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<DIV>All,</DIV>
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<DIV>You are correct. There are a number of USB keys that use a 'floppy
emulation' and report to the BIOS that they are floppy drives. Often the
devices that support this require to be formatted as such, which can affect
capacity. The problem tends to be support for bootable USB devices in
general, where some motherboards say they will boot from USB keys etc, but
in practice the standards vary so much that they only support a small range
of devices.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I have a number of customers that use USB keys for booting other
operating systems successfully, but thay all had issues with finding
combinations of motherboards, BIOS versions and USB keys that actually
worked. One example of a device a customer is sucessfully using is<FONT
face="times new roman, times, serif"> the <FONT color=#000000>SOYO Cig@r USB
flash storage device </FONT></FONT><A
href="https://mail.microsoft.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.soyousa.com/kb/kbdesc.php?id=240"
target=_blank><FONT face="times new roman, times, serif">
http://www.soyousa.com/kb/kbdesc.php?id=240</FONT></A><FONT face="times new
roman, times, serif"><FONT color=#000080>.</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, times, serif"><FONT color=#000080></FONT>
</FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, times, serif"><FONT color=#000000>
Thanks</FONT></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, times, serif"></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="times new roman, times, serif">Bruce</DIV>
<DIV><BR></FONT><BR>-----Original Message-----<BR>From: Henry Spencer
<henry-lqW1N6Cllo0sV2N9l4h3zg@public.gmane.org><BR>To: tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4@public.gmane.org<BR>Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004
17:13:16 -0400 (EDT)<BR>Subject: Re: [TLUG]: Boot from Usb Key<BR><BR>>
On 22 Sep 2004, Tim Writer wrote:<BR>> > I have found that a _lot_ of
systems (even some very new ones) won't<BR>> boot<BR>> > from USB,
even if the BIOS has such an option. In addition, some<BR>> boards
will<BR>> > boot other USB devices (floppy, CD-ROM, etc.) but not a
key. This<BR>> seems to<BR>> > be a geometry issue which can
sometimes be worked around by<BR>> installing<BR>> > another
mbr...<BR>> <BR>> The story I hear -- haven't experimented myself --
is that the BIOS,<BR>> the<BR>> MBR, and the filesystem itself all
have to mesh perfectly for it to<BR>> work. <BR>> Not enough attention
was paid to standardizing the details, and the<BR>> result<BR>> is a
mess, where the probability of everything cooperating properly<BR>>
without expert attention is quite low. <BR>> <BR>>
Henry Spencer<BR>>
<BR>> henry-lqW1N6Cllo0sV2N9l4h3zg@public.gmane.org<BR>> <BR>> --<BR>
> The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings:
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