SV-TUTZ : BT3b PERSISTENT CHANGES

[imported_Deathray]

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

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

Well your very welcome , just glad to be of help!

[eagle047]

Thanks to all who contributed to this thread. I followed DeathRay's post, then this post:
"How to "Restore All Of Your Sessions" on BT3 like it did in BT2!!"

(can't post urls yet )

My kde session is now restored on reboot, and I retain the fat32 file system for use as a regular pen drive on windows.

[JCasper]

I used purehate's video and got this pretty much working on my eee pc!! TY sir....

I have ran into a couple problems thus far though. First of all I get the "you passed an undefined mode number" error everytime I boot into backtrack, but this problem seems well documented and Im sure I can google it up.

Second, I got that fatal error as well. I just rebooted and it worked fine though, so idk. I really am loving this and appreciate you guys helping me get there. Also, it seems like you guys have a fix for that fatal error problem if I get it a time or two again.

For what it's worth, I'm using a WD passport 250 gig with an eee pc...Killer set up I must say.

**EDIT**Weird, I only get the fatal error you guys are speaking about when I choose the display number from the you passed an undefined mode number error. If I choose 1, it boots fine, if I choose any other mode number it doesnt.....Doesn't make sense to me, sorry if this is noobness not making sense.

[adi82]

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.
[/COLOR]

i am trying to boot "back track" from a partion of HDD and i had success but now i have to save changes ,but the partion of BT3 is FAT32.
i have an other partion , ubuntu, that is EXT3.do you recommend to save changes in Ubuntu partion or to do everything from the begging and to format the partion(where the BT3 is actually booting from) in ext2(this mean that can not be accessible from WinXP) and copy BT3 again.
any way ,what do you recommend to me?

I have an other question.why are you using ext2 instead of ext3?

p.s.: this is my first post!!!! Thank you

[smudgeface]

Ok, I feel pretty silly here...I typed sda not sdc and just deleted my laptops primary partition table (for my working installation of windows). Oops. This was a simple table (just had a single ntfs partition on it) but obviously it wont boot now. Can somebody guide me as to how to recreate the table that I just destroyed...
a link...a guide...really anything to get me back

Thanks in advance!!!

[JCasper]

.....What exactly were you attempting when you did this?

[smudgeface]

I was trying to repartition my USB stick and ended up wiping up my partition table for my main harddrive...

I fixed it though, and for anyone else who may end up doing this I will try to outline the solution briefly:
1) With a different computer, download gpart.linux (statically linked binary) onto a usb key
2) Boot the laptop (with the damaged HD partition table) off a BT3 CD/USB
3)chmod +x gpart.linux
4)execute ./gpart.linux /dev/etc and examine the results

sample:

Possible partition(Linux ext2), size(1200Mb), offset(0Mb)
Possible partition(Windows NTFS), size(1200Mb), offset(1200Mb)
...
Guessed primary partition table:

Primary partition(1)
type: 131(0x83)(Linux ext2 filesystem)
size: 1200mb #s(2457880) s(63-2457942)
chs: (0/1/1)-(152/254/61)d (0/1/1)-(152/254/61)r

Primary partition(2)
type: 007(0x07)(OS/2 HPFS, NTFS, QNX or Advanced UNIX)
size: 1200mb #s(2457880) s(2457944-4915823)
chs: (152/254/63)-(305/253/60)d (152/254/63)-(305/253/60)r

most of this is self explanatory (ie partition number, type, etc). The only part that I had to dig a bit for is
chs: (152/254/63)-(305/253/60)d (*num1*/254/63)-(*num2*/253/60)r
where *num1* is the start cylinder and *num2* is the end cylinder for that partition

5)using the cylinder/order/type information, rebuild the partition table with fdisk

by the way, I got my USB key working with persistent changes. Thanks Deathray!!!

[twocent$]

Hi All,

I know this post is somewhat dated but I just wanted to say thanks Munkey106. BT3 on the eeePC with Compiz running off a usb 4gb is now working great.

BTW. I found this site for some helpful tips and tweaks is anyone is interested....

ww.i-hacked.com/content/view/260/42/

[labiri]

Sorry guys, I can't get it to work...simply my changes are not saved, maybe I have too little experience on linux, so I wanted to ask some clarifications:

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

chmod +Xx lilo
chmod +Xx syslinux

What does it really do? I imagine it sets the permessions of those files, but I see them always with * at the end of filename (when listing the folder);

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

I followed this guidelines strictly but I think I misanderstood something: here is my config lines, perphaps someone could point me out the error:

LABEL kde
MENU LABEL BT3 Graphics mode (KDE)
KERNEL /boot/vmlinuz
APPEND vga=0x317 initrd=/boot/initrd.gz ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw chexpand=256 autoexec=xconf changes=/dev/sda2;kdm

Ps: I'm working on the Asus EEEPC using an SDHC, don't know if it matters.
Any advice will be really appreciated

[haqthat]

Did you create a folder called 'changes' on your extra partition?

Is sda2 really the name of the partition you want to save changes to? Try typing 'mount' in the terminal, look for the partition that comes up as ext3. This is the one you should be using as your changes partition.

Also, when you are following this step "Open terminal and CD to /boot/syslinux on partition A. Can you show what you're entering into the terminal. I'd like to see how you get there.