive case and it DOES show up as a USB-HDD but won't boot.

Last Plan For Another Day:
Open the computer case and unplug the reader. Maybe then the thumbdrive and USB Hard drive will show up as sda and the only USB storage devices on the system. Who knows?

I can carry the live cds with me of course. I just wanted to have storage space when I'm out and about.

Mr Doolie · Joined: 28 Jun 2005 Posts: 143

Well, I feel like a fool but this is so funny and I don't mind telling stories on myself.

To recap: Puppy sees my built-in card reader as sda and sdb. The device I want to access, the external USB HDD, is seen as sdc but reported as unmountable and unreadable.

Picture this: I'm sitting here wondering how to fix the situation and staring at the built-in card reader on the computer. The left side of the device is a CF port. Useless to me. You know how bloody EXPENSIVE those mini-drives are? The right side is a MS/SD/MMC port that is handy but not needed because I have a little thumb-drive-looking reader for MS and SD that I like better. That stupid reader is in the way.

[Right now you are yelling out the obvious solution but remember that I am a bit hardwarephobic and a clone with dain bramage].

A couple things I read on the net concerning the Mega-180 flash though my mind

"The Deluxe Version comes with the optional card reader"
"If you want to install a second hard drive you have to remove the card reader"

A lightbulb appears over my head. DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Opened the case, disconnected a little 4-wire plug and the reader went away. My external HDD is now sda. Woohoo! I can mount it fine within Puppy. Woohoo! It's visible. Woohoo! I can save/load files from it. Woohoo! USB install wizard goes though without a hitch. Woohoo!
PUPPY WON'T BOOT FROM IT! BOOHOO! Even after running syslinux ("syslinux.exe d:" from Winblows) the boot falls right though and the internal HDD takes over. Syslinux made the little red light flash in the drive but it won't boot..

Well, at least it's a useable drive now. Can't have everything I guess.

At the moment I have to mount it manually with the mount wizard. Sometimes it's dev/flash and sometimes it's dev/cdrive.
Question: Why sometimes flash and sometimes cdrive?

Question: How do I make Puppy auto-mount it on boot-up?

Question: Somebody please write me a "How To partition your external HDD, format it and make it the active partition and bootable through Linux" message

Thank you. You may stop laughing at me now. Well, right after *I* stop laughing at me.

.

Mr Doolie · Joined: 28 Jun 2005 Posts: 143

I just read my older post. Looks like I *DID* think about unplugging the card reader. Oh boy! I'm getting old. Gotta stop chugging Everclear I guess.

.