Use Grub floppy to boot USB [SOLVED]

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steve_s
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Use Grub floppy to boot USB [SOLVED]

#1 Post by steve_s »

Ok, I've got the floppy all set up, the laptop boots the floppy great, grub menu shows up.

I just need help with the menu.lst...any suggestions?

Here are the entries I've tried and get errors from:

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title Puppy 4.2.1 (LaptopFlash H)
kernel (hd0,0)/vmlinuz PMEDIA=usbflash
initrd (hd0,0)/initrd.gz
title Puppy 4.2.1 (LaptopFlash S)
kernel (sd0,0)/vmlinuz PMEDIA=usbflash
initrd (sd0,0)/initrd.gz
Just designated S and H so I knew what I was trying, and neither worked...

:?
Last edited by steve_s on Tue 16 Nov 2010, 16:34, edited 1 time in total.
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Béèm
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#2 Post by Béèm »

You said I have errors. Which ones, specify.

What is the setup of your machine.
More info is needed about it, partition, where is what etc.
What do you want to achieve.
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#3 Post by steve_s »

:D Sorry, Beem.

It is an HP Pavilion N5470 laptop, but I'm trying to boot usb.

There is no internal hard drive or cd drive.

I have an external cd drive, and may try booting from that, but I am interested in getting the flash to work first.

It has an internal floppy, and I am running grub from there (hey, if I've got it, might as well use it, right?). Grub comes up great, it just is pointing to the wrong place: I get Error 15 with both of those entries.
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#4 Post by steve_s »

This last one, using hd1,0 and sd1, 0 was error 21, couldn't find selected drive and error 23, error while parsing number, respectively.... :?
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#5 Post by Béèm »

I tried also to use sdx, instead of hdx, but to no avail.
Error 15 indicates the file isn't found.

I don't know what has to be put for your setup.
I keep away from grub, as I had bad experiences and only use Lin'N'Win.
Hope someone else can help.
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Boot floppy

#6 Post by shinobar »

steve_s wrote:There is no internal hard drive or cd drive.
It has an internal floppy,
Does the PC can boot off from the USB?
If not, this approach cannot get success.
If your PC cannot boot off from the USB, it may also means the BIOS cannot handle the USB.
The Grub starts from the floppy, then try to access the drives via BIOS, but if the BIOS cannot, the Grub cannot.

But there is some hope.
(hd0.0) returns Error 15, different from (hd1,0) returns Error 21...
Does it mean the BIOS can access the USB? But i am not sure.
Last edited by shinobar on Tue 16 Nov 2010, 11:00, edited 2 times in total.
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menu.lst for Puppy 4.21

#7 Post by Sit Heel Speak »

Don't know whether this is relevant to booting from grub off a floppy or not, but...from an old frugal-install menu.lst of mine:

# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Puppy Linux 421-k2.6.21.7 RETRO frugal on first ATA drive July 25 2009
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
kernel /puppy421-k2.6.21.7/vmlinuz ro root=/dev/ram0 pdev1=hda1 pmedia=atahd psubdir=puppy421-k2.6.21.7
initrd /puppy421-k2.6.21.7/initrd.gz
# Linux bootable partition config ends

You don't say whether you are using the retro version or not. If not the retro version, it might need pdev1=sda1.

Might need pmedia=usbflash, might need pmedia=ataflash.

Something buzzes in my mind, about using lowercase. Not sure if it needs lowercase or not.

A full install would be:

# Linux bootable partition config begins
title Puppy Linux 421-k2.6.21.7 RETRO full on first ATA drive July 25 2009
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 pmedia=atahd
# Linux bootable partition config ends

Point it to wherever you have your own kernel of course. If root=/dev/hda1 doesn't work, try /dev/sda1
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#8 Post by steve_s »

It does not allow for usb boot, but I've had cd's boot to usb...hmmm, but that point is taken, shinobar.

I'll mess with it a little bit more, using some of the sit heel speak suggestions, just for posterities sake, but I may need to be looking at another alternative besides grub.... :?

...thanks, all, and I'll post back...
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Plop Boot Manager

#9 Post by shinobar »

steve_s wrote: but I may need to be looking at another alternative besides grub.... :?
I have never tried yet but seems PLOP a candidate for your case.
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html
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#10 Post by Béèm »

I think your best approach would be to boot from the CD (if possible) and once up, use the flash installer to install puppy to the flash drive.
And see if you can boot through USB.

I suppose the partition on the flash drive is made bootable?
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#11 Post by steve_s »

Béèm wrote:I think your best approach would be to boot from the CD (if possible) and once up, use the flash installer to install puppy to the flash drive.
And see if you can boot through USB.

I suppose the partition on the flash drive is made bootable?
I tried every version of Puppy Flash trying to get it to boot, but nada, and no cd drive....I'm going to try some other things then post back...
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#12 Post by steve_s »

Well, that worked like a champ.

The goal was to be able to use the savefile that I wanted to on a USB external hard drive.

So, with no internal hard drive, no cd drive, using PLOP on a floppy (thanks shinobar) it booted great. I have the external with the savefile on a usb hub (PLOP doesn't do those) while I had a flash drive (setup as Superfloppy) with Puppy 4.2.1 (same as save file) plugged in a different usb port directly into the laptop.

PLOP booted, saw the flash drive, it booted up like a cd (complete with original splash image and options) which then saw the savefile on the external hard drive and then all my saved options were up and running.

Its slower than I would like, but the fact that it booted at all is pretty cool. More evidence to the portability of Puppy (as if it needed it). Thanks all for the help (I'm posting from it now). 8)
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