Making a USB stick bootable

[Leozack]

I've been round the houses here and tried all sorts of tools and techniques and despite having a USB stick bootable before, it has decided not to be anymore and whilst trying to make it bootable again all I managed was formatting my other USB stick that had all my stuff on so now I'm just PO'd -_-
There was a tool that you pointed to a windows install source and it turned your USB stick into a bootable windows install source but I don't want that. My USB stick previously did a fast boot straight into a networking version of ghost 8 DOS and I would use it to image PCs. I've tried thet ool I thought I used which turns an ISO file you have (eg a boot cd) into your USB stick (though it'd be nice if it didn't format the whole USB stick first so I could partition off 1G on the stick for the boot drive and the rest as a data drive) but still no luck.

Anyone have any recommendations? It's such a complicated issue for something that should be so simple. I don't have a floppy drive or windows 98 around to do the old "format - add system files" thing either.

_________________________________
Leozack

MakeUniverse($infinity,1,42);

 

[flyboytim]

Depends what you want to boot. Is it an OS install CD/DVD,like Windows 7 or a live operating system/utility system like UBCD, or a Linux distribution, or a "Hobby" OS like Menuet or Kolibri.

My own choice is Multiboot-USB since it does all of the above. You need a fat32 USB stick.

It writes a GRUB bootloader to the USB stick, and all you need do is copy the iso file to the stick and add an entry to Menu.lst text file. Examples of menu entries for Windows7 and XP install disks are given, as well as many utility and linux live disks. It may be necessary to copy the memdisk kernel file from syslinux to enable some systems to boot.

You can go on adding iso images until the stick is full. Once the stick has booted, its contents may remain invisible to the booted system unless it has USB support.

 

[Leozack]

Hmm a choice of any root level iso to boot from? that could be pretty useful. I could put some windows distros on, alongside a ghost network boot, and maybe a utility cd like hyrens, ahem. This memdisk kernal ... if it's needed then can it also be downloaded as I don't have a syslinux to copy from

_________________________________
Leozack

MakeUniverse($infinity,1,42);

 

[flyboytim]

Yep, a useful tool, a Swiss Army Knife on a 'stick.

Syslinux, containing memdisk, can be googled, but generally you won't need it. If you do you will be told where it is available. It is not WAREZ.

Multiboot-USB, oddly enough, needs to be run from a Windows system to install the system on the USB stick. I have a multicard USB reader, and have bootable OSs on SD cards, Sony MS cards etc.

 

[linney]

What are the settings in your Bios concerning booting from USB? Any settings in there would need to show USB ahead of the hard drive otherwise it would never find the USB to boot from.

See if something like this type of software can rescue your accidentally formatted USB.

The first link is freeware, the others are free to try before purchase. The last two are a slightly better product in my opinion.

PC Inspector

http://www.pcinspector.de/default.htm?language=1

GetDataBack

http://www.runtime.org/hints.htm

Data Recovery tools for Windows 98/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista/Windows 7

http://www.restorer-ultimate.com

 

[Leozack]

OK I tried the multiboot tool and it happily accepted iso's and I even added some other ISOs and made the menu.1st entries for them. But having tried to boot off it it just show a white underscore on a black screen then boots up the laptop normally - same as one I just made using unetbootin. I'm really starting to get miffed at how silly this process is

_________________________________
Leozack

MakeUniverse($infinity,1,42);

 

[Leozack]

Thanks for the scanning suggestions, I already tried copies of pc inspector and getdataback I found and both found nothing :/ Not overly surprising I guess. I'll try the 3rd link now despite adding some files to the stick, see what it finds.

_________________________________
Leozack

MakeUniverse($infinity,1,42);

 

[flyboytim]

As Linney says, you need to check the boot sequence in the BIOS, and whether support for USB booting is enabled.

One of my laptops has a BIOS that needs to be reset immediately before booting from the USB drive. It is as if it expects the removable device to be removed after one use, and resets back to the hard drive.

BTW, it's not menu.1st as in first, it's menu.LST as in List!

Here's one of my Menu.lst files, booting 2 linux distros and 3 floppy images using memdisk:

default 1
timeout 60
color NORMAL HIGHLIGHT HELPTEXT HEADING
splashimage=/splash.xpm.gz
foreground=FFFFFF
background=000000

# Suggested by Erhan Sohail
title Boot First Hard Drive (HDD)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
map --hook
chainloader (hd0)+1
rootnoverify (hd0)

title Restart
reboot

title Shutdown
halt

title --- Custom MultiBoot Entries ---
root

title Linux Mint 9
find --set-root /linuxmint-9-gnome-cd-i386.iso
map /linuxmint-9-gnome-cd-i386.iso (0xff)
map --hook
root (0xff)
kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/mint.seed boot=casper persistent iso-scan/filename=/linuxmint-9-gnome-cd-i386.iso floppy.allowed_drive_mask=0 splash
initrd /casper/initrd.lz

title Peppermint Linux
find --set-root /Peppermint-One-06172010.iso
map /Peppermint-One-06172010.iso (0xff)
map --hook
root (0xff)
kernel /casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/mint.seed boot=casper persistent iso-scan/filename=/Peppermint-One-06172010.iso splash
initrd /casper/initrd.lz

title Menuet32
kernel /menuet/memdisk
initrd /menuet/menuet32.img

title Menuet64
kernel /menuet/memdisk
initrd /menuet/menuet64.img

title Kolibri
kernel /memdisk
initrd /KOLIBRI.IMG

 

[Leozack]

Yeah I didn't name the file so if its' menu/lst then that's what it is, I just edited it And I was testing the USB booting on PCs and failing, now I'm at home I'm testing it on a laptop and it's failing. Its not the boot sequence as I'm selecting removable device from the list to boot from - it's just failing to boot from it just like every other one I've made and on any PC I was working from. I don't understand it - especailly as I made one bootable before straight into a ghost dos setup and I was using that everywhere fine and I still don't know why it stopped being bootable either. The only make-it-bootable one that has worked this week was one that you gave a windows dvd install source and it turned that into a bootable usb - that one worked (but was no use to me as server 2008 installer isn't what I want to be booting into lol).

I may try and get back to a win98 PC or somewhere I can try the "format disk with system files" thing ... I'm dispairing at none of these tools working and that one of them formatted my stick and lost me 2 years of accumulated techy tools I've found and scripts written and other stuff that I can try and reclaim from various servers but have probably lost. That'll learn me to have my USB sync 2y out of date! D:

_________________________________
Leozack

MakeUniverse($infinity,1,42);

 

[tlcscousin]

USB drives are not always listed in BIOS as removable drive.Plug the usb drive in start the computer enter setup and go to the Hard drive menu the usb drive should be listed. Move it ahead of the actual hard drive.

 

[Leozack]

I've never had to do that for any PC I've booted off of USB. Most PCs nowadays have a 'boot menu' you access via f9 or escape or something. It then lists hd/dvd/usb/nic and you choose which to boot off, overiding any priority lists in the bios.

For arguments sake I just checked boot priority on this laptop and removable device was already above dvd and hd. Still doesn't do much other than giving me a white underscore that shuffles down a couple lines before going on to the xp bootup from hd :/

_________________________________
Leozack

MakeUniverse($infinity,1,42);

 

[flyboytim]

Making bootable USB drives does seem to be a bit hit or miss - I tried several methods before I found one that seemed to work all the time. I wonder if the USB drive MBR or bootsector do not get either properly written to or erased by all formatting/bootmanager methods.

One thing I have is a Linux/Windows dual booting system, so if I don't get a satisfactory result I can reformat using a different operating system. For instance, I sometimes reformat a disk to NTFS, or Ext3 before reverting to FAT32. Under Linux, it is possible to partition the USB drive, something that cannot be done under Windows disk management.

One thing time and again on this forum and others, is that Windows XP seems to have more than its fair share of USB related problems.

 

[Leozack]

Well I'm using win7 here. Whether there is now a problem with my USB sticks or not I don't know. I can keep formatting them til the cows come home but these bootable USB tools mostly want them to be fat32 it seems. The multiUSB one linked above appears to work fine and doesn't suggest any errors. Perhaps I need to do it from XP not win7? I dunno

_________________________________
Leozack

MakeUniverse($infinity,1,42);

 

[tlcscousin]

I've never had to do that for any PC I've booted off of USB."
Lucky you i needed to boot off my USB Kingston yesterday to run Ghost which i have on my bootable USB drive tried every combination no boot looked at hard drive proprity in BIOS and low and behold 3rd drive was kingston moved it to #1 set pc to boot from hard drive and immediate boot to Kinston.
I am not in any way saying that the boot menu doesnt work just each BIOS seems to treat it a different way. I had to use 3 different computers which was my own fault if i had had ghost do a sector by sector copy right away i might have only had to use the one.I kept getting errors about 15% of the way through the image disk to disk.

 

[Leozack]

Oh I see what you're saying - it's not the USB isn't ahead of HD on the list, you're saying the USB appears as a HD in the BIOS and needs to be the HD ahead of the real HD.
Wow I just went into laptop BIOS and sure enough USB was showing as a HD. Moved it above real HD and bang, it boots (probably ignoring removable disk boot option as it's recognised to be a HD).

Ok this clears some things up. Clearly my USB was previously bootable while being recognised as a removable disk, not as a HD. Can I possibly restore that functionality - even with the multiboot/grub tool above?

_________________________________
Leozack

MakeUniverse($infinity,1,42);

 

[linney]

I just post this as an example, I used it successfully to create a a bootabable BartePE on a USB stick. Of course nothing is going to work if there is a problem with the machine refusing to boot from USB because of some Bios failure (maybe a Bios update is worth a try for that problem?).


Example Command Prompt from running

Utility for creating FAT/FAT32/NTFS BartPE USB-Sticks/HDD's

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?s=482450c27033334034fcb42dd1c740d0&showtopic=21702

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bootable USB-Drive with Grub4Dos-Bootmanager x = exit
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
View all connected USB-Drives
Create a new bootable USB-Drive_(reformat USB-Sticks with FAT32)
Switch File System for the function above (FAT/FAT32/NTFS/no-reformat)
Update BartPE on a USB-Drive (created with this Utility)

Enter your choice [v,c,s,u,x]: c

Creating a new USB-Stick - or a new USB-Harddisk? [s,h]: s

Enter the drive letter of the USB-Stick: n:

Prepare a new bootable USB-Stick on_n:
Formatting the USB-Stick n: with FAT32 - all data will be lost! (y/n): y

HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool, Version 1.00.012 (11/13/2003)
Copyright (c) 2003 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.

The type of the current file system is FAT.
QuickFormatting 1.91GB...
Initializing file system structures...
Format completed successfully.

Files transferred successfully.

The type of the new file system is FAT32.

Volume Serial Number is D0DD-822D

2,044,854,272 bytes total disk space.
2,044,837,888 bytes available on disk.

4,096 bytes in each allocation unit.
499,232 total allocation units on disk.
499,228 available allocation units on disk.


Copying files... done!

Add BartPE to this Drive? (y/n): y

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copying BartPE to USB-Stick n:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

11:18 - Start
11:18 - Processing folder 'minint'...done
11:29 - Processing folder 'Programs'...done
11:31 - Finish

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copying BartPE done!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Setup custom configuration:
Add FreeDOS to this USB-Drive...
Add Memtest86+ to this USB-Drive...
Add the IBM/Hitachi Drive Fitness Test to this USB-Drive...
Add the Hardware Detection Tool (HDT) to this USB-Drive...
done!

grub4dos installed in Bootsector

The Bootable USB-Drive Utility has finished, press any key...

 

[Leozack]

Ok I might try some of the other tools to make USB bootable - idealy I want them to make them bootable as a removable device though not as a hdd - this is probably why I wouldn't get it booting whereas previously any PC booted with it in would boot it if selected from boot menu - no need to reorder HDs in bios as it wasn't recognised as a HD but as a removable device. Anyone sure what program lets you do that or gives you the choice?

Also as sweet as this multiboot setup is, and as easily as I can put ISOs on and add them to the menu, it seems they don't like working. My ghost multiNIC (which is the only thing I had booting off usb originally) fails mumbling about cdrom drive or something, and a copy of hyren's boot cd is fine for booting into miniXP but trying to run a tool off it such as ghost also fails talking about drives. Am I stuck with the few ISOs on their list and nothing else - none of my own recovery CDs etc working? Or is there a fix/workaround I can apply? :/

_________________________________
Leozack

MakeUniverse($infinity,1,42);

 

[DTSMAN]

Not sure if this will help, but I have used it. has some good utilities with it.
The Ultimate Boot CD. Works on usb sticks too.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/index.html

Bo

Remember,
If the women don't find you handsome,
they should at least find you handy.
(Red Green)

http://www.redgreen.com

 

[Leozack]

Ok well I found this nifty tool

http://www.pendriveapps.com/bootice-partition-flash-drive-edit-boot-sector/#more-5670

which lets you set the MBR and PBR of your disks/USB aswell as backup/restre the partition table. More importantly it let me reformat the USB from the partition screen and select to format it as floppy not USB HDD. Now even after running a "put this ISO onto your USB and make it bootable" util like the multiboot one above, I stuck it in my laptop and it didn't show up as a HDD anymore in the BIOS (so no need to reorder HD boot order) and I could just select to boot straight from it from the main boot list as usual. Yay!
The ultimatebootcd is an old favourite, but you end up spending ages choosing the tools iirc. Like my hiren's cd, if I stick the ISO of it on a multiboot USB, I'm thinking the tools aren't going to work? Seems to be a problem with the multiboot in the way it mounts the ISOs or something so the system is confused about the 'cddrive' it's running from etc?

_________________________________
Leozack

MakeUniverse($infinity,1,42);

 

[Leozack]

It seems that the multiboot option above, and possibly hirens, prefer the use of USB-HDD than USB-FDD ... but as a floppy I can boot straight off it without entering the BIOS which is much more convenient. The only problem now is why - when using ISOs on the multiboot option above - most of my stuff won't work? Hyren's still runs miniXP, and the multiboot partition wizard 5 ISO option works fine, and probably others - but I can't get any version of ghost going for instance and that's my primary USB booting need :/

_________________________________
Leozack

MakeUniverse($infinity,1,42);