How To boot from your USB Storage Device.

[Kniwor]

Hi guys, after i got my Removable USB-Hard Disk i wanted to boot from it.
(It is a Samsung 40 Gb with a Tech-COM case i got from Chandni Chowk.)

Finally got it working. Here's how. I will try to keep it as short as possible.
and yes... this in written considering that newbies might want to boot from USB.

You are reading this tutorial here
How To boot from your USB Storage Device.

These are the things I used. It should work for pendrives also and should work for any other linux also.

My 40Gb USB Hard Disk

Slax 5.1.0
http://slax.linux-live.org/download.php

Syslinux Utility
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/util...linux-3.11.zip


First I made a 256Mb FAT16 partition on my HDD. Let us say this partition is X:\
Then Set it as active.
Right click My Computer > Manage > Disk management.
(you can make the partition here and set it active)

Now i extract the SLAX iso image in the newly created X:\ using Winrar
then copy the files "vmlinuz" and "initrd.gz" which are in the X:\boot directory to X:\
which means copy them one level up

Then I open the file isolinux.cfg in wordpad and remove wherever there in boot/ ahead of vmlinuz and initrd
so wherever there is "boot/vmlinuz" it becomes "vmlinuz"
and wherever there is "boot/initrd" it becomes "initrd"
(u can use the replace all in wordpad to do this instead of looking for.... in case u miss anything)
Save the file as syslinux.cfg

Extract the syslinux zip file somewhere
then open the command prompt
cd to the syslinux directory
cd once again to "win32" dorectory
then run
...win32:\> syslinux.exe X: -f

Reboot and Enter the BIOS...
(usually pressing [del] or [F1] at the time of boot)
Set USB device as primary boot device.
Reebot and if everything was done properly it should boot from USB
This is assuming that ur BIOS supports booting from USB devices.

[gary4gar]

what if we have to other softwares other than linux

[Kniwor]

what other do u mean....
if u would clarify...
u can get DOS...

a full install of windows or linux on removable drive is not useful as hardware changes will create probs...

bartPE can be put... but it is barely of any use Linux is much much mroe powerful than that......

[Drizzling Blur]

Wow, thanks, pretty informative, USB of 40GB capacity is nice.

[Kniwor]

and guys... it has taken time and effort to do this... if u copy-paste... give due credit

[chesss]

(It is a Samsung 40 Gb with a Tech-COM case i got from Chandni Chowk.

Can you specify exactly where in chandni chowk(address) did you get it from and for how much? I wasn't aware of computer stuff being available in chandni chowk, except cds.

[Charan]

Good tut Kniwor , thanks a lot .

[Kniwor]

Originally Posted by chesss

Can you specify exactly where in chandni chowk(address) did you get it from and for how much? I wasn't aware of computer stuff being available in chandni chowk, except cds.

lol... i guess chandni chowk is the best place to get stuff in kolkata...

i got it from jain computers... the prices have dropped.. since i got so u have to go and ask there, all the shopes are in biplabi streed, there are many of them...

i got a VIA casing which cost me 1050 but is mucch better than the tacj-com stuff, (it's manufactured by some vipower something but is VIA stuff)

It's a plastic casing, i got the cheap tech-com one earlier but replaced it with this one later....