UBCD on a USB Flash Disk (USB Key)

Message

#21 Post by **Victor Chew** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 6:51 pm

Excellent work! Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

Two questions:

1. What is the possibility we could make ubusb.c32 run on CDShell? I was thinking, if we could get a single menuing system to run across both CD and USB, then we could have a unifiied release. Furthermore, if we could hide non-working entries on specific devices (eg. hide Windiag when UBCD boots from USB), that will make it even better.

2. Is there an easier way to initialize the USB drive? Some dd or rawrite -equivalent utility that will just transfer a finished image to the USB drive? That will lower the bar to test drive the final image, and more people will become interested.

reblu · #22 Post by **reblu** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 10:58 pm

1. What is the possibility we could make ubusb.c32 run on CDShell? I was thinking, if we could get a single menuing system to run across both CD and USB, then we could have a unifiied release. Furthermore, if we could hide non-working entries on specific devices (eg. hide Windiag when UBCD boots from USB), that will make it even better.

I believe we could have ubusb.c32 running from a CD if we used isolinux instead of syslinux. One of the problems is that you would like an iso image for the CD version, while for the usb version, the iso image is not very useful. We could stick with the iso image, and make people copy the contents to the usb drive if they want. I believe UBCD could use the modified images instead of the current ones (the igz ones instead of iso ones, for example, and the updated freedos image), to improve compatibility with the usb version, and actually reduce some space.

Is there an easier way to initialize the USB drive?

Actually, if you put all the contents that you want in a subfolder of makebootfat called image, you can actually use

Code: Select all

 makebootfat -o usb -Z -Y -b ldlinux.bss -m mbr.bin -c ldlinux.sys image

to format, make bootable and copy all the desired contents to the usb drive in one step.

NwDsk · #23 Post by **NwDsk** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 11:15 pm

Thanks reblu. Fine work!

BTW, Syslinux current stable version is 3.09: http://syslinux.zytor.com/
I'll try to find some time to test it tomorrow on my work since I earlier got
mixed results when using makebootfat. It appeared that a lot of my machines at work would not boot from syslinux-makebootfat-USB, while they would boot from BartPE-USB made bootable with the HP-utility. But you used the original mbr.bin from syslinux so that might make a difference.

Victor,
(1) I guess that you would need to swap cdshell for syslinux, and it could become tough on CDROM (see http://syslinux.zytor.com/faq.php#bootCDs). To use the menu-system from reblu you need syslinux (see http://syslinux.zytor.com/faq.php#comboot).

(2) When the geometry is fixed for each USB drive one could probably create an image. On the other hand, makebootfat can be told to add the contents of a dir when making the USB drive bootable, which means that by proper setup of this dir, one makebootfat-run would suffice.

Erwin

Limerick · #24 Post by **Limerick** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 12:29 am

reblu wrote:Ok I think I am ready to explain how to create the Ultimate UBCD on a USB drive, despite the lack of interest in the poll (there are only 5 votes). Still, this thread seems to have quite a few views...

[...]

I hope somebody finds this useful.

Of course we do

Thank you so much reblu (and NwDsk) for your important work to answer my question.

There's no many answers to the poll because I think people don't guess how such a tool will be useful in the close future, when all hardware will allow to boot on USB keys.

I'm really sorry to have not helped you but all that stuff is far too technical for me.

Thanks again,

Keep going on

Limerick · #25 Post by **Limerick** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 12:48 am

reblu wrote:Ok I think I am ready to explain how to create the Ultimate UBCD on a USB drive...

As I was reading your post once again, I realized that you were talking about USB Drive, as I did that poll about USB keys.

So if you're really talking about an USB Hard Disk Drive, is it the same way of proceeding or, in your mind, does an USB Drive mean USB key ?

reblu · #26 Post by **reblu** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 1:54 am

I actually tested it with a Flash Drive, aka USB key (a Cruzer Micro 256MB, to be specific). I also did some minor testing with a Compact Flash connected to a card reader. So I guess anything under 1GB connected to an USB port should work. Syslinux has the limitation of the 1GB limit.

I also think it is useful. You can go around with a USB Flash drive in key chain, and it is faster, more resistant (you don't have to worry about scratchs) and it allows writing on it. As USB keys become more and more affordable and hardware becomes more compatible, I hope this will become a useful tool.

Limerick · #27 Post by **Limerick** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 2:00 am

reblu wrote:I actually tested it with a Flash Drive, aka USB key (a Cruzer Micro 256MB, to be specific). I also did some minor testing with a Compact Flash connected to a card reader. So I guess anything under 1GB connected to an USB port should work. Syslinux has the limitation of the 1GB limit.

I also think it is useful. You can go around with a USB Flash drive in key chain, and it is faster, more resistant (you don't have to worry about scratchs) and it allows writing on it. As USB keys become more and more affordable and hardware becomes more compatible, I hope this will become a useful tool.

I exactly think like you.

But I may encounter some problem with the Syslinux limit as I have a 2 GB USB Key

reblu · #28 Post by **reblu** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 4:54 am

Maybe there is a way to create more than one partition in the USB key if it is larger than 1 GB...

Limerick · #29 Post by **Limerick** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 4:59 am

reblu wrote:Maybe there is a way to create more than one partition in the USB key if it is larger than 1 GB...

Yep, it's what I was thinking about

And by the way, do you think it would be possible to improve (and be easiest) the way of proceeding to get a UBUSB-Key (a new procedure like Victor says above) ?

NwDsk · #30 Post by **NwDsk** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 6:13 am

I uploaded a simple package to make a USB-UBCD a la Reblu: UBCD2USB

Download: http://www.veder.com/ftp/nwdsk/beta/ubcd2usb.zip

Just unzip to a new directory. Then go to that directory and run
'ubcd2usb <path-to-ubcd> <usb-drive>'

I just included all stuff indicated by Reblu into this zip-file and created a batch-file that copies everything to the correct places. You will only need an UBCD-CDROM (or an UBCD-CDROM extracted somewhere on your machine) and a USB-key.

Reblu, this USB-thing is all your work so please grab ubcd2usb and alter it the way you feel or whatever. Just trying to help.

Erwin

Limerick · #31 Post by **Limerick** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 6:58 am

Thank you Erwin for helping newbies like me.

I just have to understand now what does mean

Just unzip to a new directory. Then go to that directory and run
'ubcd2usb <path-to-ubcd> <usb-drive>'

This may be very clear for knowledge people, but I'm not sure of the exact way of doing this.

And most of all, thank you Victor for your initial work.

NwDsk · #32 Post by **NwDsk** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 7:21 am

Limerick,

Well, create a new-dir 'C:\Ubcd2usb'. Extract the contents of 'ubcd2usb.zip' to dir 'C:\Ubcd2usb' with whatever you normally use to handle zip-archives. Now open a command-prompt (dos-box) and change to this dir with 'cd \ubcd2usb'. Assuming you have an UBCD-CDROM in drive 'E:' and an USB-key in drive 'F:', enter the command 'ubcd2usb e: f:' in the dos-box. That should do it.

BTW, I tested it on W2K, XP, and W2K3.

Erwin

Limerick · #33 Post by **Limerick** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 7:31 am

Thanks Erwin, that's clear and I should be able to do it now

What I'm looking to do first, is how to partition my 2 GB key with 200 MB for UBCD.

And one more point, by the way...

I managed to include two Acronis software in my UBCD : TrueImage and DiskDirector.

Would it be difficult to do so with the USB Key ?

reblu · #34 Post by **reblu** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 12:52 pm

According to the guys at makebootfat, by using the -Y option you overcome the 1GB limitation:

Enforce the syslinux 3.xx FAT support. Syslinux 3.00 supports all the FAT types and sizes but it requires a special customisation of the boot sector and of the file `ldlinux.sys'. This option does this customisation without the need to use the syslinux installer if the `ldlinux.sys' file is copied on disk with the -c option.

I actually had that option in my instructions, so in theory you should be able to use one single 2GB partition in your USB key... You can try it and let us know...

Limerick · #35 Post by **Limerick** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 12:55 pm

reblu wrote:According to the guys at makebootfat, by using the -Y option you overcome the 1GB limitation:

Enforce the syslinux 3.xx FAT support. Syslinux 3.00 supports all the FAT types and sizes but it requires a special customisation of the boot sector and of the file `ldlinux.sys'. This option does this customisation without the need to use the syslinux installer if the `ldlinux.sys' file is copied on disk with the -c option.
I actually had that option in my instructions, so in theory you should be able to use one single 2GB partition in your USB key... You can try it and let us know...

Great because I can't find how to partition my USB Key

Limerick · #36 Post by **Limerick** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 1:11 pm

So I have a little problem :

Is there something I did wrong ?

reblu · #37 Post by **reblu** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 1:20 pm

The first thing that comes to mind is Is really F: where your usb key is?

Limerick · #38 Post by **Limerick** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 1:25 pm

reblu wrote:The first thing that comes to mind is Is really F: where your usb key is?

Yes of course

But my key seems to be a little bit special.

In fact, this key is recognized by the explorer as two drives : a floppy disk drive 1.44 mb and a "normal" USB key.

I try to understand why this key is like that...

reblu · #39 Post by **reblu** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 1:31 pm

What model is that USB key? By the way after running makebootfat, you should have something in the USB key, at least the file ldlinux.sys... Is the drive empty?

Limerick · #40 Post by **Limerick** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 1:39 pm

This is my USB Key.

The key is no more accessible

The Windows Explorer hangs on and I have to kill the process to go on.

I'm currently trying to format it but I can't even access to it.
But I can access to the Floppy part of it. I can put some files and that's all...

Ultimate Boot CD

UBCD on a USB Flash Disk (USB Key)

Do you think UBCD on a USB Flash Disk is...