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USB floppy...Bootable?

post #1 of 6
1/19/04 at 9:55pm
Thread Starter 
Does anyone know if a USB floppy is a bootable device on the Area51m? I am thinking of getting one but I don't think I will if I can't boot from it?
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post #2 of 6
1/19/04 at 11:20pm
Check the BIOS. I imagine on something that new, it should be able to boot from a USB flobby, at least in theory. I was trying to get my PC to boot from a USB device (card reader with a mini-Linux installation - I was trying to build a PC without a hard drive), but it never panned out. I blame my old motherboard (Asus A7V133).

Some other thread on here deals with trying to boot XP from a microdrive. You might want to watch that one for advice. I think your situation would be more likely to fly first, so do the research and try to find an answer. Good luck!
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post #3 of 6
1/20/04 at 12:33am
BTW now that we are on this subject, how do you make a bootable usb device? Is there a way to format it with a boot record?
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post #4 of 6
1/20/04 at 12:57am
I can't find the links right now, but at least with Linux, you use what's called a "Live disk." With Slackware and such, it's probably more commonly known as a Live CD. The good versions I've found are Flonix (pretty) and Movix2. They're very minimal, of course (could fit on a 64mb flash card), but they will work. I was looking into all this for an in-car media system.

BTW, if you do searches for any of those systems or "Live CD," there should be segments on using bootable floppies as well. I'm not just rantin' here.

Like I said, though, I have no idea how this would work for Windows-based systems. Maybe you could tweak the "boot.ini" file to point to different devices?
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post #5 of 6
2/20/04 at 1:21am
Hello,

I dunno if im too late to answer here, but YES you can boot with USB floppy. I have an Area51m2 and installed Linux on it and needed to use a bootdisk. I did plug my USB in the puter, then boot into bios.. Then in the booting section I saw USB.. i just put it on.. :>
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post #6 of 6
2/20/04 at 1:48am
How would I go about installing linux on my usb thumb drive?
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