9 replies to this topic

[ontherocks]

I have one USB flash drive from Lexar via which I would like to boot & run some Linux distros. My laptop BIOS is capable of booting from both USB flash drives as well as USB hard drives. However it doesn't detect the flash drive as a bootable device. So I played around with it and used the LEXAR BootIt (v1.07) to flip the removable bit and convert it to a USB hard drive. My laptop BIOS now detects it as a bootable device. However now UNetbootin doesn't detect the flash drive both as an USB Drive or Hard Disk, which it used to detect as a USB Drive prior to flipping the removable bit (i.e. as a flash drive). So now I am not able to put a Linux ISO in it.

 

Below are the flash drive details, if required:

USB Device ID: VID = 05DC PID = A400

Device Vendor: LEXAR MEDIA
Device Name: JUMPDRIVE SECURE
Device Revision: 3000

Manufacturer: LEXAR
Product Model: JUMPDRIVE SECURE
Product Revision: 1000

Chip Vendor: SMI
Chip Part-Number: SM322AC - ISP 2004-09-10
Flash ID code:      ECDA8015 - Samsung K9K2G08U0A - 1CE/Single Channel [SLC-2K] -> Total Capacity = 256MB

[Sha0]

I have one USB flash drive from Lexar via which I would like to boot & run some Linux distros. My laptop BIOS is capable of booting from both USB flash drives as well as USB hard drives. However it doesn't detect the flash drive as a bootable device.

"Doesn't detect" is a conclusion, rather than an observation.  What does that look like?  Do you press a key and get a list of devices to boot from, and you do not see the USB device?  Is the device already inserted at power-on time?

 

So I played around with it and used the LEXAR BootIt (v1.07) to flip the removable bit and convert it to a USB hard drive. My laptop BIOS now detects it as a bootable device. However now UNetbootin doesn't detect the flash drive both as an USB Drive or Hard Disk, which it used to detect as a USB Drive prior to flipping the removable bit (i.e. as a flash drive). So now I am not able to put a Linux ISO in it.

"Doesn't detect" is once again a conclusion, rather than an observation.  What do you see that makes you think it is not detected?

[ontherocks]

"Doesn't detect" is a conclusion, rather than an observation.  What does that look like?  Do you press a key and get a list of devices to boot from, and you do not see the USB device?  Is the device already inserted at power-on time?

Yes the flash drive is inserted at power-on time. On hitting F10 gives the boot menu and I don't see the flash drive listed as one of the devices to boot from.

 
"Doesn't detect" is once again a conclusion, rather than an observation.  What do you see that makes you think it is not detected?

For me the flash drive in Windows XP is E:, and it doesn't appear under "USB Drive" or "Hard Disk".
If the again flip the removable bit (i.e change it to flash drive mode), the drive correspoding to it appears under "USB Drive".

Edited by ontherocks, 10 January 2013 - 05:13 PM.

[steve6375]

Prepare the USB drive using RMPrepUSB  + Boot as HDD (2PTNS) and see if your BIOS will detect it (in removable mode) and then see if UnetBootin will detect it.

 

OR

 

Try RMPrepUSB and Tutorial 96 - once prepared, just copy (almost) any linux ISO into the \_ISO\Linux folder on your Lexar and you should be able to run them all (with a few exceptions).

[ontherocks]

Prepare the USB drive using RMPrepUSB  + Boot as HDD (2PTNS) and see if your BIOS will detect it (in removable mode) and then see if UnetBootin will detect it.
 
OR
 
Try RMPrepUSB and Tutorial 96 - once prepared, just copy (almost) any linux ISO into the \_ISO\Linux folder on your Lexar and you should be able to run them all (with a few exceptions).

With the flash drive in removable mode, tried preparing with RMPrepUSB + Boot as HDD (2PTNS). BIOS doesn't list it in boot menu.

Haven't tried Tutorial 96 yet.

Edited by ontherocks, 11 January 2013 - 05:42 AM.

[Sha0]

Yes the flash drive is inserted at power-on time. On hitting F10 gives the boot menu and I don't see the flash drive listed as one of the devices to boot from.

Thanks.

 

For me the flash drive in Windows XP is E:, and it doesn't appear under "USB Drive" or "Hard Disk".
If the again flip the removable bit (i.e change it to flash drive mode), the drive correspoding to it appears under "USB Drive".

Perhaps you can use Device Manager and View -> Devices by connection and then expand away until you find the USB branch with the device on it, then find the device itself.  Once you identify it, you can investigate its properties to find out if it is a disk or not, and what driver (if any) is driving it, and what device IDs it has.

[steve6375]

Some older BIOSes will not list USB Flash drives over a certain physical size (not partition size but total storage capacity).

 

To prove this you could reprogram the Lexar to a different size (at your own risk!) - see here.

[ontherocks]

Perhaps you can use Device Manager and View -> Devices by connection and then expand away until you find the USB branch with the device on it, then find the device itself.  Once you identify it, you can investigate its properties to find out if it is a disk or not, and what driver (if any) is driving it, and what device IDs it has.

I looked at device manager and this all I got. Both images are identical in Local Disk mode as well as Removal Disk mode. My first post contains some details from chipgenius.

 

 

[ontherocks]

Some older BIOSes will not list USB Flash drives over a certain physical size (not partition size but total storage capacity).

 

To prove this you could reprogram the Lexar to a different size (at your own risk!) - see here.

 

This is a mere 256MB flash drive. So I guess that won't be an issue. Lets kill one bird at a time. Since BIOS detects it when it is in Local Disk mode, could we somehow make UNetbootin detect it?

[steve6375]

Hi

I have submitted a bug report. I repro's what you did using a 2GB Lexar and got the same result - it is not detected by Unetbootin either as a Fixed disk or removable USB!