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Topic: floppy + write-protected USB-ZIP > boot fails

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Key

Group: Members
Posts: 115
Joined: Mar. 2006

Posted: May 08 2006,19:46

Thanks everybody for giving some feedback.
Better no helping feedback than no feedback at all

I can't imagine that it is the floppy, because there is absolutely no problem when the pendrive is write enabled.
I have tried many times now. Always the same.

Well, I understand that not many people use a foppy and a write-protectable pendrive with DSL.
Do you think that you can also try this with a floppy and a CD? This should have the same effekt.
I don't know, if it is also possible to test with a pendrive that can be write-protected with software. I only have a TwinMos pendrive, that can be write-protected with a hardware-switch.

Unfortunately, I do not know much about Linux-programming with building kernels and so on. I don't know which programm-code is owned by DSL and which is owned by Knoppix or something else. Therefore I don't really understand, why nobody knows what the reason for this strange behavior is. Do you understand me now, why I was asking all the time?

Ok, but now I know why there were so few replies.
Nevertheless, thank you all.
Maybe somebody has an idea soon, what the reason for this is.

linux4all

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Posts: 13
Joined: April 2006

Posted: May 29 2006,16:20

Key,
I do not have an answer to your problem, but I do understand your reason for wanting to write protect your USB flash drive. These drives can only be written to for a finite number of times before they wear out, so write protecting them is something you would want to do if you don't intend to purposely change some of their contents. It would be good to know also that the operating system did not write data to the flash drive on each boot, thus insuring a longer life.
Sorry I couldn't help, but all things considered, I'm now thinking twice about transferring my DSL to a flash drive.
Dick.

humpty

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Posts: 655
Joined: Sep. 2005

Posted: May 30 2006,05:58

I would have liked to try this out but I don't have a floppy drive at home, (which is ironic 'cos I can only boot from floppy at work).

Something I would check though, is that the floppy was made with the same version of DSL as the pendrive. I usually get boot problems if they don't match.

Also, have you tried both versions (standard/usb) of Make Boot Floppy?

Key

Group: Members
Posts: 115
Joined: Mar. 2006

Posted: May 30 2006,20:32

I was happy when I saw your replies, although I have hoped to find a solution in them

Please notice that this strange behaviour only occured yet in connection with a floppy-disk.
If you boot from a write-protected usb-pen without using a floppy-disk before, there probably won't be any write-accesses to the usb-pen. I didn't test this fully out yet, but at least there were no errors during boot with this process.

Hmmmm ..
different DSL versions on floppy-disk and on usb-pen?
Could be, I have to check this again in the next days.
But I have tried many different things.

What a pity that nobody else has tried it yet with a floppy-disk and a write-protected usb pen in connection.

Key

Group: Members
Posts: 115
Joined: Mar. 2006

Posted: June 11 2006,18:46

"Something I would check though, is that the floppy was made with the same version of DSL as the pendrive. I usually get boot problems if they don't match."

Finally I have found the time to try again:

I have downloaded the ordinary DSL 2.4 image and wrote this to a CD-Rom. Next, the CD-Rom has been used for booting DSL from it. With the "right-mouse-click-menu", I gave the order to the system to make an USB-ZIP pendrive installation (no special options have been choosen, beside "de" as german language parameter). Then I have used this installed USB-ZIP pendrive (already in write protected mode!) for booting DSL again. No problem, everything was fine.

But, as you already know, I had to make an USB-bootfloppy in order to make my older IBM-Thinkpad computer bootable from the USB-ZIP pendrive in serial connection with an USB-bootfloppy. Therefore I used the "right-mouse-click-menu" again and gave the order to make an USB-bootfloppy. Connection to the Internet has been made by the system and I was asked for a floppydisk. For this USB-bootfloppy, a fresh formatted floppydisk has been used. I assume that the system has choosen the correct USB-bootfloppy image file automatically. From previous boot, the USB-ZIP pendrive was already write-protected. I did the switch on the USB-bootfloppy also to write-protect.

And then, what do you think?
Did it work with the wite-protected USB-ZIP pendrive in serial connection with the USB-bootfloppy for start?

No, unfortunately not!

Again the same problem.
If I only boot from the write-protected USB-ZIP pendrive, everything is ok, but if I boot first from the USB-bootfloppy and second fromt the write-protected USB-ZIP pendrive, the system aborts with a kernel panic during access to the USB-ZIP pendrive.

So it is clear that it is no issue of different DSL versions on the USB-bootfloppy and the USB-ZIP pendrive.

Still hoping that somebody will find the reason for this problem. Which programmer knows the responsible code?

32 replies since April 09 2006,12:15

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Damn Small Linux Board » Damn Small Linux » USB booting » floppy + write-protected USB-ZIP > boot fails