[syslinux] CHAINing to a USB Thumb Drive

[Geert Stappers]

Op 25-02-2008 om 05:17 schreef Mr Roboto:
> I was doing a laptop repair job today and needed to boot from a USB
> thumb drive, in order to free up the CD/DVD burner.  Fortunately, the
> laptop to be repaired permitted one to boot from a USB thumb drive.
> However, there are still PCs out there that can't boot from a thumb
> drive (I have two), so I was wondering if it's pos to use the CHAIN
> module to boot from a thumb drive ?  I looked at the source for the
> module, but no joy there.

Bootloaders like syslinux load kernels and start (boot) them.

They need to be loaded and started them self,
it is the software in ROM who does so.

When the computer lacks USB thumb drive boot software,
then are "second stage" bootloaders helpless

> If CHAIN can't be used, does anyone on the list have a suggestion for
> enhancing my SYSLINUX project w/ a tiny Linux distro, which could be
> used as a simple USB thumb drive bootstrap ?  TIA....Jet

Look for "first stage" bootloaders like coreboot and gPXE.


 http://www.coreboot.org
 http://www.etherboot.org


Cheers
Geert Stappers