Bootable pendrive or SD card *without* using a CD

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Steve White
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Joined: Sat 17 Apr 2010, 10:00

Bootable pendrive or SD card *without* using a CD

#1 Post by Steve White »

Hi,

Most laptops/netbooks these days no longer have CD players.
Sure you can get an external one, but I don't carry it around.

It would be helpful to be able in many cases to download Puppy, and create a
bootable pen drive or SD card, without resorting to a CD.

The ISO file can be mounted... so there are all the files.
All that's required is to format the target device and install the
bootloader, and finally to copy the Puppy files over.

Can somebody sort out the details of installing the bootloader for me?

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darkcity
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#2 Post by darkcity »

Hi

the files you need are-

initrd.gz
vmlinuz
puppy_slacko_5.3.1.sfs (or other puppy base sfs)

and possibly-
ldlinux.sys
syslinux.cfg
USBFLASH

and ensure USB partition has its Boot flag set

---

However, an easier method is to use-

PuppyMenu > Setup > Puppy Universal Installer

it can use ISO or current installation as source.

:twisted:

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nilsonmorales
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#3 Post by nilsonmorales »


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darkcity
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#4 Post by darkcity »

nilsonmorales wrote:http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=77347
maybe this help
nice thread, added here
http://puppylinux.org/wikka/BootFlash

borrow one of your screenshot, hope that's okay?

starhawk
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#5 Post by starhawk »


Sylvander
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#6 Post by Sylvander »

Icyos2 Youtube video:
How To Do A USB Install Of Puppy Linux Slacko 5.3.2.4 FAST!
I assume the method would apply to any Puppy.

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OscarTalks
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Re: Bootable pendrive or SD card *without* using a CD

#7 Post by OscarTalks »

Steve White wrote:It would be helpful to be able in many cases to download Puppy, and create a
bootable pen drive or SD card, without resorting to a CD.
Just to confirm, I have done this quickly and easily using Puppy Universal Installer on my netbook.

Puppy is installed to an 8 Gig SD card. BIOS is set to boot from that as default.

Smelly old windows sits unused on the internal HDD but I can boot into it by using the BIOS if I want to, otherwise Puppy can mount it and use it as storage.
Oscar in England
Image

ggg

#8 Post by ggg »

Sylvander,

If five (or however many) Pups work on your new computer - just try to answer your own assumption by trying a Pup that didn't work on your hard drive.

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Dave_G
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#9 Post by Dave_G »

As regards the Icyos2 Youtube video, there is something that does not
make sense to me.
I was under the impression that isolinux was for booting from a CD, whilst
syslinux was for other media such as USB flash drives.

In the video, after the whole process, I still don't see syslinux on the now
bootable USB flash disk, only the original isolinux.bin and .cfg.

Am I missing something?

(Screen shots provided below to illustrate what I mean)

Before:

Image


AFTER:

Image[/b]

Sylvander
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#10 Post by Sylvander »

ggg wrote:Sylvander,

If five (or however many) Pups work on your new computer - just try to answer your own assumption by trying a Pup that didn't work on your hard drive.
Nice idea! :D
PROBLEM:
When I try to mount the ISO [it resides on an NTFS partition on a PATA HDD in a USB connected external enclosure]...
The attempt to mount fails in both ROX and Xfe. :(
I've encountered this problem when attempting other stuff that needs me to mount an ISO.
All attempts so far [to mount this ISO or that] have failed.

ggg

#11 Post by ggg »

Sylvander,

If you only need to mount so that you can copy and paste, then perhaps you could extract all the files using ISOMaster (possibly with out-of-the-box innovation if necessary).

tlchost
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Re: Bootable pendrive or SD card *without* using a CD

#12 Post by tlchost »

OscarTalks wrote: Smelly old windows sits unused on the internal HDD but I can boot into it by using the BIOS if I want to, otherwise Puppy can mount it and use it as storage.
Of course could use one of the smelly windows applications that make a bootable USB drive from a linux iso.

Thom

Sylvander
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#13 Post by Sylvander »

ggg wrote:perhaps you could extract all the files using ISOMaster
(a) Managed to mount the ISO file in FatDog64-600-Firefox. [How come it works here, but not in other Puppies?]
(b) Then discovered I already had the Lupu-528.005 files on an 8GB Flash Drive.
So...
(c) Using the icyos2 video as a guide...
I ran grub4dosconfig using a terminal command...
And used it to install grub4dos onto the Flash Drive FAT32 partition .
(d) Will now try to boot the Flash Drive.
-------------------------------------------------------------
(e) It failed to boot using the Flash Drive alone. :(
Booted if I used the "live" optical disk, which only successfully loads the Puppy if it can find the SFS file [plus others] on the USB connected Flash Drive.
GRU4DOS wasn't needed; not used.

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darkcity
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#14 Post by darkcity »

what files are on the flash drive?

is puppy fully installed to the CD?

nooby
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#15 Post by nooby »

Did not rcrsn51 have a thread where he described how to
copy over the needed files and then boot an USB without
having a need for a CD at all? I have no link but search?
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

Sylvander
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#16 Post by Sylvander »

1.
darkcity wrote:what files are on the flash drive?
See screenshot below.

2.
darkcity wrote:is puppy fully installed to the CD?
Yes...but Lupu-528.005 is one of at least 6 Puppies that booted OK on my old PC, but won't on this brand-new PC.
Unable to access the SATA DVD-RW drive?
And must be given its SFS file on a USB drive.
Attachments
00.jpg
(23.87 KiB) Downloaded 491 times

sfeeley
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#17 Post by sfeeley »

I've used unetbootin successfully to do this.

But, in some cases, I found that using the unetbootin install takes quite a bit longer to find the savefile. (on some machines it boots plenty fast, so the following may not apply)

If Unetbootin boots slowly, I do the following
1) install on flash or sdhc using unetbootin
2) boot puppy pfix=ram using the card that unetbootin created in step 1
3) use the puppy universal installer to re-install on the flash card, (sometimes I'll use gparted to erase everything that unetbootin did).

This doesn't need any CDs, and will allow you to use install onto a flashdisk using the preferred universal installer

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rcrsn51
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#18 Post by rcrsn51 »

sfeeley wrote:But, in some cases, I found that using the unetbootin install takes quite a bit longer to find the savefile.
Check the syslinux.cfg file on the flash drive. Does it have "pmedia=usbflash" or something else?

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Dave_G
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#19 Post by Dave_G »

I see some people use isolinux whilst others mention syslinux.
This had me confused, but finally found something that makes sense.

This could also account for some of the problems experienced by others
with their USB flash drives not booting:

From http://sid.ethz.ch/debian/syslinux/sysl ... olinux.txt

++++ HYBRID CD-ROM/HARD DISK MODE ++++

Starting in version 3.72, ISOLINUX supports a "hybrid mode" which can
be booted from either CD-ROM or from a device which BIOS considers a
hard disk or ZIP disk, e.g. a USB key or similar.

To enable this mode, the .iso image should be postprocessed with the
"isohybrid" script from the utils directory:

isohybrid filename.iso

This script creates the necessary additional information to be able to
boot in hybrid mode. It also pads out the image to an even multiple
of 1 MB.

This image can then be copied using any raw disk writing tool (on Unix
systems, typically "dd" or "cat") to a USB disk, or written to a
CD-ROM using standard CD burning tools.

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rjbrewer
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Re: Bootable pendrive or SD card *without* using a CD

#20 Post by rjbrewer »

tlchost wrote:
OscarTalks wrote: Smelly old windows sits unused on the internal HDD but I can boot into it by using the BIOS if I want to, otherwise Puppy can mount it and use it as storage.
Of course could use one of the smelly windows applications that make a bootable USB drive from a linux iso.

Thom
A valid point!

My little MSI netbook only had Win7 installed.
I installed a Puppy4.12 iso to a 128mb sd card using
UNetbootin for Windows.

Very simple and easy.

Inspiron 700m, Pent.M 1.6Ghz, 1Gb ram.
Msi Wind U100, N270 1.6>2.0Ghz, 1.5Gb ram.
Eeepc 8g 701, 900Mhz, 1Gb ram.
Full installs

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