Incroyable HULK Posted November 3, 2004 Share Posted November 3, 2004 Humm... Lois! Price are dropping fast... 1Gb under 100$I wonder if it is possible to do a Multi-Boot USB flash drive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jito463 Posted November 3, 2004 Share Posted November 3, 2004 I doubt it is possible, but I hope you find a way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Incroyable HULK Posted November 3, 2004 Author Share Posted November 3, 2004 Well, according to my readings, I don't think it is possible either... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
htc Posted November 4, 2004 Share Posted November 4, 2004 Well, according to my readings, I don't think it is possible either...Which readings? why? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Incroyable HULK Posted November 4, 2004 Author Share Posted November 4, 2004 I am using UltraISO from ezbsystems and there was a similar question to mine on their forum. Here is the administrator answer...I've downloaded several bootable ISOs and I want to extract the entire contents of one of them to my 1GB USB flash drive. Problem is, when I extract the data, my computers can't boot from it.As filesystem used by a 'USB flash drive' is quite different from a bootable CD, making a bootable USB flash from a bootable CD is not possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rendrag Posted November 4, 2004 Share Posted November 4, 2004 there must be a way to somehow point to the USB flash drive files, no?i.e. back before CD-ROMs were bootable devices, a floppy would load first, and point to the cd-rom to boot from.Wouldn't that work in this case? make one CD that points to the USB device to boot from. I wouldn't think a file system would stop the booting then.what do you guys think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jito463 Posted November 5, 2004 Share Posted November 5, 2004 Well, USB flash drives are essentially miniature, removable hard drives as far as the computer is concerned. So what we need is a way to write the boot sector to the flash drive (hard drive). Once we've achieved that, it's simply a matter of making the boot sector one for CDShell or a similar project, then just add whatever boot options we want from there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jito463 Posted November 5, 2004 Share Posted November 5, 2004 (edited) Oops, sorry for the double post Edited November 5, 2004 by Jito463 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
htc Posted November 5, 2004 Share Posted November 5, 2004 ......So what we need is a way to write the boot sector to the flash drive (hard drive). Once we've achieved that, it's simply a matter of making the boot sector one for CDShell or a similar project, then just add whatever boot options we want from there."CD-Shell or a similar project" will not help any more for the case of USB-boot-device. CD Shell, Boot Script, Diskemu or Boot CD Wizard, all those use the bios extension of your mainboard, with the name "El Torito". They use the bios function call to oprate. If boot from usb-device, there is no such bios functions!!!USB-Boot uses the bios extension of the mainboard, but in compare with CD-Boot there is no standards/specifications of it. Every manufacturer of mainboards/bios can implement is own. That is why the bootable usb stick works only on a few mainboards/PCs, but not all.If someone (from Intel? at best not from M$) definds a specification which would be accepted by all the mainboard manufacturers, then we can programming some utils/tools as boot loader, so multiboot on ubs stick can come.At ther present we can also do something, if the current usb-boot-bios treat the usb device like a hdd:1. partitioning the usb device2. iinstall diff. OS on it3. modifiy the mbr/install a boot manager on ityou have the "multiboot usb device" , cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scorp Posted November 7, 2004 Share Posted November 7, 2004 i looked at this maybe it can help youhttp://www.weethet.nl/english/hardware_bootfromusbstick.phpscorp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leungda Posted November 7, 2004 Share Posted November 7, 2004 I made a multi-boot CD image (ISO file) and I want to burn it on a USB drive. Is there any problem can do it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Incroyable HULK Posted November 7, 2004 Author Share Posted November 7, 2004 @ ScorpThanks, I've been reading the link you suggested...I'll have to take the time to test at work, here at home I don't have a USB Drive handy.If someone is willing to test, I suggest the following step 1- start with something simple, a Windows XP boot image for example.2- Try with a multiboot image, like EasyBoot or CDShellOf course you should try this on recent hardware... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leungda Posted November 8, 2004 Share Posted November 8, 2004 The question is how to put the pre-made Mutli-Boot CD image into the USB stick and the USB stick can boot like a Mutil-Boot CD. ***** Of course, my motherboard can boot the USB Stick. I tried to install the Windows 98 on to my USB stick. It work******* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Incroyable HULK Posted November 8, 2004 Author Share Posted November 8, 2004 The question is how to put the pre-made Mutli-Boot CD image into the USB stick and the USB stick can boot like a Mutil-Boot CD.I don't think you can "merge" the ISO file to your USB drive...If you take a look to the link provided by Scorp:http://www.weethet.nl/english/hardware_bootfromusbstick.phpyou can write your boot sector to the USB drive... similar to burning a boot CD with Nero where you have to specify the Boot Image File, etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
htc Posted November 8, 2004 Share Posted November 8, 2004 I wonder why are there so many people who ignored my prev. post totally! (too lower IQ to understand it?) I must quote it again:CD Shell, Boot Script, Diskemu or Boot CD Wizard, all those use the bios extension of your mainboard, with the name "El Torito". They use the bios function call to oprate. If boot from usb-device, there is no such bios functions!!!USB-Boot uses the bios extension of the mainboard, but in compare with CD-Boot there is no standards/specifications of it. Every manufacturer of mainboards/bios can implement is own. That is why the bootable usb stick works only on a few mainboards/PCs, but not all.If someone (from Intel? at best not from M$) definds a specification which would be accepted by all the mainboard manufacturers, then we can programming some utils/tools as boot loader, so multiboot on ubs stick can come.At ther present we can also do something, if your bios support the usb device as HDD-boot:1. partitioning the usb device2. install diff. OS on it / or copy diffrent hdd partion on it3. modifiy the mbr or copy a installed hdd boot manager on ityou have the "multiboot usb device"All what you quoted website talked about only usb-single-boot, but our themen is usb-multi-boot ! If you dont understand single-boot, how can you discuss multi-boot! If you cannot walk, sure you cannot run!In my post I've clearly point out why the multiboot utility for CD cannot work on usb device. I've also point out what is possible,. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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