Author Topic: Need some help with booting from USB  (Read 8618 times)

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Offline JosJuice

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Need some help with booting from USB
« on: April 29, 2011, 12:20:43 pm »
I used the instructions here to download the DVD ISO of Linux Mint 10 and then I put it on my USB drive using the program that was linked to in the description. I'm now trying to boot from the USB drive (it's 2 GB), but my computer doesn't seem to recognize it... I'm not sure if it can boot from USB at all. Is it possible? The BIOS is  Phoenix TrustedCore 2.70 and my computer is a Toshiba laptop purchased in autumn 2008.

Offline Eeems

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Re: Need some help with booting from USB
« Reply #1 on: April 29, 2011, 12:32:56 pm »
I used the instructions here to download the DVD ISO of Linux Mint 10 and then I put it on my USB drive using the program that was linked to in the description. I'm now trying to boot from the USB drive (it's 2 GB), but my computer doesn't seem to recognize it... I'm not sure if it can boot from USB at all. Is it possible? The BIOS is  Phoenix TrustedCore 2.70 and my computer is a Toshiba laptop purchased in autumn 2008.
hmm, have you tested to see if it can boot from usb at all?
You could try PLoP http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html which I know supports usb booting.
/e

Offline Jim Bauwens

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Re: Need some help with booting from USB
« Reply #2 on: April 29, 2011, 12:42:11 pm »
Hmm, a computer so young should be able to boot of an usb drive. Can you get to an bootmenu when pressing F12 during boot? If so, looks if your stick is between it.

You can also try the bootloader that Eeems suggested. If I remember correctly you can even add it in the windows bootloader menu.

Offline JosJuice

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Re: Need some help with booting from USB
« Reply #3 on: April 29, 2011, 12:59:38 pm »
hmm, have you tested to see if it can boot from usb at all?
No, I haven't done that. I can't see any USB booting options in the BIOS menus, and I don't have any other bootable USB drives.
Can you get to an bootmenu when pressing F12 during boot?
Yes, I can get to such a menu. Only the hard drive, CD/DVD reader and LAN are listed.

Offline Jim Bauwens

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Re: Need some help with booting from USB
« Reply #4 on: April 29, 2011, 01:00:56 pm »
Try a different USB port, I have problems like this on different computers.

Offline Eeems

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Re: Need some help with booting from USB
« Reply #5 on: April 29, 2011, 01:09:55 pm »
Have you set the boot flag on the USB's partition?
/e

Offline JosJuice

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Re: Need some help with booting from USB
« Reply #6 on: April 29, 2011, 01:15:20 pm »
I tried booting again a minute ago... Turns out the option to boot from USB was there all the time! It was named "HDD: ", which I thought was nothing at all... But when I booted from my USB drive, it (syslinux?) complained about a missing file. When writing to the USB drive, I think there was some kind of 7-Zip error message about missing files... Should I try re-writing everything to the drive?
Have you set the boot flag on the USB's partition?
I don't know what this is.

Offline Jim Bauwens

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Re: Need some help with booting from USB
« Reply #7 on: April 29, 2011, 01:18:21 pm »
Well, it looks like your computer can boot from USB drives.
A program that you can try to use is unetbootin, which makes USB booting super easy. Just choose your iso file, select the drive and press enter.

Offline JosJuice

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Re: Need some help with booting from USB
« Reply #8 on: April 29, 2011, 01:20:33 pm »
A program that you can try to use is unetbootin, which makes USB booting super easy. Just choose your iso file, select the drive and press enter.
Does it support this "Persistence" thingy that Universal USB Installer has, so that changes can be stored to the USB drive?

Offline Eeems

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Re: Need some help with booting from USB
« Reply #9 on: April 29, 2011, 01:22:38 pm »
Have you set the boot flag on the USB's partition?
I don't know what this is.
All partitions have some options, their name, and a couple of flags. One of these flags is a boot flag, when this is set the partition can be used to boot up the system from the BIOS. That is why you can have multiple partitions on a hard drive and have only one set to be used as the boot partition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_flag
/e

Offline Jim Bauwens

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Re: Need some help with booting from USB
« Reply #10 on: April 29, 2011, 01:22:56 pm »
Ah, I don't think so. What you could do is burn it to a disk, boot in live mode, and use the Mint usb stick creator, which I think has the option for persistence.

Offline Ikkerens

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Re: Need some help with booting from USB
« Reply #11 on: April 29, 2011, 01:23:45 pm »
You might look into this:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

It has helped me always :D
(About persistance, I believe only ubuntu is persistance-supported on this one)

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Offline JosJuice

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Re: Need some help with booting from USB
« Reply #12 on: April 29, 2011, 01:25:25 pm »
Ah, I don't think so. What you could do is burn it to a disk, boot in live mode, and use the Mint usb stick creator, which I think has the option for persistence.
Is the Mint USB stick creator something that's built into Mint Linux, or do I have to download it separately? Do you think I can use it on Ubuntu (I already have a Live CD 10.10 available) to create a Mint Linux install on my USB drive?

Offline Jim Bauwens

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Re: Need some help with booting from USB
« Reply #13 on: April 29, 2011, 01:29:22 pm »
Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, so I think the USB creater in Ubuntu (already installed) should be able to do it.
The USB creator is located at: Top panel >> System >> Administration >> Startup Disk Creator

Offline JosJuice

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Re: Need some help with booting from USB
« Reply #14 on: April 29, 2011, 01:30:40 pm »
Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, so I think the USB creater in Ubuntu (already installed) should be able to do it.
The USB creator is located at: Top panel >> System >> Administration >> Startup Disk Creator
Do I need a Linux Mint ISO? Does the linuxmint-10-gnome-dvd-i386.iso that I downloaded before work for that?