Results 1 to 2 of 2

Thread: mount PC as an external usb drive via liveCD

  1. #1
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Posts
    1

    mount PC as an external usb drive via liveCD

    Hi

    Is there any live cd that can boot a PC and give raw access to the internal disks via USB

    I.e. I boot PC1 with this live cd, connect PC1 and PC2 via USB, and PC2 recognizes PC1 as an external USB HDD device

    This would be so useful for pc rescue and virus scan purposes.
    Easy to update virus definitions, and run a virus scanner in any OS on PC2.
    Also much easier to run any disk rescue tool regardeless of OS and driver compatibility.


    Is there any live cd that does this currently?

    If not, how hard would it be to make one?

  2. #2
    Administrator Site Admin-
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    5,441
    I know of no Live CD that does this.

    There are commercial products in the PC world, mainly aimed at Windows users that do this. But your average USB cable does not connect this way, and I don't know if it would even be safe to hack together a cable that just cross connected the wires. I suspect it could cause problems, particularly if the USB supply voltage were just tied together between two different systems. The products that I have seen for transferring files under Windows generally include a special usb adapter cable to try to do this with. And all of the cables are not the same, different software approaches the issue of how to interconnect computers by USB in different ways.

    So can it be done? Sure. Should it be done? Maybe not. One needs to decide how to safely connect two USB ports and how the average smuck is going to come up with the magic USB cable to do this. And in the end you still have a hard drive access solution with the well known and hated USB bottleneck.

    A much better and cleaner solution would be to connect two computers by ethernet, not USB. Friends don't let friends network with USB. There are many file transfer solutions once you decide to connect two computers through a router or even straight to each other with a cross over cable or auto-sensing NICs (actually you only need one auto-sensing NIC in this case). You could use any common file sharing solution. Personally when I want to transfer a lot of files between systems I like to use a FTP server on one of the systems, and while there is likely a live CD with a FTP server that doesn't require fancy configuration to be minimally operational, I don't know of one. But FTP or samba or some other network based file sharing solution is likely to meet the same needs as a USB based solution, not require any atypical hardware, and be much faster.
    ---
    Verifying of md5 checksum and burning a CD at slow speed are important.

Similar Threads

  1. Cannot mount External hard-drive
    By manfronix in forum Hdd Install / Debian / Apt
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 03-24-2009, 07:23 AM
  2. unable to mount external hard drive
    By mpdst11 in forum Hardware & Booting
    Replies: 4
    Last Post: 10-08-2008, 12:41 AM
  3. impossible to mount external HDD, can you help me please ?
    By malafuti in forum Hardware & Booting
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 10-15-2007, 04:24 AM
  4. how to mount external USB DVD drive
    By pubo in forum Hardware & Booting
    Replies: 0
    Last Post: 06-15-2005, 12:27 PM
  5. Ezques external firewire hdd cannot mount
    By clinthammer in forum Hardware & Booting
    Replies: 1
    Last Post: 06-14-2004, 04:58 AM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  


Supermicro 2U 6028R-E1CR24N 24x LFF- Wholesale Build Your Own Storage Server picture

Supermicro 2U 6028R-E1CR24N 24x LFF- Wholesale Build Your Own Storage Server

$278.99



Dell Poweredge R630 Server 2x E5-2620 V4 =16 Cores | S130 | 32GB RAM | 2x trays picture

Dell Poweredge R630 Server 2x E5-2620 V4 =16 Cores | S130 | 32GB RAM | 2x trays

$165.99



Dell Poweredge R630 2x Xeon E5-2680 v3 2.5ghz 24-Cores / 32gb / 500gb / 495w picture

Dell Poweredge R630 2x Xeon E5-2680 v3 2.5ghz 24-Cores / 32gb / 500gb / 495w

$164.99



Tyan GT86C-B5630 12x 3.5

Tyan GT86C-B5630 12x 3.5" Storage Server Wholesale Build Your Own Server

$309.99



HP PROLIANT DL380 GEN9 719061-B21 Server 15x3.5

HP PROLIANT DL380 GEN9 719061-B21 Server 15x3.5" 2*XEON E5-2640 v3 128GB

$175.00



Dell PowerEdge R630 Server 2x E5-2640v3 2.60Ghz 16-Core 64GB H330 picture

Dell PowerEdge R630 Server 2x E5-2640v3 2.60Ghz 16-Core 64GB H330

$195.00



Dell PowerEdge R630 Server | 2x Xeon  E5-2667v4, 128GB, RAM, H730, Dual 750w PSU picture

Dell PowerEdge R630 Server | 2x Xeon E5-2667v4, 128GB, RAM, H730, Dual 750w PSU

$229.00



1U Server Dual Low Power Xeon E5-2640 V4 90W 20 Cores DDR4 ECC RAM 4x 10GB-T picture

1U Server Dual Low Power Xeon E5-2640 V4 90W 20 Cores DDR4 ECC RAM 4x 10GB-T

$111.20



DELL POWEREDGE C6100 with 4x Nodes 8x Xeon X5660 CPU 96GB RAM no HDD WORKING picture

DELL POWEREDGE C6100 with 4x Nodes 8x Xeon X5660 CPU 96GB RAM no HDD WORKING

$118.99



Dell Poweredge R730xd LFF 14-Bay 2U Server | Choose Your CPU & RAM Config picture

Dell Poweredge R730xd LFF 14-Bay 2U Server | Choose Your CPU & RAM Config

$492.99