[syslinux] USB boot
David Mattes
David.Mattes at boeing.com
Wed Nov 26 10:28:50 PST 2003
H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> David Mattes wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have a M-Systems DiskOnKey USB Storage Device that I would like to
>> use to boot a computer into Linux. I think this is possible but I'm
>> having problems and have some questions:
>>
>> 1. What should be on the MBR of the USB device? I have tried using
>> the mbr.bin in the syslinux-2.07 distro.
>>
>> 2. How does this device appear to the BIOS, i.e. what should the
>> boot device be? USB-FDD, USB-ZIP, or USB-HDD?
>>
>
> It depends on your device and on your BIOS. If the answer is anything
> but USB-HDD, then you shouldn't have an MBR on the disk at all.
Does it matter which USB port the device is plugged into? USB0-4?
>
>
> I suspect the answer is USB-HDD (that seems to be the case for most
> the USB keys I've seen), but I don't know for sure.
So if it is a USB-HDD, what should be on the MBR?
>
>
> -hpa
>
So, I think I've really screwed up my device, putting MBR's on it,
formatting it ext3, etc. etc. I want to start with a blank slate (and
of course I didn't dd the original image off of it). Should I
reinitialize the device with a Win2k format command (FAT16) in order to
work with syslinux? What about the MBR, should it be zeroed out?
Thanks,
David
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