iB::Topic::USB Bootimage for HDD?

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Topic: USB Bootimage for HDD?

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Sparken

Group: Members
Posts: 15
Joined: April 2006

Posted: Jan. 20 2008,23:09

Hey Gang,

I have been trying -to no avail- to use a hard drive on a laptop strictly to act in the same
fashion as a bootfloppy... to allow a USB stick to be bootable.

Here's the deal... Old laptop: bios has no usb booting support, slow-questionable hard drive,
intermittent CD drive and no floppy. It may also be in places vulnerable to theft so I want the
Hard Drive empty.

I want the hard drive to act strictly as a boot floppy would, only to recognize the
USB stick and boot from it. I have messed around with Grub, and tried to force various
images onto the drive. No Joy. Seems like a simple task for one who knows what they are
doing and in this case, I am certainly not that one.

My Googlagle leads me to believe that I am alone in my quest.

Any Ideas?

lucky13

Group: Members
Posts: 1478
Joined: Feb. 2007

Posted: Jan. 21 2008,03:53

What have you done with GRUB that didn't work?

edited

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"It felt kind of like having a pitbull terrier on my rear end."
-- meo (copyright(c)2008, all rights reserved)

Sparken

Group: Members
Posts: 15
Joined: April 2006

Posted: Jan. 21 2008,05:10

I flailed around ineffectively with GRUB. It has been a while since I gave up on it,
but I tried assigning the root() assignment in GRUB to point to the USB stick,
but I could not determine whether it was not capable of working or I had bad
syntax. I just figured I was barking up the wrong tree.

Are you suggesting that GRUB is the way to go?

chaostic

Group: Members
Posts: 328
Joined: Mar. 2005

Posted: Jan. 21 2008,07:06

What laptop + bios version?

Have you tried lilo?

curaga

Group: Members
Posts: 2163
Joined: Feb. 2007

Posted: Jan. 21 2008,09:43

You can do it like this:

- dd the bootfloppy to the HD. The HD will not be readable, but will be bootable.

Or, grub can do it like this:

- copy the kernel and initrd to the hd. Set grub to boot those, without any reference to the usb stick. It's how the bootfloppy works too, it boots itself, and the initrd finds the usb stick.

--------------
There's no such thing as life. Those mean little jocks invented it ;)
-
Windows is not a virus. A virus does something!

10 replies since Jan. 20 2008,23:09

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Damn Small Linux Board » Damn Small Linux » USB booting » USB Bootimage for HDD?