How to boot from a Sandisk Cruzer Micro

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urizan
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How to boot from a Sandisk Cruzer Micro

#1 Post by urizan »

urizan wrote:Hi Forum,

Tried rebooting into Sandisk Micro Cruzer install from a second computer today without success... compared a 128MB Lexar usb flash drive which definitely boots from bios.

Any insights would be appreciated much.

Urizan
Great Success for getting Sandisk Cruzer Micro booting:

Here is a rough how to do it for said device.

1. http://www.u3.com/uninstall/ is a free download for removing the U3 craptition.

2. http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Har ... Tool.shtml is a free download for what is known as "Low Level Format" tool. I know it zeros said devices' MBR in my hands.

3. Once step 1-2 .exe apps are used on said device in an MS environment it is time to print this link, http://www.puppylinux.org/wikka/USBKeysTroubleBooting, and change the number of sectors per track to 32.

4. Install Puppy so that syslinux boot files appear on said device.

I now have three 2GB Sandisk Cruzer Micros and one 1GB Sandisk Cruzer Micro that boot from power on or as virtuals through what is referred to as "Qemu Puppy".

I write this here in case I forget how I did this or I hope this saves someone a lot of time next time.

Best for 08!





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Béèm
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#2 Post by Béèm »

Nice to know, but looks like it is a post for the How TO section.
Time savers:
Find packages in a snap and install using Puppy Package Manager (Menu).
Consult Wikka
Use peppyy's puppysearch
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Inuyasha
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#3 Post by Inuyasha »

I did this over a year ago with Damn Small Linux. It's probably on the forum over there, but I think it's all moved/archived.
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Volsung
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#4 Post by Volsung »

I have a 2 gig Cruzer micro that had no problem booting from bios with or without U3 (which is rather crappy.) All I had to do was set one of its flags to bootable and use the universal installer.
[img]http://img385.imageshack.us/img385/3843/magussigbc0.jpg[/img]
Bruce B

#5 Post by Bruce B »

Thank you for the HOWTO.

The problem I have as a non Windows user, is it is some what of a how to do it from Windows

I'd like to add my input on how I think I'd approach it using only Linux.

The first thing I'd like to do is discover the drive's geometry and file system type. Take notes and then restore it as it was originally. This is in anticipation of losing some vitals in the low-level format procedure to be performed later.

For this I'd open it with cfdisk, the command would likely be something like: cfdisk /dev/sda

Cfdisk will show the CHS (cylinders heads and sectors) On a flash stick that has been wiped don't ever expect Linux or any other utility to duplicate the factory's CHS settings.

Also Cfdisk will also show the Hex file system identifier. These are the things I'd want to put back as they were.

------------------

Step 1 - Regarding the posted link
www.u3.com/uninstall/


I think they have Linux software available for this purpose at that link. I also wonder why wiping the drive wouldn't wipe the U3 nonsense, but don't know. So I'd go ahead and proceed with step 1

Step 2 - The low level format

Assuming the device is /dev/sda the command I'd use would be:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=1M

Step 3 - I'll call it restoring the drive

Using this command to open cfdisk

# cfdisk -z -c ## -h ## -s ##

where ## represents the original CHS values

make a primary partition of the same hex type as the original, write changes

format the drive

Step 4 - original suggested procedure unchanged

------------------

Not having the Sandisk drive to test with, I can't say that would I would do would work. But I think it would. And I'd certainly do it before installing Windows or borrowing a machine, when I think Linux would do the job.
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d4p
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#6 Post by d4p »

Hmm, lowlevel format!, i dont think it is necessary.
Format fat16 or maybe fat32 is already good enough to make puppy bootable.
Tested on these usb flash drives:
SanDisk, Emprex, Memorex, Lexar, Adata, Pqi, Patriot
SD & CF cards:
Pqi, sandisk, cosair, CF
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Crash
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Location: Melbourne, FL

#7 Post by Crash »

I saw an ad at my local drug store for a Sandisk 1GB MicroCruzer for $10, and decided buy one to see the minimal way to install Puppy on it. The lady at the checkout counter ripped out a $5 coupon from a booklet and scanned it, too, so my price out the door was actually $5. With my precious investment in hand, I went home to try it out.

I used a test computer that I am familiar with, an Athlon 64 3200+. I disabled the hard drives to avoid confusion, then booted up to a Puppy 3.01 live CD. Then I pushed in the USB stick and ran Puppy Universal Installer. It went smoothly. The only thing out of the ordinary was it complaining that the boot flag wasn't set. It prompted me to go to GParted, where I set the boot flag. Then I completed the rest of the steps in Universal Installer. I removed the CD, shut down, and booted back up with the USB stick plugged in. It booted into Puppy just fine. I note that when I open up MUT, it shows the Puppy partition as "sda :: U3 Cruzer Micro" but also shows an "sr0 ::" CD icon as a "U3 System".

I know that for the 4GB Micro Cruzer, I had to visit the U3 web site and run their uninstall program to get it to boot Puppy. But at least for this particular 1GB product, I simply use the tools available in the Puppy distro and the process is very straightforward.

I wrote this post using this USB stick.

///

Edited a couple hours later:

I spoke a little too soon about this test. I tried out the USB drive in another similar computer and it wouldn't boot. So I went to the U3 web site and uninstalled the U3 software. This resulted in the deletion of all data on the stick, so I had to again expend the 90 seconds or so it takes to run Universal Installer. This time again things went smoothly - it didn't even ask me to set the boot flag. Puppy now boots on both computers. From my experience, if it works on these two, it will work on just about anything else.

So my recommendation now is to uninstall U3, then run Puppy's Universal Installer. When you run U3's uninstaller, it asks you why you are uninstalling it, and they apparently understand, because one of the check boxes says "I'm using Linux or a Mac".

///
Last edited by Crash on Sun 23 Dec 2007, 07:13, edited 1 time in total.
John Doe
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#8 Post by John Doe »

Bruce B wrote:I also wonder why wiping the drive wouldn't wipe the U3 nonsense, but don't know.
I think you are correct.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U3 :

Hardware
U3 smart drives are USB flash drives with a specific hardware and software setup:

The hardware configuration causes Windows disk management to show two drives:
An emulated CD drive - a read-only ISO 9660 partition with the autorun and LaunchPad, and
A standard FAT partition that includes a hidden "SYSTEM" folder with your installed applications.
U3 compliant applications may be (optionally) preloaded
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Barburo
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Using Cruzer USB

#9 Post by Barburo »

These Cruzer USB sticks on older type-1 USB interfaces are s..l..o..w. Work OK with type-2 USB connections though. I too removed the U3 stuff.
urizan
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#10 Post by urizan »

Making a transition from ms has become overdue for anyone thanks to Puppy and this network... is all about cross-referencing of data and information.

To continue; zeroing the MBR prior to a new installation makes sense to me because then I know for sure that the new installation is not convoluted by anything else. This step may be unnecessary in reference to "low level format" tool, above. So, just in case then.

Note, I had less trouble with the 1GB cruzer micro than with the 2GB of same.

....Making contributions through networking is how researchers save time and money. For this reason, saving time and money, the only pat on the back comes from fellow researchers pooling together.

Presently following the post,
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 1289720943,
in first attempt to upgrade qemuPuppy217 to Puppy301standard so that the pup_save.3fs and pup_save.2fs file differences may be resolved... I will post related results to that thread if I am able to. My starting point is that the install is simply a copy and paste of qemuPuppy v217 from cd to usb-flashdrive, 20 files in all, followed with a run of syslinux to the flashdrive. More later to the, "Supply a pup_save file as a grub menu argument", link above.

Cheers,
Bruce B

#11 Post by Bruce B »

John Doe,

Thanks for the post and link. My speculation howto for Linux seems to have an error due to a misleading U3 website.

Here is the quote from a portion of the Wikipedia article.
Windows requirement for removal

Users of non-Microsoft OSes that don't have access to a Windows PC are unable to remove U3 from their "smart drives." The uninstall page for u3.com has a survey regarding the source of the desire to remove U3 functionality. Available responses includes "Mac OS or Linux user" (since the U3 Launchpad does not run on these operating systems). When this option is chosen, however, the removal tool which is offered for download is not, as would seem sensible based upon the user's answer to the question, a Mac OS or Linux program. It's for Windows only.
So I'll just go with zeroing the drive as a Linux method for getting U3 out of the way. Also, the more I learn about U3, the less I think it would have any value whatsoever for me. As in negative value.

Bruce
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Crash
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#12 Post by Crash »

If overwriting the MBR, etc is all that it takes to make U3 go away, then you should be able to do that from Linux. But I found a significant difference in the behavior between the 1GB Sandisk part and the 4GB part. I tried everything to kill U3 in the 4GB part, but there were always remnants of it laying around until I went to the U3 web site and ran the uninstaller. I surmise that the later parts (maybe 2GB and above) have some actual hardware differences, like some read-only code and maybe a hidden register that the U3 uninstaller resets. I don't know it for a fact, but to be on the safe side I recommend using the uninstaller straight from the horse's mouth.

Hopefully, if you don't have or don't want to have an XP computer, you know someone who does. It's just a one time deal to get rid of the software. After that you never have to touch the XP computer again.

To me, these devices are getting so inexpensive that it is worth the effort to fiddle with them. I think back to the first hard drive I bought, a Conner 540 MB, and it cost around $300. (We'll have a similar conversation in a decade and talk about Terabytes).
urizan
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#13 Post by urizan »

I gave a go of seeing if edit-initrd*pup could enable me to fix qemuPuppy v217 after upgrading to Puppy v301, standard. I see this is for someone who is already pretty knowledgable so I won't be trying that. Getting familiar with 217 as is and so far I don't see any difference except that I am able to save and restore the operating system adjustments flawlessly... Keep it simple is for me.

That u3 was a problem I researched for days until I put everything in the order I mentioned earlier. So, I'd say it's worth it to have a friend run the u3 uninstaller from his ms for you or maybe someone who knowledgable could convert the .exe binary to linux? I have no idea although I have played around with crossover and wine in a Linux XP distro.

Does anyone reading this know if there is a military application for linux? Have a friend going in as a submariner with options in computer systems design, i.e., fire control automation computer systems, etc..

I if suppose those type of systems won't rely on linux they damn sure won't use ms.
Bruce B

#14 Post by Bruce B »

urizan wrote: Does anyone reading this know if there is a military application for linux? Have a friend going in as a submariner with options in computer systems design, i.e., fire control automation computer systems, etc..

I if suppose those type of systems won't rely on linux they damn sure won't use ms.
This question throws the HOWTO way off topic. I don't know what military either.

My impression is: Military is not interested in anyone's binary blobs, not at the level you're referring to. They might be barely interested in the source code you write either as a contractor or employee.

They would want source code and full documentation accompanying the source. The documentation is according to the military standard which is nothing like the comments and notes kept in many civilian projects.
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Crash
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#15 Post by Crash »

Just to give you a warm feeling about this technology, here is an interesting analysis:

http://www.csnc.ch/estatic/services/mis ... urity.html

And there's this bit from

http://www.mcgrewsecurity.com/research/hackingU3/

"A spy came in from the cold to write this (completely unverified, of course, but feels right):

:snip snip:...new controller at the hardware level, where it supports 24 more USB commands than the regular controllers, etc. apparently dividing it up to "memory domains" is dynamic and there are tools out there (windows only) for the manufacturers to resize the virtual CD and the main partition.:snip:"


I can't wait till next year when the new Microsoft/Sandisk partnership improves the product.

///

Off topic comment: I dunno about the military, but NASA likes Wind River:

http://www.linuxelectrons.com/news/appl ... er-systems

///
urizan
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#16 Post by urizan »

check this out!

http://www.linuxelectrons.com/news/embe ... iver-linux
http://www.seafalcon.net/

How would I lead this post in order to cover various topics all with a central focus?

When I first posted was to document a practical how to fix u3 craptition for future reference point. I do that because I want to learn Puppy- it's fast! There are many reasons for anyone of us to choose Puppy based on it's size/ramdisk speed. I see that making Puppy user-friendly is priority so I stick with it. Right now, I having trouble with usbflash reading pup_save.3fs for qemuPuppy v217 from my jumpdrive install while booting simultaneously with some .sfs files on the hard disk drive in my computer... what kind of forum search term would help me find a related topic? To continue, I would like to become a participant here by way of contribution. I have a little time to work on this until I get back to my other project after christmas... basically i concentrate metal from rocks I look for. So, I plan on hiring some help to integrate the above two links together. The seafalcon cost 131 pounds of gold. There may be a lot of people that could use that kind of currency for other things. As with your special talent with code the very implementation of this vision will pave the way for future generations to come. Would like to find a way to use this post as a starting point for a new paradigm in vision just to see what others find interesting for computer applications as well and let them know some of my interests for now.

for now, how to get flashdrive to boot independent of .sfs files located on hdd? search terms?

Best,

Update: Confusion between .sfs and pup_save file from different partitions Explained/Fixed:

So I had made a 3GB partition on hdd to backup the puppy os from usbflash device. Being sure to rename the pup_save.3fs to pup_save.bak. Based on what I'd read so far, I thought this would work out well. Come to find out that the .sfs type files backed up with the renamed pup_save file were somehow siphoning into my usbflash boot from power on. Hmmm, i freaked out. I didn't know what to do. So, after giving some thought I decided to take a wild guess and here is what happened next.

Removed the usbflash device and booted from Puppy301 cd with:
puppy pfix=clean
Says it simulates an update... as I did not wish to upgrade to 301 from 217.

Next was usbflash device plugged in and copied sfs files from hdd to usb overwriting them... along with pup_save.3fs and what the hell, i through in initrd.gz and others to make sure.

Next, I turned that group of files on the hdd into a single zip archive so Puppy will do a bypass next time.

Rebooted fine into Puppy217.
pistoi0
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#17 Post by pistoi0 »

I am booting from a live CD (Safepup 2.13) and attempting to use an older Sandisk Cruzer Mini 128 M -SDCZ2- stick. This does not have a u3 intsllation, but this forum topic promises some hope to resolve my challenge. I am using the SD strictly for saving a pup_save.2fs. The drive saves and reboots properly, but only when I use Start> Shutdown> Reboot Computer. If I use the Power off Computer option, the file does save to the disk. But ...

When I boot cold with Safepup, it hangs with "Looking for pup_save.2fs in HDC". If I pull the thumb drive at the point, I get the message "ldm_validate_partition_table ( ) ... Disk read failed." At that point the live CD goes on to boot successfully, without the pup_save.2fs.. Thus it seems that powering down (using the Power off option or pulling the drive) resets something in the drive's hardware. I have used the dd if=zero scheme proposed by Bruce B, with no success.

Is there a kernel parameter to fix this? Or, a patch to the shutdown script?
urizan
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#18 Post by urizan »

Hi Pistio,

I've been reading that PMEDIA=usbflash in GRUB's menu.lst or, if no GRUB installation, syslinux.cfg may be of assistance- not sure. Let me know what you come up with.
pistoi0
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Location: Hartford, CT

#19 Post by pistoi0 »

@urizan

Thank you for your reply.

My syslinux.cfg contains "PMEDIA=idecd" which is needed with the live CD for booting. This of course starts the whole process and does so successfully. Using "puppy=PMEDIA=usbflash" leaves me in the same situation, "Loading kernel modules..." So, now I am wondering if a fix to the startup/shutdown scripts could help. However, for this, I don't know where to begin. I have some hope for this approach, because the USB drive works as long as there is no complete shutdown. I remain open to any and all assistance.
pistoi0
Posts: 112
Joined: Tue 25 Oct 2005, 16:27
Location: Hartford, CT

#20 Post by pistoi0 »

@urizan

I developed a broad workaround to resolve my problem. Still can't figure how to get the San Disk Micro to behave on its own. HOWEVER, thanks to the forum and its members I came across a thread in which BruceB spelled out how to automount a USB. Others contributed, too. So now I plug in the SD Micro, load the Live CD, and my SD Micro appears -- with a desktop folder-- full of saved files. Good thing too because I have 20 of these little drives for students involved in a school project. Thanks again to all.
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