Knoppix 7.05 flash install - drive not recognised by BIOS

I've tried making a USB flash drive from Knoppix 7.05 but I can't get the drive recognised (to boot from it - I can see the drive in OpenSuse) on 2 out of the 3 computers I've tried. On the 2 it fails on, it does not show up on F12 for boot menu or on listing the hard drives in the BIOS settings.

The PC it works on is an AMD dual core with a FoxConn motherboard.

I can't get it to work with my Fujitsu Siemens Li1705 laptop and my desktop PC which has a Gigabyte GA-970A-DS3 motherboard which now (I've just updated it - hoping that might fix it) has the latest (30 Dec 2012) BIOS installed.

I have tried two flash drives, a 16GB ByteStor and a 32GB Transcend Jetstream with the same results. Both of these drives will boot an OpenSUSE 12.2 Live KDE CD image on my desktop PC (I didn't try the laptop).

I have tried both the Koppix CD and the DVD installs following the on screen instructions.

Any ideas?

Almost all computers can boot from CD but many elder computers cannot boot from USB device. In this case you may try a bootonly CD.

Wait some days if Klaus Knopper will offer a bootonly CD for V7.0.5. Otherwise use my remaster-script and build a Knoppix Boot-CD by yourself.

Thanks. I just checked my laptop with an OpenSuse USB install and that is recognised and boots OK. So both my computers that can't see Knoppix USB install for booting can boot from USB.

As for age, the laptop is getting on a bit and perhaps there still could be some age issues with it but the motherboard in the other PC is only 1 year old and now has a BIOS that's only 1 month old.

Thanks for the CD boot suggestion. I'm sure that would work but really I'm looking for a persistent (btw, OpenSUSE fails on that for me - works fine just live but my quad core PC seems to grind to a halt with the overlay...) USB drive that would work on most PCs I come across without the need to have a CD and (as things stand and perhaps I'm just unlucky with what I have here to try) a 2/3 failure rate is not too encouraging for that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jonbanjo

Thanks. I just checked my laptop with an OpenSuse USB install and that is recognised and boots OK. So both my computers that can't see Knoppix USB install for booting can boot from USB.

As for age, the laptop is getting on a bit and perhaps there still could be some age issues with it but the motherboard in the other PC is only 1 year old and now has a BIOS that's only 1 month old....

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Are there any differences in the type of USBflash media between the ones that work and those that don't?

I've got one PC whose BIOS requires only an adjustment in the boot priority sequence to boot from US UNLESS the flash media is over a certain size, in that case, it appears in the disk menu of the BIOS too, and has to be configured there as well, or it won't boot. That same BIOS also eliminates USB from boot priority list (and the disk list) whenever you boot without a USB storage device installed. I then have to reset the BIOS before booting the next time I want to boot from USB.

I just installed 705 to usbflash yesterday BTW, hoping it would be able to read my 64GB SDXC card on usb30. Unfortunately, it couldn't. But strangely it could read it in the laptop's internal SD slot, although at only 10MB/s.

I've been using the same USB drives for OpenSuse and Knoppix. The problem has followed Knoppix.

As for the size. The first partition for OpenSuse was 670Mb. The Knoppix ones I looked at were 4.02Gb for a DVD install and 14.93Gb for a CD install so there was quite a difference there.

Anyway, I created a 700Mb FAT partition on a drive and installed the Knoppix CD version on to that.

This drive will boot on my laptop. I can't get it to show on my desktop though.

Your explanation is a little confusing for me. Please tell as once more en detail what you did:

• What did you use: Knoppix CD or DVD?
• What have you done: Flash disk installation or HD installation?
• What medium/what size did you use: total USB device/ partition of HD?

Different ways to install Knoppix

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Werner P. Schulz

Your explanation is a little confusing for me. Please tell as once more en detail what you did:

• What did you use: Knoppix CD or DVD?
• What have you done: Flash disk installation or HD installation?
• What medium/what size did you use: total USB device/ partition of HD?

Different ways to install Knoppix

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All attempts at installation have flash installations. I have used (nominally) a 32GB flash drive and a 16GB flash drive.

I have used both the Knoppix CD and Knoppix DVD. I have used the install from the text install on the CD and both options from the menus in graphics mode and allowed the installation to sort out its own partitioning. In all cases, this resulted in a flash drive that would only boot on one of my computers.

I only looked at 2 partition tables produced as a result of these installation attempts. The CD installation I looked at had produced one big 14.93GB partition. The DVD one had created a first partition of 4.02GB.

Having read about the possible issue with size, I created a 700MB FAT partition (on the 16GB drive) and, using, the CD graphic install chose to just copy the data (without partitioning).

This attempt did produce a flash install that will boot for my laptop so I assume size must have been the issue with that computer.

I have still been unable to get a Knoppix flash install to boot from my desktop PC.

Quote:

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I have used the install from the text install on the CD and both options from the menus in graphics mode and allowed the installation to sort out its own partitioning.

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Try:

• Create with 'Preferences=> Gparted': Partition #1, maximum size, unformatted
• Select 'Knoppix=> Install Knoppix to flash disk' (not "experimental version"!)
• Select as desired target device the flash device
• Answer "Format partition?" with "Yes"
• Let Knoppix create an "Overlay"-file

Just a small observation, don't know if it is relevant at all in this context: My new Transcend 32GB USB3 sticks come with no less than four partitions, if I am to believe fdisk -l output (which I tend to do).

Code:

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  Device Boot      Start        End      Blocks  Id  System
/dev/sdb1  ?  778135908  1919645538  570754815+  72  Unknown
/dev/sdb2  ?  168689522  2104717761  968014120  65  Novell Netware 386
/dev/sdb3  ?  1869881465  3805909656  968014096  79  Unknown
/dev/sdb4  ?  2885681152  2885736650      27749+  d  Unknown

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So, I start with wiping them all and creating one 32GB FAT3 partition, using plain old fdisk.
Have had no problem booting any computer with plain Knoppix-to-flash installation on the repartitioned sticks so far. (Such USB3 sticks also work much faster on USB2).

Sorry for the delay in replying I got a bit careless with GParted...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Werner P. Schulz

Try:

• Create with 'Preferences=> Gparted': Partition #1, maximum size, unformatted
• Select 'Knoppix=> Install Knoppix to flash disk' (not "experimental version"!)
• Select as desired target device the flash device
• Answer "Format partition?" with "Yes"
• Let Knoppix create an "Overlay"-file

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I thought I'd done that a couple of times in my attempts but maybe I didn't, and I'm a bit puzzled but...

Anyway, following your instructions.

Laptop is now booting from CD and DVD flash drive installs. It has worked with both my 16 and 32GB drives.

I still can't get my desktop PC with the Gigabyte motherboard to boot from either flash drive.

I encountered a similar problem with my Intel Desktop. Whereas my other PCs only require me to use the F12 key to choose a USB flash card as the boot device, or to place it first in the boot configuration, the Intel PC chooses to consider flash devices greater than 4GB (or maybe it's 2GB?) as drives. In order to have such devices appear in the boot configuration lineup, you have to rearrange them first in the drive lineup (because only so many places are available, IIRC). This is all a bit fuzzy because it's been a few months since I last dealt with this problem.