If this happens, unmount it by entering the command: If autofs is running, it might have auto–mounted the drive partition to some other Note - In the next step you will need to specify the mount point. Write it to the disk using the following command: Locate the Syslinux master boot record file mbr.bin in the mbr directory and Where path is the folder to which you extracted Syslinux. Minor Start End Size Type Filesystem Flagsġ 16.4kB 931MB 1031MB primary fat32 boot, lba Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B Sets the lba (Linear Block Addressing) flag for this partition.ĭisplays the current settings for the new partition. Example output is shown below: Partition type? primary/extended? primary Answer the prompts to confirm that this will be the primary partition, fat32 format, spanning the entire disk minus the last megabyte (starting at 1, and ending at -1). Do you want to continue?Ĭreates a new partition on the disk. If msdos is not listed as the default, you will need to enter msdos at the appropriate prompt, as shown in the example below: Warning: The existing label on sd x will be destroyed and allĭata on this disk will be lost. You will be prompted to create a disk label type. Use parted to delete all partitions and create a new bootable FAT32 partition:Įnter the following commands in the order listed and follow the prompts to dev/sda or /dev/sdb), and 1 indicates the first partition. Where X is the drive letter for the USB flash drive (for example, If Linux has automounted the device, unmount it first. Note - These steps require superuser ( su - root) access. Nov 12 13:19:29 server kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0 Nov 12 13:19:29 server kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: Attached SCSI removable disk Nov 12 13:19:29 server kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: Assuming drive cache: write through Nov 12 13:19:29 server kernel: sd 4:0:0:0: Write Protect is off
Output is shown below: Nov 12 13:19:29 server kernel: scsi 4:0:0:0: Lexar, Inc. You should see the device name (such as, sda or sdb). Use the tail command to identify the USB flash drive’s device name.
Insert the USB flash drive into a working USB 2.0 port. Where version represents the Syslinux version number.
This procedure requires the use of parted utility version 1.8.6 or later.Įxtract (unzip) the contents of the syslinux- version.
#How to install linux on a flash drive full
But if anyone knows a quick way to create a bootable USB drive like I am describing, now that you know the full story of what I'm doing, please let me know.How to Prepare the USB Flash Drive on a Linux (Red Hat/SUSE) System Before You Begin Any solution which requires high performance hardware, I'm not interested in.Īnyway, I never intended to pour a lot of time into this project.
#How to install linux on a flash drive Pc
Any solution which will work on a typical PC should work on these computers. The computers are fairly recent modern PC laptops (and good ones too – we don't buy cheap stuff). I appreciate the questions about the computer specs, but I really won't know what they are until the next time I go to the station.
That's why I can't use what everyone is calling the "persistent" approach. The no-prompts-during-startup requirement seems to be a significant sticking point. Thus, my goal is to make a bootable flash drive that launches a browser on startup, remembers data generated during the session, and shows no prompts during startup. A Grub screen of boot options won't be understood. With apologies to my teammates, it is important that the boot procedure be idiot-proof. As you can see from my comments in this thread, I have tried, but so far failed, to do so. Most of the applications we run from the vehicles are browser-based, so I figured maybe I could eliminate the downtime by making a bootable flash drive that launches a browser and remembers the passwords needed to log-in to various websites. In the meantime, this vehicle is out of service for ops assignments. Red tape being what it is, that will take a couple of weeks. We will fix the problem by replacing the drive or the computer (not sure which yet). This week, the drive in one of the computers failed. We have a couple of vehicles with computers mounted on the dashboard. I volunteer for a search and rescue agency. Let me explain what I'm doing, and maybe that will put things in a different perspective. I appreciate that you guys are trying to engage with my problem, even though I haven't given you many details.