BT3 beta, USB drive, no boot

[hhmatt]

I'm a newbye of BT, and I made my best and used google and the "search" button to solve my problem, but at the moment I've got just a big confusion in my mind...
As from title, I've got a HP Pavilion ze4500 and I'm trying to boot the usb version of BT3 beta (the live cd works fine, but i'ts slower and uses a lot more battery than the usb).
The bios is updated, the "external devices" option is the first in the boot order, I tried both usb, but when the computer boots, the pen drive's led just flashes a bit and then appears the windows logo...
In windows enviroment, I copied "boot" and "BT3" folders in the pen drive, than launched "bootinst", not the .sh version, because windows wouldn't know what to use, but the msdos batch file: a dos shell appears, make the pen drive MBR bootable (or at least it said "should be"), but when I reboot it loads windows, normally.
Could anyone help, please?

Sounds to me like you didn't install to the USB drive properly.

[akd110]

I'm a newbye of BT, and I made my best and used google and the "search" button to solve my problem, but at the moment I've got just a big confusion in my mind...
As from title, I've got a HP Pavilion ze4500 and I'm trying to boot the usb version of BT3 beta (the live cd works fine, but i'ts slower and uses a lot more battery than the usb).
The bios is updated, the "external devices" option is the first in the boot order, I tried both usb, but when the computer boots, the pen drive's led just flashes a bit and then appears the windows logo...
In windows enviroment, I copied "boot" and "BT3" folders in the pen drive, than launched "bootinst", not the .sh version, because windows wouldn't know what to use, but the msdos batch file: a dos shell appears, make the pen drive MBR bootable (or at least it said "should be"), but when I reboot it loads windows, normally.
Could anyone help, please?

[.lonewolf]

Welcome Sorry I posted in error. I don't know what the problem is.

[akd110]

Sounds to me like you didn't install to the USB drive properly.

Well, if you mean installing something on the pen drive, yes, I didn't install anything...
I thought it would have worked like the live cd: you burn the iso, reload and it boots!
In this case, nevertheless, I followed instructions:

USB Install:

Copy the "boot" and "BT3" Directory to the root of your USB device.
Under Linux, change directory to the freshly copied /boot directory on the USB device.
MAKE sure your're in the "boot" directory on the USB device!
run ./boostinst.sh
unmount usb device.
Voila.

So I unrar the folder, copy the two folders "boot" and "BT3" in the usb pen drive (under windows vista), and if I reload at this point black screen.
If i click on bootinf (dos file, in "root" folder) a shell formats the usb pen drive's MBR, saying "it should be bootable now".
I reboot and nothing happens.
On another notebook, Fujitsu Siemens, if I do that it says

SYSLINUX 3.36 2007-02-10 EBIOS Copyright (C) 1994-2007 H. Peter Anvin
Could not find kernel image: linux
boot:

I'm a bit confused...

[MrWrong]

I agree with hhmatt81 that you installed it to the usb wrong.

Here's a hint, use the live CD that you have to boot linux while following the instructions in the install.txt file.

[akd110]

Uhm... How should I do than? I mean:

Copy the "boot" and "BT3" Directory to the root of your USB device.

In linux or windows?

Under Linux, change directory to the freshly copied /boot directory on the USB device

And where do I have to put it? (it means move somewhere else the "boot" folder, doesn't it?) But than it says:

MAKE sure your're in the "boot" directory on the USB device!

Is this just to run bootinf?

And how do I unmount the usb device under linux? Do I have to type a command?

Sorry for these questions, but I'm a newbie after all...



Edit: I tried this:
1) copy "boot" and "BT3" folders in the usb (under win)
2) boot BT from live cd
3) create a new folder in the usb device and put "boot" into this new one
4) enter in "boot" and double click on "bootinf.sh", but it opens me a shell to modify the code, it doesn't run it!! :'(
Please Help!

Edit 2: Found this
forums.remote-exploit.org/
showthread.php?t=11201&highlight=install+on+usb&pa ge=4

but the problem is I can't boot the usb after the msdos bootinf!
So I tried to first run the live cd, and from there run the bootinst.sh on the usb, but BT says "Access denied" to "desktop", from where I was trying to access to the usb device...

[MrWrong]

Being old school here's how its done from the prompt

in winblows, format the flash drive with fat32
copy the boot and bt3 dirs to the drive and the install.txt file
remove the usb

reboot to bt2/3 or linux from the cd/dvd
login as root

plug the usb back in
figure out if the usb is recognized by typing "lsusb"

make a dir for the drive "mkdir /flash"

figure out what device the drive shows up as "dmesg | grep -i "SCSI device""
this should bring up something like device sda: 1966080 512-byte hdwr sectors (1007 MB)

mount the drive, in my case using sda, by typing "mount /dev/sda1 /flash"

at this point you can now access the usb drive under the /flash directory

goto the boot directory on the usb by typing "cd /flash/boot"

as per the instructions you should now run the bootinst.sh file by typing "bootinst.sh"

follow the prompts and you should have a bootable usb with bt3

I'd serriously recommend that you do some serrious googling on howto use linux before you ask too much around this place. I believe that they recommend starting out on Ubuntu to get the basics.

Good luck

[akd110]

Thank you very much for your help MrWrong... Unfortunatly it doesn't seem to work...
I mean: I follow exactly your instructions, and everything goes like you say, but when I reboot... nothing happens! It just loads windows...
I tryed both leaving the usb mounted and to unmount it, but it's the same...
I really don't know what to do...

About posting so many questions: Before opening a new topic I used the "search" button here and google, and I'm still doing it now. I found a lot of "tutorials" or socalled, but none had worked with me so far... I'm not exactly a newbie with computers, just with linux, and I thought a forum (this in particular, since we are talking about BT), would help people with their problems, not forcing them not to post because their questions are stupid...
At least, this is the line I keep in my forums, since I'm still a moderator in one and co-admin in another...
This is what I think, and I hope it won't affect my partecipation to this forum, which I found extremely useful to learn those many many things I'm trying to...

After this, if anybody understands something about my situation, would be appreciated if could help...

By the way, there's one thing I don't seem to understand till now: the usb version of BT has to be installed on the pen drive or not, so to work as the live cd?

[MrWrong]

That whole mess you just went through of copying the files and running the bootinst.sh file just installed BT on the usb.

Are you sure you have the bios enabled to boot from the usb??

Have you tested the stick on another box yet??

If your bios does not allow this do some digging here on using wakepup to make your box boot from the usb.

[akd110]

Are you sure you have the bios enabled to boot from the usb??

Off course.

Have you tested the stick on another box yet??

On two other computers actually: an AMD X2 4400 and a Pentium IV 2800 (I mean the three computers are a bit different from each other and it doesn't work in none...)

If your bios does not allow this do some digging here on using wakepup to make your box boot from the usb.

I found wakepup, but, apart from the fact that my notebook has no floppy drive, I could still load it from cd, but the original problem was that I tried to avoid cd player, in this case I would need first a cd and than boot it from usb... It's a nonsense...
The main problems I think it remains the usb installation: it's quite difficoult to think that 3 computers on 3, of different years and brands and hardware, do not boot from usb... I'm wondering if the problem could be in the dongle...
Maybe a compatibility problem?