Best rescue CD/USB?

[MoonRise]

I've checked and set everything possible BIOS wise. Still no go. I just now even found something related to a CFG file on the USB but even that didn't work. The error I get when it tries to boot from the USB is "BOOT ERROR". This is before it ever even gets to the boot menu like it does on the laptop. I've looked at the partition flags and what is set is BOOT and LBA which is what I would expect. Just really, really perplexing. If I can get it working on this machine I know it'll work on any other and be a truly good recovery boot device. Still Googling.....

[MoonRise]

Got it! This link here --> http://forums.bodhilinux.com/index.p...ok-on-netbook/

It is the same model number of my Desktop. The issue is really two-fold unlike what the OP at the link thinks. He blamed how Linux formated FAT32. Actually XP formatted the same way so caused same issue on initial testing of his theory. Vista and WIN7 evidently formats FAT32 slightly different. I used WIN7. What ever that difference is I don't know. What it does affects how the BIOS on this Desktop sees the USB when booting. Doing the format through Linux or XP causes this BIOS to see it as a ZIP drive. The BIOS can't boot from something IDed as a ZIP drive. When formatted in WIN7 and then using UNetbootin it sees the USB memory device as a HDD. Ah... HDD, the BIOS can boot from that and it does. Posting this through the USB boot device now after installing FireFox. Just a note here. Once I did boot, the system wanted to do a final update to 13.10 even though already 13.10. So it seems that it sees it as a viable boot and since I have persistence I would dare say it would stick. I'll try to do an update later but I hope this tidbit helps someone else. WOW! Format differences combined to a poor BIOS. I wonder how you can force that format USB as HDD in Linux so I don't have to rely on WIN7?

[Qqmike]

Good work, MoonRise. But for me ... yeah, see this is exactly the kind of sh* I'm trying to avoid. Had plenty of it some years ago building these live USBs manually. dibl remembers, but I think he had better luck doing some of them. Quirky. For obscure reasons, sometimes. I will experiment with it soon, as soon as I pull myself off other projects, and see what UNetbootin gives me off-the-shelf. Thanks, MoonRise for your interest here.

[MoonRise]

NP. I've actually broken mine several times over today trying to see how far one can "Customize" these live USB. Not far I can tell you. Don't mess with the UN/PW account associated. If I knew more how that is done I probably could. Haven't tried creating a user though. I did look at the difference between the Kubuntu/XP formats compared to the WIN7. It appears the issue might be with the flag LBA. Kubuntu and XP both formatted this thing with the BOOT and LBA flags. However WIN7 only uses BOOT. So, I have broken the Live USB again playing around. This time I'll do everything native to Kubuntu and remove that darn LBA flag and see what happens. One thing that worked well was copying over the APT sources file from a like system in place of what is on a Live USB with no problems. Just the sources file though. Nothing else from the apt folder. Bad things happen after that.

[Qqmike]

"... trying to see how far one can "Customize" these live USB. Not far I can tell you."

Ha! Exactly my experience in the past. Some minimal persistence is OK, like installing Firefox, but beyond that, I had to be careful. Looking back on it, I think it has something to do with working-versus-NOT-working as root when messing. Knowing when to do so, and exactly what you can safely do while doing so.

This is why I'm just curious how aptosod might do w/persistence. I have other projects right now, and will lose my Internet probably this weekend as I'm hooking up a new DSL service, and this is not urgent, but I'll be messing with this off and on. Again, thanks, MoonRise.

[MoonRise]

NP. Also, LBA has nothing to do with the boot process. There is some fundamental difference in how Kubuntu and XP format compared to WIN7. The former formats it as USB-ZIP0 identified by BIOS and the latter as HDD identified by the BIOS. Really odd. Wish I knew how to control that! Any way, good luck!

[oshunluvr]

If your BIOS is older and won't allow booting to USB without a lot of shenanigans, try adding this to /etc/grub.d/40_custom and making it executable:

menuentry 'USB' {
set root='(hd1)'
chainloader +1
}

and then run update-grub. Change (hd1) to whatever number drive your USB stick would be. Zero, being the first hard drive, second hard drive being 1, etc. Then you need only select USB in your grub menu.