Category: Geeks r Us
hay all,
Well I and windows 7 together managed ocllectively to total my netbook, samsung nc10s harddrive which is now unbootable. I have been trying to boot into the windows xp unattended installer, using WinToFlash but this seems to have failed. I would even be content to boot into vinux using its live cd, but at the moment I have no access to an external cd drive. Can anyone please! enlighten me as to how one boots with a flash drive? The googling on the subject is far from clear and most of their methods are out of date. I have changed the bios boot order already so a full proof method after that for linux or win xp unattended would be bloody great.
thanks
MJ
<A href="http://www.pendrivelinux.com">tah-da
Ok, this is going to be fairly interesting.
The only time that I have ever scene this work is when someone has used unetbootin to prep the flash drive. I've pasted a post by wx1g about unetbootins accessibility problems:
I used nvda with unetbootin. The names and contents of fields don't really read, and show as nothing with flat review, but, for instance, when nvda says something like "select cd or iso file", you can hit 'space', and you'll get a list of visible isos. Similarly, on the target drive field, you can activate it with 'space', though it seems like you're nowhere. Finally, you can hit 'enter' for the 'ok' button, though it is invisible. You won't get any indication of disk creation progress, but, if you wait about 15 minutes, it will be done. I suppose, if you're creating a usb from a cd, you will get the drive spin stopping as a kind of progress indication. Note: you can give unetbootin command line options, instead of using the gui. Be sure you get it right, though, you'll have no useful error indication. Also, the gui comes up, even though you entered command line options. Just hit 'enter' and wait. I would never consider this program to be accessible, but have used it.
To make things even more interesting, on my nc10 at least, the bios seems a bit strange. As in even if usb is the first boot device and then the harddrive the second or what ever, if there is a partition on the drive, regardless of if it's bootable or not, it will always try (And fail) to boot from that drive, get stuck and ignore all the other boot devices in the bios.
I solve this by removing the drive, connecting it to a windows box via usb or directly onto the board (Up to you) and then deleeting all the partitions in disk management.
It's really not as hard as you think to open the nc10, although I do realise that this might seem like a bit of a drastic measure.
Hth and good luck.
As an after thought, you could solve the problem of not being able to tell if the drive is being written to or not by using an external harddrive as apposed to a flash drive.
I've never tryed post 2's suggestion but I know people who have booted linux using it.