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Replacing Rescue CDs with USB Keys?

Posted by Cliff on from the switching-media dept.

Dan asks: "For several years now I have been working on the ultimate rescue CD, being able to load many disk images, Windows XP PE, all from CDROM while having a nice graphical menu as the main interface during bootup (I would post a nice screenshot, but I like my bandwidth) and I mainly used the ISOLINUX bootloader. I recently received a SanDisk Mini Cruzer 256 USB 2.0 keychain drive, and I am really eager to put some sort of multi booting system on my USB key drive to achieve the same goal. I haven't seen anyone having any success with ISOLINUX or something similar, but the drive is bootable for sure. I have exhausted all options, I searched, I posted on many forums, I never get any useful replies. Since Slashdot readers mostly share the same interests, I am hoping you guys can help me out!" How would yo u configure a USB Key drive to boot multiple operating systems?

4 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. Worth a Shot by luigi22_ · · Score: 1, Funny

    Just treat it like you would a CD. But don't put it in your burner, unless you like fried USB.

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  2. Re:You lose compatibility by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 0, Funny

    NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! THE HUMANITY! Perfectly good PCs being thrown out...

    I would disown family members for that

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  3. Re:booting linux from pendrive by 0x0d0a · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ever been in the situation where you wanted to flash your BIOS only to find out you ran all out of (working) floppy's, or you didn't have a windows bootdisk at hand, or even worse, you didn't have a (working) floppy drive?

    You too? I'll go one better -- my darn-I-don't-have-a-floppy experience was on a dorm floor at Carnegie Mellon University (i.e. CS geek central) and I couldn't find anyone on the floor with a working 3.5" floppy disk to use. I had to run down to the campus computer store to buy floppies. Ah, AOL floppies, how we miss you...

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  4. Re:I'll Make it work by DA-MAN · · Score: 1, Funny

    However, since I'm unemployed I'll do the work of making open source tools work (Microsoft has to support booting from usb before I will guarantee it will work) if you give me a working computer that can boot from USB (mine won't, too old), and a USB key to boot from.

    I can see why you're unemployed. Repeat after me, Microsoft is not a BIOS manufacturer...

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