MI4C

jaclaz, sorry for so fuzzy posting. I got the stick working just like I wanted. The virtual disk thing didn't work and some other things either didn't work. Here is description how to make 8 GB stick, containing DOS, UBCD 4.1.0 (ultimate boot CD) and Cent OS. You need 2 USB stick (8 GB and 150 MB or bigger), gparted liveCD, UBCD 4.1.0 CD, dos boot floppy and Cent OS installation media. No need to do the markymoo's thing described earlier. First create the small USB stick with the UBCD script (which is located on the UBCD CD \tools\ubcd2usb) ubcd2usb.bat D: E: (the D: is my UBCD CD and E: is stick). Then create with gparted 3 partitions to the bigger stick. I create 5 GB, exact size of the small stick and rest to the linux. Format each as FAT32 and manage flags that only 5 GB partition is not hidden. Boot with the dos boot floppy and format the 5 GB partition with startup disk option. Test that the stick boots to the created partition. After this connect both stick to computer and boot with gparted, you can check with gparted which stick is the small and bigger stick. Open terminal and type dd if=/dev/sda# of=/dev/sdb2 (the sda is the smaller stick and # should be the number where the UBCD is, I had it somehow on sda4, you can check that number from the gparted partition manage window). Now we have copied UBCD partition (including the data) from the smaller stick to the bigger. Remove the hidden flag from the sdb3. Next boot with CentOS 5.1 DVD and make custom partitioning. Create the OS root partition to the sda3 (no swap or other partitions). To the bootloader add the hidden UBCD /dev/sda2 to the bootmenu, the bootloader can be installed to the mbr, so no advanced settings needed. Choose custom install on packages, and take everything else away but editors and BASE install. After os installation the stick is ready. My problem was earlier that I didn't find a way how to get the UBCD partition to the second partition (because the UBCD function break-up if the partition size is changed, don't know why) and windows XP only sees the first partition of the stick, even if the partition is hidden. I found that if I create an image of this tripple boot stick and restore it, it somehow break-up. I can still clone the stick with the linux dd command which I used earlier in the instructions.

I noticed that the extra mbr.bin import is not necesary. Also that the first partition of the stick is viewable on normal computers, which is in my earlier post ~150 MB. Now question to others, how could I grow the UBCD partition ~5 GB without 5 GB UBCD stick? If I try to resize the stick with GParted the mbr brokes and partition magic can't even recognice the partition after I have used the ubcd script. Is there any way to fool operating system with ex. virtual hd (safe way) that I could create ~5 GB UBCD partition (with mbr), I think that the mbr somehow has information of partition table and if partition is touched it doesn't anymore match to the information kept in mbr. The bad side is that if I run the ubcd2usb.bat the script makes whole hd to same partition, I check'd that there is missing partitioning posibility on the running script (maybe if I get custom binary for this). The script formats the disk by checking %device%, so if I create virtual disk (also have to dig how to do it), could it be recogniced as device also?

EDIT: read post #31, to get better instructions. Just got finished USB-Uber stick. USB trippleboot containing UBCD, DOS & CentOS. First I follow Markymoo's instructions: After this I made another stick only containing UBCD, because when I use UBCD own script it wipes whole stick as 1 partition containing only UBCD. - Windows XP or Vista (32-bit): Connect small ~ 150 MB small USB stick to computer. Mount UBCD and open command prompt, next go to the \tools\ubcd2usb folder and type ubcd2usb.bat D: E: (the D: is my cdrom and E: is stick). Now I have 1 stick containing UBCD only and another stick which seems to be as local disk. - WinImage software: Next thing is that I read the UBCD stick with WinImage software. and after that I write the data to the other stick. I notice that the other stick has now the data, but the MBR is missing, so I choose "edit master boot record properties" and save the mbr to bin file from UBCD stick to local disk and after that I import saved mbr to the other stick. Now I have stick containing UBCD with plenty room on it. - GParted: I modify flags to hide UBCD partition just in case not to lose the partition and then create new partition for DOS I also give the boot flag to this partition. - DOS boot Now boot computer with DOS boot floppy and format the partition which created earlier, remember to format to bootable. If everything went ok, if changed the boot flag with GParted I get either UBCD or DOS boot. Now I have two boots on the stick. Next I boot with CentOS 5.1 DVD and make custom partitioning. I create the OS root partition to the rest of stick (no swap or other partitions). To the bootloader I add the hidden UBCD /dev/sda1 to the bootmenu and I choose advanced and install the bootloader to the /dev/sda3. Then I choose custom install on packages, and take everything else away but editors and BASE install. After I have installed the system, I used GParted to manage the flags once more. Now I put the boot flag to the /dev/sda3. After reboot the stick finds GRUB, which has the other to boots (DOS and UBCD). Sorry this bad English etc, hope this helps some ppl, who tries to do the same as I did. Enjoy.