I've seen several posts from people who install Puppy to a USB flash drive and find it won't boot. I had this problem with a PNY Attache 512MB. They don't seem to want to boot using a Linux loader like the syslinux that the Puppy install-to-USB uses.
I think it may be funny drive geometry, Linux fdisk complains about them. I read that to install Damn Small Linux people have to mess with cylinder numbers etc. New USB drives have wear levelling that remaps sectors, maybe this is the problem.
I've now got it to boot by making it DOS-bootable and using the DOS Linux loader LDLIN.COM. Rough details here
http://www.murga.org/%7Epuppy/viewtopic ... 8435#38435
This is similar to the way the WAKEPUP floppy works. It just I think needs more bits of FreeDOS and a free MBR to rawrite to the USB boot sector, and that would make a floppy that would make the drives boot Puppy. There must be several different ways to do it, boot floppy image, boot CD image, whole Puppy as an image to burn direct to the USB, even an option in Puppy itself to make it install DOS and LDLIN instead of syslinux. A boot floppy image is one of the simplest, though there should be a alternative for those who don't have floppy drives.
I'd be happy to help with this, or to do it, but am new to Puppy and would like to hear people's opinions. Is it affecting a lot of people?
USB Flash drives that won't boot to Linux
grepnik,
Here are a few of the resources:
Starting with the 5th post, the thread at http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?t=792
Steps at the bottom of the page at http://puppylinux.org/wikka/USBKeysTroubleBooting
For reference:
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/USBNotWorking
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/USBWorking
I own two of the most often mentioned offending devices, SanDisk Cruzer Mini 1GB and PNY Attache 1GB. As mentioned in several places, I've not had any problems. I know that some people have had problems with these two brands, but being as popular as they are, I suspect that if the problem was complete or all the time, we would hear more about it. Maybe things can be done better, or more cleanly. I don't know. Time for the others to comment.
Babbs
Here are a few of the resources:
Starting with the 5th post, the thread at http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?t=792
Steps at the bottom of the page at http://puppylinux.org/wikka/USBKeysTroubleBooting
For reference:
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/USBNotWorking
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/USBWorking
I own two of the most often mentioned offending devices, SanDisk Cruzer Mini 1GB and PNY Attache 1GB. As mentioned in several places, I've not had any problems. I know that some people have had problems with these two brands, but being as popular as they are, I suspect that if the problem was complete or all the time, we would hear more about it. Maybe things can be done better, or more cleanly. I don't know. Time for the others to comment.
Babbs
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grepnik
Thanks babbs. I now see there have been many other discussions on this. My workround was only for the case of a drive that wouldn't run syslinux but would boot to DOS. Many other things on the toubleshooting page are for different problems. Maybe there are other ways to make it boot syslinux though. If there turns out to be a better way then fine, but if people think a bootable floppy USB-fixer would be useful, I'm prepared to have a go.
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BarryK
- Puppy Master
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- Location: Perth, Western Australia
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In puppy2 I've taken a step in this direction.
The Puppy Universal Installer, script /usr/sbin/puppyinstaller, has a dialog
window that asks if you tried the Installer already but the USB drive would not
boot, then choose one of these special options... and so far I have one option,
that writes a file, mbrfat.bin, to the MBR. I got this file from the "makebootfat-1.4" package -- makebootfat is worthwhile taking a look at.
mbrfat.bin is an alternative to Syslinuxes own mbr.bin.
The Puppy Universal Installer, script /usr/sbin/puppyinstaller, has a dialog
window that asks if you tried the Installer already but the USB drive would not
boot, then choose one of these special options... and so far I have one option,
that writes a file, mbrfat.bin, to the MBR. I got this file from the "makebootfat-1.4" package -- makebootfat is worthwhile taking a look at.
mbrfat.bin is an alternative to Syslinuxes own mbr.bin.
I'm not sure why some are having problems with the Cruzer Mini and PNY thumb drives. Maybe its a "luck of the draw" thing?
To help anyone researching this on a deeper level, from Puppy 1.0.7, I pulled what I could from the Hardware Probe, fdisk and cfdisk. You can find my results in this text file: ThumbDrives.txt
Enjoy,
Babbs
To help anyone researching this on a deeper level, from Puppy 1.0.7, I pulled what I could from the Hardware Probe, fdisk and cfdisk. You can find my results in this text file: ThumbDrives.txt
Enjoy,
Babbs
That's what the WakePup & WakeUSB floppies are for.grepnik wrote:If there turns out to be a better way then fine, but if people think a bootable floppy USB-fixer would be useful, I'm prepared to have a go.
WakePup is a sort of "universal" boot floppy that will boot Puppy from a number of Parallel Port devices (ZIP drives and CD-ROM), PCMCIA CD-ROM devices as well as USB devices (flash drives, HDD and CD-ROM).
WakeUSB is a special test version of WakePup for booting USB devices only. It has a simple editor built-in for changing boot options. But this has the drawback of using a memory manager which can cause problems on some machines.
Altogether, they have been downloaded several thousand times, so it seems that they have been found useful. I have had very little feedback with complaints or problems.
If you can make them work even better, that would be great.
Here are the links:
WakePup v1.1c - http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?t=3875
WakeUSB (test version) - http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?t=3352
Edit: I haven't yet tried booting Puppy2 using WakePup or WakeUSB.
For Puppy2 on USB flash drives, Barry is using the "superfloppy" method, in which there is no MBR and no partitions, so those drives will NOT work with either floppy.
(The DOS USB driver USBASPI.SYS used in WakePup and WakeUSB requires an MBR and a FAT partition in order to detect a USB device)
Paul
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grepnik
In reply to all
babbs, thanks for your work on the thumb drives. With my PNY Attache, fdisk and cfdisk report a physical/logical sector mismatch and I suspect this is related to the boot problem. I have two and both show this but with different numerical values. Is this a new extra level of sector mapping maybe, for wear levelling?
Barry, I'll take a look at puppy2. If there turned out to be a real and increasing problem using syslinux on a significant number of drives (only a possibility, hopefully not the case), would you consider offering boot-to-DOS and Linld/Loadlin as an option?
PS thanks for a great distro.
pakt, we covered some common ground re USB. I'd already created a Win98 floppy with USB drivers so I just had to add the DOS Linux loader. Then I saw that WakePup had the same (and much more of course).
I doubt I could make them work better, but WakePup or a version of it could do one extra task. For this case, it could have an option to copy over a new USB MBR and the FreeDOS kernel files* and replace syslinux and its config with Linld and its config. This should make those USB drives boot directly. It would only be work for drives that could be made to boot to DOS but can't boot with the standard install, people would need to be sure their BIOS would boot USB first. But there are 3 or 4 of us over on the beginners forum and 2 of us have now got working using DOS and Linld/Loadlin.
*assuming this isn't over-simplifying what's needed.
babbs, thanks for your work on the thumb drives. With my PNY Attache, fdisk and cfdisk report a physical/logical sector mismatch and I suspect this is related to the boot problem. I have two and both show this but with different numerical values. Is this a new extra level of sector mapping maybe, for wear levelling?
Barry, I'll take a look at puppy2. If there turned out to be a real and increasing problem using syslinux on a significant number of drives (only a possibility, hopefully not the case), would you consider offering boot-to-DOS and Linld/Loadlin as an option?
PS thanks for a great distro.
pakt, we covered some common ground re USB. I'd already created a Win98 floppy with USB drivers so I just had to add the DOS Linux loader. Then I saw that WakePup had the same (and much more of course).
I doubt I could make them work better, but WakePup or a version of it could do one extra task. For this case, it could have an option to copy over a new USB MBR and the FreeDOS kernel files* and replace syslinux and its config with Linld and its config. This should make those USB drives boot directly. It would only be work for drives that could be made to boot to DOS but can't boot with the standard install, people would need to be sure their BIOS would boot USB first. But there are 3 or 4 of us over on the beginners forum and 2 of us have now got working using DOS and Linld/Loadlin.
*assuming this isn't over-simplifying what's needed.
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BarryK
- Puppy Master
- Posts: 9392
- Joined: Mon 09 May 2005, 09:23
- Location: Perth, Western Australia
- Contact:
That was an experiment with the pre-alpha release.For Puppy2 on USB flash drives, Barry is using the "superfloppy" method, in which there is no MBR and no partitions, so those drives will NOT work with either floppy.
The Puppy Universal Installer in puppy2alpha installs to usb in the normal way, but superfloppy mode is an option.
Makebootfat:
http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/boot-readme.html
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grepnik
grepnik,
I don't know if you continued to follow the thread at http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?t=792 but you may find some of the latter postings to be of additional use.
Babbs
I don't know if you continued to follow the thread at http://www.murga.org/~puppy/viewtopic.php?t=792 but you may find some of the latter postings to be of additional use.
Babbs
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grepnik
Yes, I now have a huge number of tools and methods to try out. The makebootfat and advancemame projects should be able to handle every eventuality.
However, I dd'd the existing drive to an image file and tried Nevermore's methods. I ended up with a drive that Puppy's mutt wouldn't recognise, but would boot, at least without Xwindows.
After trying out a few more things I dd'd the image file back. Now it would boot again, but couldn't find usr_cram.fs. And after booting Puppy from a CD, mutt showed a garbage drive - four partitions with impossible random sizes. It was basically looking at some random sector and calling it a partition table. But it booted! Maybe my memory is at fault but that's how I recall it.
So I used 'my' method (HP USB format to FAT16, boot from Win98 floppy with added USB drivers, Dos SYS command to add the Dos kernel files, copy over Linld and its config, an Autoexec.bat that calls linld, and the 3 Puppy files). And I'm back where I was.
I think I need to understand the boot process much better before I spend more time on this!
However, I dd'd the existing drive to an image file and tried Nevermore's methods. I ended up with a drive that Puppy's mutt wouldn't recognise, but would boot, at least without Xwindows.
After trying out a few more things I dd'd the image file back. Now it would boot again, but couldn't find usr_cram.fs. And after booting Puppy from a CD, mutt showed a garbage drive - four partitions with impossible random sizes. It was basically looking at some random sector and calling it a partition table. But it booted! Maybe my memory is at fault but that's how I recall it.
So I used 'my' method (HP USB format to FAT16, boot from Win98 floppy with added USB drivers, Dos SYS command to add the Dos kernel files, copy over Linld and its config, an Autoexec.bat that calls linld, and the 3 Puppy files). And I'm back where I was.
I think I need to understand the boot process much better before I spend more time on this!
Grepnik, I see you point. It could be possible to add a "make flash drive bootable" function in WakePup/WakeUSB using FreeDOS's sys.com. This ought to be possible with a batch file.grepnik wrote: I doubt I could make them work better, but WakePup or a version of it could do one extra task. For this case, it could have an option to copy over a new USB MBR and the FreeDOS kernel files* and replace syslinux and its config with Linld and its config. This should make those USB drives boot directly. It would only be work for drives that could be made to boot to DOS but can't boot with the standard install, people would need to be sure their BIOS would boot USB first. But there are 3 or 4 of us over on the beginners forum and 2 of us have now got working using DOS and Linld/Loadlin.
*assuming this isn't over-simplifying what's needed.
If there is a real interest in this, I could work on a WakeUSB with this feature.
Paul
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grepnik
Pakt, there seem to be a few on the thread in the Beginner's forum trying this. Another has got the drive booting and Linux starting to load but has a problem uncompressing a file, but that's presumably unrelated.
I don't know enough to know whether there are better solutions, current or imminent, but this might fill a need short-term.
I don't know enough to know whether there are better solutions, current or imminent, but this might fill a need short-term.
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grepnik
Just to report back, following Barry's instructions to the letter to install Puppy2 resulted in another unbootable Flash drive. Not only that, but unviewable as well, dd won't copy it, and another sector-level disk access tool (DiskED on Win98) crashes.
This is on the PNY Attache 512MB. I can't be sure this is the same problem with this drive that prevents a non-DOS boot, but I note that Trip has succeeded in using the DOS/Dos-Linux-loader method with Puppy2, see the end of this topic
http://www.murga.org/%7Epuppy/viewtopic.php?t=6132
I was probably not using the current version of Puppy2, things may have changed in later releases.
I may try the Dos approach with Puppy2 next, though for normal use I'm inclined to boot off CD with PHOME on USB.
Major, it may be worth your while trying the technique in the topic listed above. If you can make it boot to DOS I suspect it can be made to boot Puppy.
This is on the PNY Attache 512MB. I can't be sure this is the same problem with this drive that prevents a non-DOS boot, but I note that Trip has succeeded in using the DOS/Dos-Linux-loader method with Puppy2, see the end of this topic
http://www.murga.org/%7Epuppy/viewtopic.php?t=6132
I was probably not using the current version of Puppy2, things may have changed in later releases.
I may try the Dos approach with Puppy2 next, though for normal use I'm inclined to boot off CD with PHOME on USB.
Major, it may be worth your while trying the technique in the topic listed above. If you can make it boot to DOS I suspect it can be made to boot Puppy.
I'm running Puppy 1.0.8, and I've tried the standard install to USB instructions. Everything appears OK when I follow the script, but when I try to boot from the USB falsh drive, I get a message "missing operating system".
I previously had a PNY flash drive running happily on the same laptop (Dell Latitude X300) under 1.0.7
I previously had a PNY flash drive running happily on the same laptop (Dell Latitude X300) under 1.0.7
Booting from Lexar Jumpdrive
Hi,
I tried for a couple of days to boot unsuccessfully with various installations and formatting from Windows etc.
The solution was the HP tool. See here (with link to the tool in question):
http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/ ... _driv.html
My laptop also said "No operating system" until I reformatted with the HP tool.
Now my Puppy 1.08 boots like a dream
And with the little Puppy, I still have plenty of space for my files!
Mons
I tried for a couple of days to boot unsuccessfully with various installations and formatting from Windows etc.
The solution was the HP tool. See here (with link to the tool in question):
http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/ ... _driv.html
My laptop also said "No operating system" until I reformatted with the HP tool.
Now my Puppy 1.08 boots like a dream
And with the little Puppy, I still have plenty of space for my files!
Mons