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• BootUsb2

Prepare the USB flash drive

• Boot Linux with the drive connected (I’ve used a live Knoppix 3.6 CD) Switch to root (not required if you boot “knoppix 1”)
  • # su
  Check the current geometry on the drive (most likely recognized by the kernel as /dev/sda)
  • # sfdisk -l /dev/sda
  Mine showed the following results:
  • 63488 cylinders, 1 head, 32 sectors
  Multiply the three to obtain the total number of sectors:
  • 63488 x 1 x 32 = 2031616
  Supposedly, the boot partition should be less than 1024 cylinders, and 32 sectors per cylinder. So, I’ve adjusted the geometry as follows: total number of sectors / 32 / 1024 = # of heads
  • 2031616 / 32 / 1024 = 62
  And so, I’ve adjusted my geometry using sfdisk
  • # sfdisk -f -C1024 -H62 -S32 /dev/sda
  sfdisk will next ask for the partition info. I’ve decided to have everything on one partition:
  • sda1:0 1024 e *

  Press <ENTER> for all the others, (sda2, sda3, sda4) Basically, this sets the first primary partition (/dev/sda1) to start with cylinder 0 and end with cylinder 1024, it’s of type “e” (Win95 FAT (LBA)), and bootable (“*”) Reboot to reload with correct partition table for the USB flash drive

Format the USB flash drive

• Boot Linux with the drive connected (I’ve used a live Knoppix 3.6 CD) Switch to root (not required if you boot “knoppix 1”)
  • # su
  Format the drive
  • # mkdosfs /dev/sda1

Make the USB flash drive bootable

• Boot Linux with the drive connected (I’ve used a live Knoppix 3.6 CD) You will need to download the bootusb and the DSL image files. I’ve used bootusb-0.8.img and dsl-1.0.1.iso, and put them in my /home directory. If you’re not able to copy the DSL image file to the /home directory, then store it at another location on your hard drive(s) and use that instead of “/home” below. Switch to root (not required if you boot “knoppix 1”)
  • # su
  Write the boot sector
  • # syslinux -s -o /home/bootusb-0.8.img /dev/sda1
  Now, mount the drive
  • # mount -t vfat /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1
  Create a temp directory and mount the bootusb image file
  • # mkdir /mnt/tmp # mount -t vfat -o loop=/dev/loop0 /home/bootusb-0.8.img /mnt/tmp
  Copy files over to the drive and unmount the bootusb image file
  • # cp /mnt/tmp/* /mnt/sda1 # umount /mnt/tmp
  Mount the DSL image file
  • # mount -t iso9660 -o loop=/dev/loop0 /home/dsl-1.0.1.iso /mnt/tmp
  Copy files over to the drive and unmount the DSL image file
  • # cp -r /mnt/tmp/KNOPPIX /mnt/sda1 # umount /mnt/sda1