SV-TUTZ : BT3b PERSISTENT CHANGES

[imported_Deathray]

Ok thanks a lot, saved me some time. Ill go ahead and create a new ext2 partition and see if I can get it to work
EDIT. Works perfectly, thanks alot ..

[imported_Deathray]

Just a summary of what I did for other people looking for help.
This made my 2 gb USB Pen Drive boot BT3 beta and save every change I made on the same disk it was booted from.


In order to have backtrack save changes to the same drive it is booted from, it
should have at least 1.2 gb. If the usb pen drive has less than this, do not worry, you can make the changes get saved to your hard disk.
For that, please follow shamanvirtuel's tutorial farther up.

Step 1. Split the usb pen drive into 2 partitions*. First partition (A) should be precisely 1 gb and FAT32 filesystem. Second partition (B) should have the remaining diskspace and be in EXT2 filesystem.

Step 2. Copy bt3 and boot directory to partition A.

Step 3. Manually create folder "changes" at root directory of partition B.

Step 4. Execute /boot/bootinst.sh

Step 5. Open terminal and CD to /boot/syslinux on partition A. Type

chmod +Xx lilo
chmod +Xx syslinux

Step 6. Open /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg
At the end of the APPEND line, under the mod you are planning to use. (Example KDE or simply text mode), add:
changes=/dev/XXX
XXX Should be replaced with the name of partition B on the USB Pendrive.
In my case, /dev/sdb2.
SAVE SYSLINUX.CFG

Step 7. Reboot and select the mode where you added the changes mod from step 6.
Credit goes to SV + rest in this thread, who helped me get it to work

*I used qtparted from backtrack to split the usb into 2 partitions(easy with user interface). You could also follow DaKahuna's guide further down.
backtrack 3 beta bt3 usb save changes usb drive persistent changes save configurations to usb pen drive

[darth davidious]

Been using the Live disk version 2 and now 3. My hats off to the folks who created this awesome version of Linux.

This may be a dumb question but how do you partition the usb pen? (Step 1. Split the usb pen drive into 2 partitions). I tried gparted and other programs and google doesnt seem to have answers. I am sure there's prob a command way to do it like fdisk or mkfs but i can't seem to find any docs on it I want to split my 2 GB drive into fat32 and ext2 but I can't seem to find the way. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks

[DaKahuna]

Backup any data you have on the USB drive as that will be erased by the following steps:

1. format the USB drive for full size using a windows machine and format it to FAT 32
2. on you BackTrack system insert the USB drive and mount it. In BT3 Beta it should automount.
3. as root create the two partitions using fdisk.
fdisk /dev/sda
p (print to see what is on the drive)
if there are any exisitng partitions delete all of them using the "d" command
n (for new partition)
p (for primary)
1 (for first partition)
1 or enter (to start at the first partition)
+2048M (to create a 2GB partition)
t (to set the type)
b (to make the type FAT 32)

n (for new partition)
P (for a primary partition)
2 (for 2nd partition)
Enter (to accept the default start at next available partition number)
Enter (to accept the ending partition to use the rest of the disk)
t (to set type)
83 (to set type for Linux)

p (print to screen to make sure there are two partitions with the format you want)

w (write changes to the drive)

When write is finished you are returned to the command prompt.

run mount to see if the new drive is mounted or not. If not mount it using the mount command (note: you may need to create a directory in /mnt/ for the sda2 partition.

after the drive is mounted run mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda2 to set type for your linux partition to ext2

That should give you a general idea of what's involved.

[darth davidious]

Thanks Dakahuna, I managed to figure out using Jabra's pdf on installing backtrack to hard drive substituting my SDB1 instead. Your steps are identical. I love running BT3 off my USB with persistent changes!

On a similar note, has anyone been able to mount a Vista partition read/write within BT3?

[ragnaruk]

Great thread and thanks for the tips I finnaly got Bt3 booting from USB and saving changes in KDE mode, will try persistant change mode next to check it out, for anyone having trouble here ,,I could not get this to work at all using the code "83" for linux in fdisk, cfisk, or g parted I had to manuallly enter the command to format to EXT2 for partition 2, then it worked fine. it sometimes takes a painfully long time to shutdown, like 10-15 mins plus

addition,,, lol ok, now this is a cruel joke, after updating fast track when i reboot i now get , permission denied when i try to run fast track again, and yes i did logon as root, I dont get the logon screen while booting so i chose switch user and logged on as root, and still cant run fast track since updating it.

[imported_Deathray]

On a similar note, has anyone been able to mount a Vista partition read/write within BT3?

http://www.linux-ntfs.org/doku.php

addition,,, lol ok, now this is a cruel joke, after updating fast track when i reboot i now get , permission denied when i try to run fast track again, and yes i did logon as root, I dont get the logon screen while booting so i chose switch user and logged on as root, and still cant run fast track since updating it.

I recall someone else having the same problem.
But nevermind, all you have to do is change the permissions for /pentest/misc/fast-track.py . (chmod)
And by the way, BT boot's you as root by default.

[darth davidious]

EDIT...My Vista was hibernated...Once shutdown, BT3 can mount the volume. Thanks

[rdmbeaver]

I have my 4g transcend usb drive formatted with the 2 different partitions and save changes is working properly, however it is taking an ungodly length of time to unmount the file system on a restart/shutdown. I've watched for 10 minutes and it never finished. Last night i just left it and went to bed, and this morning it was restarted and all the changes were saved.

Any ideas on how to relieve this issue?

Thanks

[Munkey106]

Just a summary of what I did for other people looking for help.
This made my 2 gb USB Pen Drive boot BT3 beta and save every change I made on the same disk it was booted from.


In order to have backtrack save changes to the same drive it is booted from, it
should have at least 1.2 gb. If the usb pen drive has less than this, do not worry, you can make the changes get saved to your hard disk.
For that, please follow shamanvirtuel's tutorial farther up.

Step 1. Split the usb pen drive into 2 partitions*. First partition (A) should be precisely 1 gb and FAT32 filesystem. Second partition (B) should have the remaining diskspace and be in EXT2 filesystem.

Step 2. Copy bt3 and boot directory to partition A.

Step 3. Manually create folder "changes" at root directory of partition B.

Step 4. Execute /boot/bootinst.sh

Step 5. Open terminal and CD to /boot/syslinux on partition A. Type

chmod +Xx lilo
chmod +Xx syslinux

Step 6. Open /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg
At the end of the APPEND line, under the mod you are planning to use. (Example KDE or simply text mode), add:
changes=/dev/XXX
XXX Should be replaced with the name of partition B on the USB Pendrive.
In my case, /dev/sdb2.
SAVE SYSLINUX.CFG

Step 7. Reboot and select the mode where you added the changes mod from step 6.
Credit goes to SV + rest in this thread, who helped me get it to work

*I used gparted from ubuntu to split the usb into 2 partitions(easy with user interface). You could also follow DaKahuna's guide further down.
backtrack 3 beta bt3 usb save changes usb drive persistent changes save configurations to usb pen drive

Thank you so much! I've been fighting with this for a few days and your post got it working!!!!

Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!