Making Copy Of USB Puppy (Solved)
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Making Copy Of USB Puppy (Solved)
I have been running Slacko 5.7 off a usb pen drive for a couple of years now, how would I go about making a copy just in case the pen drive wears out? It's not as easy as just copying the files to the new pen drive, is it?
Last edited by linuxwannabe on Sun 23 Dec 2018, 18:07, edited 1 time in total.
- nosystemdthanks
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Re: Making Copy Of USB Puppy
it could be. not exactly like that, but if you make a second slacko usb and copy your save files or other things youve added, that should work.linuxwannabe wrote:It's not as easy as just copying the files to the new pen drive, is it?
you could also try getting a usb that is the same size and copying it with dd.
the issue with dd though is you have to be VERY careful, because if you accidentally specify your hard drive or the source usb as the of=, youll destroy the data on that. you get one chance to get it right.
making a second usb and copying your save files is safer for beginners. dd is pretty safe if youre meticulous and never get distracted.
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- MochiMoppel
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Re: Making Copy Of USB Puppy
It is - almost. Use Gparted to set the boot flag on the new USB stick. Then simply copy files from your old to the new stick. It should boot.linuxwannabe wrote:It's not as easy as just copying the files to the new pen drive, is it?
Re: Making Copy Of USB Puppy
Not until you install a bootloader on the new stick.MochiMoppel wrote:Then simply copy files from your old to the new stick. It should boot.
- MochiMoppel
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Re: Making Copy Of USB Puppy
I assumed that the bootloader (namely the files grldr and menu.lst when using Grub4Dos ) is part of "files". IIRC copying them over to the new stick is all there is to do.rcrsn51 wrote:Not until you install a bootloader on the new stick.
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linuxwannabe wrote:It's not as easy as just copying the files to the new pen drive, is it?
I haven't tested it, but the steps have been mentioned in the above posts already:linuxwannabe wrote:Can anyone give me step by step instructions or point me to a tutorial?
1. Copy the files to the new pen drive.
2. Use GParted to set the boot flag on the pen drive. (In GParted, right-click on the USB drive's partition that contains the Puppy files and go to "Manage Flags".)
3. Run the Grub4Dos bootloader configuration program and select the pen drive to install the bootloader to its MBR. (You probably don't need to change most of the program's options, but you might want to check the "search within only this device" one, so that the boot menu will only include the Puppy install on the USB drive, and not any others that are currently present on your system.)
Both GParted and Grub4Dos config can be found in Puppy's "System" menu.
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I found the thread and I used "puppy universal installer to make a puppy usb from a cd, but that is not what I want to do this time. I just want an extra bootable puppy usb in case my current puppy usb fails.
If I can get step by step instructions I think I can manage to make it.
So do I first copy all the files that are on the bootable pen drive to new pen drive and then set the boot flag?
If I can get step by step instructions I think I can manage to make it.
So do I first copy all the files that are on the bootable pen drive to new pen drive and then set the boot flag?
- Mike Walsh
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Mm. That kind of assumes that the original syslinux/isolinux bootloader is still there, doesn't it? When I perform a frugal to hard-drive (my usual), or a frugal to a pen-drive, after running Grub4DOS, those are the first two files I tend to remove.....tallboy wrote:If the pen drive is formatted with ext2/3, there is no need for Grub4dos, just set the boot flag and copy the files.
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@ Bill:-
I know I tend to always use Grub4DOS, because I prefer to use it, but.....isn't that what the original syslinux/isolinux files are there for? They are the default bootloaders as supplied (or so I always understood). I've a feeling tallboy's right on this one.
Mike.
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@ Bill:-
Okay; I've broken my own rule, there. Not very well explained.
What I should have said was that, to my knowledge, the syslinux/isolinux files as supplied in every Puppy ISO that I've ever used are the default bootloaders for a frugal Puppy USB install.
My first couple of Pups, 4-5 years back, simply installed to a stick via the Universal Installer. I set the machine to boot from USB in the BIOS settings, and it fired straight up. To the best of my knowledge, the installer doesn't run Grub4DOS (though I could very well be wrong here); instead, the syslinux or isolinux bootloaders are used as supplied. Isolinux I believe is the bootloader for an optical disc with certain read-only properties; syslinux, I think, works for a USB stick?
I'm no expert on this stuff, and am more than happy to be corrected/instructed.
Mike.
Okay; I've broken my own rule, there. Not very well explained.
What I should have said was that, to my knowledge, the syslinux/isolinux files as supplied in every Puppy ISO that I've ever used are the default bootloaders for a frugal Puppy USB install.
My first couple of Pups, 4-5 years back, simply installed to a stick via the Universal Installer. I set the machine to boot from USB in the BIOS settings, and it fired straight up. To the best of my knowledge, the installer doesn't run Grub4DOS (though I could very well be wrong here); instead, the syslinux or isolinux bootloaders are used as supplied. Isolinux I believe is the bootloader for an optical disc with certain read-only properties; syslinux, I think, works for a USB stick?
I'm no expert on this stuff, and am more than happy to be corrected/instructed.
Mike.
That's true, because ISOs need to be bootable if you are going to burn them to disc. But they also contain code in their "boot sector" that initiates the boot process. Your BIOS loads and executes this code when you power up.Mike Walsh wrote:What I should have said was that, to my knowledge, the syslinux/isolinux files as supplied in every Puppy ISO that I've ever used
This is equally true for hard drives and USB devices. Setting the Boot Flag does NOT make the device bootable. It simply identifies the device to the BIOS as being potentially bootable.
And what do you think that the Universal Installer does? Just copy some files onto the target device?My first couple of Pups, 4-5 years back, simply installed to a stick via the Universal Installer.
If you ask, it will also write boot code onto the device's MBR/PBS.
That's the crucial point. In order for a USB device to be bootable, it must have been made bootable by you at some point in its past. If not, just copying some files onto it won't get you bootability.
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@ tallboy, Mike Walsh:
You might have been thinking of the "Superfloppy" install mode, which formats the whole device with no MBR, and which does apparently not require a separate bootloader install when using an ext3 filesystem on a flash drive. It installs a bootloader called "extlinux" (is that yet another variant of syslinux?).
I took the screenshot below when I tried this kind of install in a virtual machine. I used a hard disk image rather than a USB drive, though. I told the Universal Installer it was an internal flash drive - with any hard disk options it would just point me towards using Grub4Dos. (It didn't work; GParted tried to access the non-existing "sda1" and complained about a "bad magic number in super block", and I was unable to set the boot flag.)
EDIT: I tried it with a normal, non-superfloppy install (again declaring the hard disk to be a flash drive), and also got the extlinux option there, but I couldn't get it to boot, despite there seemingly being no formatting errors on the drive this time.
You might have been thinking of the "Superfloppy" install mode, which formats the whole device with no MBR, and which does apparently not require a separate bootloader install when using an ext3 filesystem on a flash drive. It installs a bootloader called "extlinux" (is that yet another variant of syslinux?).
I took the screenshot below when I tried this kind of install in a virtual machine. I used a hard disk image rather than a USB drive, though. I told the Universal Installer it was an internal flash drive - with any hard disk options it would just point me towards using Grub4Dos. (It didn't work; GParted tried to access the non-existing "sda1" and complained about a "bad magic number in super block", and I was unable to set the boot flag.)
EDIT: I tried it with a normal, non-superfloppy install (again declaring the hard disk to be a flash drive), and also got the extlinux option there, but I couldn't get it to boot, despite there seemingly being no formatting errors on the drive this time.
They are part of the CD's bootloader. In addition, the CD also needs some kind of boot sector or whatever (I don't know the details) that points the computer towards that bootloader. If you take all files from your Puppy ISO and stuff them into a new ISO without telling mkisofs to include this kind of data, your new CD image won't be bootable.Mike Walsh wrote:What I should have said was that, to my knowledge, the syslinux/isolinux files as supplied in every Puppy ISO that I've ever used are the default bootloaders for a frugal Puppy USB install.
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Last edited by mostly_lurking on Tue 11 Dec 2018, 19:57, edited 1 time in total.
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