Bad BIOS causes boot failure on USB-drive-Knoppix

**krishna.murphy** · 04-01-2010, 07:02 AM

Hey-

I've been unable to boot directly from my USB-drive-Knoppix (I ran the flash-install utility) alone, falling back on a CD/DVD boot and then typing:

Code:

knoppix fromhd=/dev/sdb1

which worked okay, but now I've been able to try it on another system which has (apparently) a good BIOS, and I didn't need the CD. I've gotten some updated BIOS files, but am reluctant to flash the BIOS, as it seems like a failure might render the PC useless. I've been looking as I went along, and I've come across some alternatives, specifically SuperGRUB and THE Lin'N'WinNewB PROJECT, and I'm a bit at sea. I'm also looking at Unetbootin and wonder if it can help. Does anyone have a good grasp of all the issues and feel able to offer a useful perspective?

Krishna

**klaus2008** · 04-01-2010, 01:51 PM

Another possibility, I think, might be the use of PLoP Bootmanager http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html which adds some USB booting capabilities to the system. You can try the CD version first and see wether your USB drive boots. The PLoP Bootmanager even enables the VMware Player 3 to boot from USB devices.

**krishna.murphy** · 04-01-2010, 02:13 PM

Originally Posted by klaus2008

Another possibility, I think, might be the use of PLoP Bootmanager http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html which adds some USB booting capabilities to the system. You can try the CD version first and see wether your USB drive boots. The PLoP Bootmanager even enables the VMware Player 3 to boot from USB devices.

Thanks! I remember now that I'd seen this in these fora before, but it was only a "wasn't there something else?" when I was writing this. I'll take a look and see what seems best.