Flash drive and Bios

[Fiziks]

OK I have a question about booting linux from a flash drive, I thought it apropriate to place it here because it's not a question about linux itself but about actually getting BIOS to detect the drive, and I don't own a flash drive, it's just more or less a theoretical question....

in my bios the boot priorities list...

Floppy
CD
Network
Harddisk
not in this order...

I was wondering if I were to try to boot a linux LIVE distro from USB device on this system ,would it not support it, or is the "network" entry for usb devices...?

 

[DelJo63]

in my bios the boot priorities list...

Floppy
CD
Network
Harddisk
not in this order...

I was wondering if I were to try to boot a linux LIVE distro from USB device on this system ,would it not support it, or is the "network" entry for usb devices...?

Network means real IPX or Ethernet, not USB. If the bios doesn't show USB,
then either try to get an update from your MFG or you're just up-a-creek.

 

[Fiziks]

really??.. well, that uh.. sucks

 

[DelJo63]

yea, I feel your pain, but understand where the machine is at BOOT time.
There's no OS and thus no OS Drivers (like SCSI and USB).
The Boot supervisor (BIOS) needs assistance in getting access to the device
that that is done by flashing the BIOS with a new set of code which contains
the support you need.

 

[Fiziks]

Actually both winxp and mandriva2006 are installed on this system, I have the USB 2.0 drivers all updated (all hardware is updated)...

It's a socket A VIA chipset, and the build of winxp is probably close to the first release if it's not actually the first release (I disabled updates after I installed the OS)

 

[DelJo63]

slowly read line two above again. when you start the hardware, there is
no OS (it may be on the HD, but it's not ready and can't be used YET).

bios is all you have to work with (on a PC at least)

 

[Fiziks]

yeah yeah, ok, that makes sense