[EN] (solved) To USB-boot or not to USB-boot, that ...

[michaa7]

... is the question.

I accidentally discovered that the BIOS on my old Asrock K8N62 board recognizes my Kingston 4GB usb stick as *harddisk*. Accidentally, because if the stick is not attached when you enter the BIOS you won't find an option saying so.

Now I can select it as boot device, although it seems the board does not support USB-boot.
And all my attempts to do so failed.
- I formated with gparted (which you can't for sdx. Without any possible user intervention it results always in sdx1 being formated). Trying to dd-copy the ISO to sdx then will corrupt the partition table (gparted: invalid partition table: recursive partition on /dev/sdx?). dd-copy to sdx1 seems to be sane (as far as gparted tells me), but is against what the manual tells us.
In the end neither way leeds to a bootable stick (with or without bootflag). It didn't boot on my laptop either.

From reading the siduction manual I learn that it is possible to install to USB-stick like I would do for an harddisk. But before I do I'd like to hear from one person who successfully booted such an *USB-harddrive*.  Maybe there is something I should know before trying to do so ...

[dibl]

... although it seems the board does not support USB-boot.

If this is true -- that the BIOS will not support booting from a USB device, then I think you are done.   :cry:

[ayla]

... although it seems the board does not support USB-boot.

If this is true -- that the BIOS will not support booting from a USB device, then I think you are done.   :cry:

Yep. But using an USB-Stick for installing as you would do to a harddrive is as simple as using a really harddrive -and on siduction really fast. I have done so often and used the stick then to boot siduction on my friends computers.
Just format it and ask fdisk -l which device number it is, install and give it a try

greets
ayla

[michaa7]

...
If this is true -- that the BIOS will not support booting from a USB device, then I think you are done.   :cry:

I don't know how to determine this. The BIOS boot options are:
- harddisk
- removable device
- CD

I can determine the sequence of these options and within each option I can determine the sequence of the respective devices.

So there is no option "USB-devices" which until today I took as: There is no usb-boot.

Today I entered the BIOS while my USB-stick was accidentially attached ... and therefor visible between the harddisk.

So now the question: What can I extract from this fact?
If the BIOS recognizes the stick *as HD* it should be possible read the first sector  as it does for each HD? If not, then what does it recognize?

I'd really love it if someone could enlighten me ...

[ayla]

If you can choose it as boot device in BIOS it should work.
At least I remeber that I had a BIOS too which showed sticks as bootable harddisks and it worked there.

[dibl]

Put the "removable device" on top of the BIOS boot sequence list.  Then, if your USB stick has a boot flag on it, and you have an installed OS as ayla says, it might boot.  If not, I am afraid your board won't boot a USB device.

[michaa7]

@ ayla

If you can choose it as boot device in BIOS it should work.
...

Unfortunately it does not :-(

@ dibl

The point is: BIOS developpers seem to have thier own perception of "removable". As far as my BIOS is concernd, removable is "floppy", nothing else, and even CDs have their own category.


Last chance: The installer does not set a boot flag which I now have added to the installation using gparted.

[ayla]

Sounds bad.

I've never needed to set a bootflag to start sidux/aptosid/siduction from whereever I could start it.

[michaa7]

I---do---not---believe---this---!!!


Seriously, who of you (except OppaErich who did) ever used F11 before booting?

I was to give up, because even disabeling all other devices and leaving enabled only the stick did not boot, bootflag or not. Only an error message appeared telling me that I need to select/insert a bootable device. And note: The bootsequence is working when I select CD or an other HD. It is not working with my stick. This way.

In the pre-boot BIOS screen, where you can press "F2" for entering the BIOS, there also is visible for a second or so "F11 Boot menue" which I always noticed, but I never ever used it.
This was my last attempt. Would you expect that, no matter what you enable or disable in BIOS, all bootable devices are listed there? And when I selected my usb-stick in the menue which appeared after pressing F11, guess what, it booted.

I never ever used F11, did you? How should one know that something not working when selected in BIOS menue *is* working when using this boot menue?
I am happy to see it work, but somewhat shakeing my head about this new all in all completely unneccessary BIOS experience.


lol

[ayla]

:?:

[OppaErich]

Seriously, who of you useds F11 before booting?

You mean 'Select Boot Device' ? I did.  :wink:

How should one know that something not working when selected in BIOS menue *is* working when using this boot menue?

My PC shows a message 'Press F11 to select boot device' for a second or two on the BIOS screen.

[ayla]

I never ever used F11, did you?

ev'rytime I had to start my rescue-system which resides on plate 3

But here it is F8.

But nontheless you're right. I never had it that I could start there anything which was not starting when selected in "bootsequence". Thats a quite silly option.

[dibl]

Seriously, who of you (except OppaErich who did) ever used F11 before booting?

Yes, some Dell laptops have a boot menu under F11, and my Toshiba has it under F12.

[piper]

I have an ancient packard bell (cpu=166mhz overclocked to 200mhz) that used F8 (no longer in service), one of my others (basement) uses F1 and the rest use F12