Booting from a USB CDROM drive, even if your BIOS doesn't support it.

[DrDOS]

I've updated the pclos_usbboot.img in this collection to make it even easier to use and more intuitive.

I've finally put together a disk image for a floppy that will let you boot from an attached USB CD ROM device even if your system BIOS doesn't support it.  To use it, after the USB device has been detected and the A: prompt appears, type in linux.bat and hit enter.  It's included in the set of zipped floppy images at this address;

New link for the files:

http://rapidshare.de/files/47816001/Floppies.zip.html

Here's the text that goes with the images;

There are seven floppy images in this folder.

(1) A pclos_usbboot floppy which allows you to boot PCLinuxOS and it's variants from an external USB CDROM drive on computers which do not natively boot from USB.

(2) dban is Darik's Boot and Nuke which you can use to write a drive to zeros or reinitialize a drive.

(3) sbm is SmartBootManager which allows you to boot from CDROMs and other drives which aren't bootable on certain older machines.

(4) A completely blank floppy which you can use on Linux machines which won't format floppies to FAT file systems.

(5) A Windows 98 floppy with system files only, which can be used when you need to redo the BIOS on a machine which has a non-Windows OS.

(6) A usb-boot floppy which can boot some USB devices and modified to boot others.

(7) A full Windows 98se boot floppy.

To make a floppy from one of the image files open a terminal and enter

dd if=folder/filename.img of=/dev/fd0

and the dd (Data Definition) program will write the image from the folder in your home directory on to floppy A:.

POSTSCRIPT: I've succeeded in making a floppy that will boot a live installation on a fat formatted thumb drive on machines which don't allow booting USB natively. When I get it refined I'll  put up a new post with  it. It is only for pclos and it's derivatives .

[icecruncher]

There used to be slax. live cd's based on slackware. One of the mod's was to boot usb drives via live cd. As I checked up on the site, I found out that the project is frozen (not dead). So ya, thanks for the floppy images. Or u can digg out old versions of the live cds 

[zapjb]

Maybe I'm being thick.

What advantages does this have?

[DrDOS]

Maybe I'm being thick.

What advantages does this have?

Sometimes people have equipment, like an older laptop with a defective CD drive, that won't let them install. But they can use an attached USB CD drive with the help of the boot floppy. And some older equipment or special equipment may not have a CD drive.

BTW, I'm still working on this, trying to get a better version. This only boots to the Live CD without any of the other options, just getting it to do that was a lot of work, both for finding the right pieces of software and putting them together to work at all.

The current version marries MS DOS 7.1, from win98, and Linux in the form of loadlin.exe, linld.exe or grub.exe. I want to have one that just uses Linux without the DOS and allows the full range of options from the CD, basically grub boot with the USB and CD drivers added to the floppy, or whatever the boot device is.

[Jack Daniels Esq]

DrD .. ya always have some very good, sage advice. We'll be watching ya and thanks for all the effort. I have more grub files than brains. I know how it feels. Thanks. BR>Jack
BTW - Roll the PMI

[Fred232]

Thanks

Ive downloaded the files/info and 'tucked in my back pocket' for possible future use. My PCLOS is on a USB2 external HD and after installing it I found my PC wouldn't boot from it     (It had USB-FD and USB-ZIP options and I was foolishly hoping one of these may work, they didn't).

I eventually found this:-

http://zerlinna.blogspot.com/2006/03/dual-boot-on-external-usb-drive-with.html

and made a boot CD which seems to work for my setup.

But its always nice to have options.

[DrDOS]

Well I'm getting a better version of this going. Now I have menus and the media check is working. I can't get memtest to work under DOS because of protected memory but that can be included as a separate floppy image.

I'm also working on a pure Linux version. I can make bootable floppies with GRUB and Syslinux, I've already made and tested one with Syslinux but I need a small kernel that includes drivers for USB and CD/DVD devices and has enough of a gui for people to use it. Unfortunately the only loaders I've found that work with DOS, Loadlin and Linld, do not work with the isolinux.cfg file or isolinux.bin, just with the kernel and initrd, so the menu has to be in DOS for now.

What would be best would be an OS independent assembled loader like Smart Boot Manager, but with drivers for USB added.

[riff]

This boot disk works a treat. I have a Toshiba Portege 7200CT with a external cdrom - which being pcmcia - does not work typically with a livecd.

All I can say is thanks thanks thanks thanks. So much eaiser than the PMI method. Its 11:36pm here and its going to make for sweet dreams!

Riff.

[DrDOS]

I'm moving this back upstairs since I've updated the PCLinuxOS boot floppy and put it on a new host. If you have any problem booting pclos from an external USB CD drive you might want to try this method out.

[MOkoFoOko]

I gave the pclos and usb-boot floppy images a go, and... so close.  It allows my Fujitsu Lifebook B2610 to install my usb cd-rom, but it then fails to load XMS:

"Unable to control A20 line! XMS Driver not installed"

Because of that, smartdrv.exe won't load.  Any ideas?  I've also tried copying himem.sys to the hard drive, and then modifying the C:\config.sys file with device=C:\himem.sys (also device=a:\himem.sys).  Still no dice--any ideas?  I don't really consider myself dos proficient.

[MOkoFoOko]

Nevermind, it appears to be working now.  I realized I was able to use smartdrv in dos (with files I transferred and configured) without loading the floppy--so I figured config/himem/smartdrv were being accessed solely off the floppy...  duh.  Anyhow, long story short I appended the config.sys file on your usb-boot floppy to include line "device=a:\himem.sys", and now I'm in business.

Thanks for the great source materials--they're light-years better then anything else I've found online.  I know 5 other people with my exact fujitsu model who are going to be QUITE pleased.  The only other boot image that came close wouldn't detect anything beyond 1.1 usb devices >.>

[technosaurus]

Puppy linux uses "wakepup" for booting from floppy and has surprising features for a small distro

older versions of Puppy had a windows installer - not sure if it's still supported but the concept is pretty simple
the whole cd image goes into a folder in "C:" and a bootloader is installed/configured to boot from the folder
This also could be adapted to PCLinuxOS
since PCLinuxOS can be remastered any updates/changes could be implemented by:
remaster
mount the iso  (or use isomaster)
dump squashfs (sfs) to the PCLinuxOS folder

Granted this would be a very slow method, Puppy uses a separate sfs user file to save user changes, but I couldn't do this on my own

[Ambertone]

Hi DrDos, I found your post while looking for help to install an OS to a little Fujitsu Lifebook P1120. Using the usb_boot.img it detects the CD rom correctly then gives these errors. Any ideas?



Cheers

Rod

[DrDOS]

Hi DrDos, I found your post while looking for help to install an OS to a little Fujitsu Lifebook P1120. Using the usb_boot.img it detects the CD rom correctly then gives these errors. Any ideas?



Cheers

Rod

I'm not the author of that file, the only one I made was the pclos_usbboot.img, the others were just included because they can be very useful. You will probably be better off using the pclos-usbboot.img floppy as a basis for intalling a system by suitably modifying it. You can take some of the files from the pclos_usbboot.img disk and use them with the other disks to make them complete or modify them.

[EdQld]

Hi DrDOS,

Trying to get PCLOS onto an old Compaq laptop with broken CD Drive & won't boot from USB

I managed to get Puppy Linux loaded via their bootable floppy & USB external CD Drive, but would much prefer PCLOS

I have downloaded your bootable floppy images onto my main Vista PC, can I just copy the pclos_usbboot.img to a flopy disc and then use it to boot & recognize my USB CD with PCLOS live CD inside? or do I need to do it some other way?

Thanks for any help 

Addit: Just tried to copy to floppy, error message, file too big