Booting from a USB flash drive (PenDrive, KeyChain, etc.)

[int 21h]

Does anyone know if this can be done without specific manufacturer intended programs? I have a Gateway 128MB keychain drive that has absolutely no programs from the manufacturer for booting... I've seen some general procedures for flash drives on the internet, but cannot really find any concrete methods of booting this thing. Anyone have any ideas/experiences?

[Solo]

I have an ASUS P4P800 motherboard which gives you the option in the BIOS to use a flash drive in 1.44MB Floppy emulation mode (or something like that). So basically it sees your flash drive as a floppy and you can set as boot device according to manual.
Only thing is I have no idea on how you would write a bootable image to usb flash drive ???
I imagine you would just write an image of the bootable stiffy to the usb media.

[Doom9]

looks like I'm not the only one. I think you'd need a dos/win9x installation, do a "sys usbdriveletter:" and then select the proper device in your BIOS boot options (if it is supported.. chancer are still pretty high that it isn't). Since I don't have any wincrap installations anymore, and my dos bootdisk obviously being unable to access the usb flash drive I have so far not succeeded in making my usb stick bootable.

[int 21h]

I tried using a DOS and a 9x bootdisk to do the sys usbdriveletter: thing, but that doesn't work for some reason, I think it has something to do with the partitions, going to mess around with it more today.

[Doom9]

maybe I should try digging out old c't issues.. they had a "how to make your flash drive bootable" article based on linux (to format and copy the proper bootsector) a while back.

[int 21h]

I finally figured it out. I used a bootable FreeDOS cd to run fdisk on the drive, delete the partition, make a new primary partition, and set it active. Then I booted a 98 disk and transfered it via sys driveletter: This was the only version of fdisk I could find that would function correctly.

I tried the Linux route, and couldn't figure out why it wasn't working, turns out Linux fdisk was making a 7GB partition (on a 128mb device). Instructions for the Linux way are available here:
http://www.cigarusb.com/sfVersion/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=251

[Ramirez]

First of all you need to make sure that your MB BIOS supports reboot either via USB-ZIP or USB-HDD mode (the majority of modern motherboards does support it) then use the Mformat utility to create USB-ZIP/HDD startup disk, (check your flash-Drive drivers CD)

[int 21h]

Originally posted by Ramirez
First of all you need to make sure that your MB BIOS supports reboot either via USB-ZIP or USB-HDD mode (the majority of modern motherboards does support it) then use the Mformat utility to create USB-ZIP/HDD startup disk, (check your flash-Drive drivers CD)

Read my original post more carefully. The Gateway flash drive comes with no such CD, furthermore, I tried several different versions of mFormat (in the hope that one of them might be compatible), they weren't, I even tried a Dell utility for their flash drives, it also did not work.

The FreeDOS way does work very easily, I am going to mess around with the Syslinux bootloader some and see if I can make that work.

Of course if your drive does come with the utility you need to make it bootable, bravo, you're set then. This is also assuming you have compatible hardware in the PC you're trying to boot.

[Doom9]

btw I'm wondering, shouldn't there be a way to transfer the bootcode from an existing disc to another? I tried to put a bootable w9x floppy into my flashdrive using winimage but with no success whatsoever. I'm haveing some extremely negative feelings towards installing w98 on any of my computers and I have forced people around me to upgrade as well (you all know I'm a manic anti-legacyist ;)

[int 21h]

Just boot with a Windows 9x disk that contains sys.com and type sys targetdriveletter:

(Bootdisk.com has such disks)

[Doom9]

don't you need dos drivers for your flashdrive so that it will even show up as drive letter in dos?

[Solo]

Yes, but if your BIOS is able to emulate it as a floppy drive then DOS would see it as just another floppy drive surely.

[The Edge]

First off your mobo must support booting from USB. I find this is usual called "USB-ZIP" or "USB-HDD" as Ramirez said under boot options. If it does your in luck.

I got this to work a few months back with a Gigabyte board (modal escapes me) and a bog standard USB keychain (256mb).

First, make a Win98 boot disk. Then dissconnect ALL hardrives and any other IDE devices for that matter. Connect your USB keycain and boot from the boot disk and your USB keychain should be listed as c: since you disconnected your IDE drives.

Run fdisk from the boot disk (ensure you select the USB drive!) and make sure you disable large disk support(hence enabling FAT16) In fdisk, delete all partitions on the keychain and create a new one. Set it active. This is the main reason for unplugging all you IDE drives, so your pen drive will show up in DOS as C:. Making the pen drive active is the crucial step in creating a boot disk, without it, it's not a bootable drive. Exit Fdisk.

Reboot from boot disk and format our new c: partition with "Format c: /s". Copy cdrom drivers, etc if you want later in windows.

Now, when ever you connect your usbkeychain and power up your can boot from it. Useful for flashing BIOS with a system that has no floppy drive.

Hope this helps.

Edge

[Doom9]

well.. if my MB wouldn't support booting from an USB stick, the MB would have to go but that's highly unlikely (since I've never had a bootable flashdrive I've never tried but I've seen some USB boot options in the BIOS). Lucky for me I have some w98 bootdisks (actually zip discs.. I have permbanned floppies from my house 4 years ago)

[int 21h]

Syslinux works awesome for a bootloader, I've been testing it and now my USB drive boots as a Win98 disk, a DOS disk, and a Linux disk. You can find more info here: http://syslinux.zytor.com/

Just follow the instructions here: http://syslinux.zytor.com/faq.php#otherOS

I only wish I had a 700mb+ USB drive, then I could put the Knoppix distro on it lol.

[sillKotscha]

it doesn't fit very well here but just to let you know - I'd love to see your eyes grow... :)

unfortunately in german but you will see and understand

http://www.it-news.de/0311/28558.html

[The Edge]

Hmmmm.....gig and a half for 200 yoyos seems ok.
I'll get that from Santa for Christmas :)

[precjednik]

Have a look at this Link (http://www.memorykeytools.com/)

The interseting part is :
" 2. Similar to a blank hard disk drive, the key must be partitioned (with an active partition), formatted, and a bootable operating system transferred to Memory Key.
Any operating system that will fit on the available space offered on the Memory Key can be utilized.
"

I want something "unpossible", to boot WinXP Pro from USB memory stick.
I have installed WinXP pro. Windows directory is slimmed down to 123 MB, but... How to transfer system to USB stick. NTFS?? Is this possible?

Swap & HiberFile suppose can be on local HD, so it could be enough space to put this into 128 MB stick (maybe).

[Doom9]

No idea what's wrong here but I can't boot from my memorystick. Using freedos, I managed to create a primary partition and format it, then I did a sys c: (my memory stick shows up as c:), copied all the other dos files I often use to the stick, then set my bios to boot from usb-hdd. While it recognized the stick, it can't boot from it, it automatically goes to the 2nd drive in the list.

I'll see if it work on the two computers I have at work.

[Stabmaster-Arson]

@ Doom9 , did you set it "active"
?

[precjednik]

Originally posted by Doom9
No idea what's wrong here but I can't boot from my memorystick. Using freedos, I managed to create a primary partition and format it, then I did a sys c: (my memory stick shows up as c:), copied all the other dos files I often use to the stick, then set my bios to boot from usb-hdd. While it recognized the stick, it can't boot from it, it automatically goes to the 2nd drive in the list.


Maybe with Ghost.
Did anyone try this using Norton Ghost?
Can such "stick partition" be accesed via Partition Magic?