Installing a distro on a USB flash drive

[capt-zero]

Dibl,

I really appreciate your help so far and I don't want to dump on you, but the problem I have been having is in the installation of the OS. After partitioning the whole drive to FAT32 and placing the boot flag, Unetbootin still doesn't see the stick as mounted so won't burn to it and the Startup-creator still wants to erase the disk and then doesn't do so after I click it. I have also tried to DD the MBR after partitioning and setting the flag, but it doesn't seem to make a difference to either program. Not sure what I'm doing wrong,

Thanx,
capt-zero

[bubblecruntz]

I think what you need to do and I know you already said you didn't want to go to windows, but with my Sandisk I loaded it in windows and windows immediatly said the disk was corrupt and wanted to fix it, so i let it do that, now it is seen in linux, as a side note when using unetbootin, i had to set ( i can't remember the name, but it's right at the bottom after you enter the iso image) anyway had to set like 1024 bytes there so it would boot, not sure why. When i ran the u3 tool on my sandisk it came back as saying there was no u3 found or something. So my suggestion is to load it at least once in windows and see if it wants to fix some corruption on the sandisk.

[dibl]

My "notes to self" on unetbootin are very terse:

1. Use GParted to make the partition for the Linux OS (I think you should start with whole stick as a single partition).

2. Alt-F2 unetbootin and install the Linux OS.

3. Test it.

So, when you insert your USB stick, is it detected in the first place? Does the "device notifier" pop up? In a terminal, does it show up with fdisk -lu?

[capt-zero]

Dibl,
Yes, both fdisk -lu and device notifier see it, but pressing f2 in Unetbootin doesn't appear to do anything. I'm not sure what you mean to test it; do you mean to try and boot it without any OS on it?

[dibl]

No, I said Alt-F2 -- that is your GUI package launcher. You type "unetbootin" into the entry window that Alt-F2 pops up.

Another thought struck me -- in GParted, with your USB stick connected, do "Device > Create Partition Table", then choose MS-DOS type, then "Apply". If the device notifier pops up at this point, just ignore it. Then format the partiition to ext2, set the boot flag, and pull the stick. Then reconnect the stick, and see if it mounts automatically (i.e. via Device Notifier and then you open it with Dolphin).

[woodsmoke]

I d/ld the absolute latest Knoppix and It showed the two paritions on a Sandisc, 4.0 gig.

It showed one, at 1.56 which was "locked", it had a little lock symbol on it, and the other which was where the data was stored, I had removed the data.

I tried formatting the locked partition and and Knoppix said that I should use either "unmount" or "swapoff" to do "that" to the locked partition before it could be formatted. I found "unmount" in tools but not the "swapout" so .....

Unmount means...um ..."unmount" but ok... ..so I chose it and the partition then turned "gray" with no lock on it.

I then went up to the symbol for the device, labled "sde" and formatted the whole thing to FAT32 as is normal with Gparted.

The usb stick is probably at least 2 years old, so that may, or may not, have something to do with the situation.

To be very "Linuxy" your mileage may vary.

woodsmoke