i dont understand why people dont use fbinst and be done with it . i have a 2gb flash with fat16 with --zip-align(super flopy as u mentioned above ) switch , AND I have yet to find a system where it refused to boot.
Maanu, thank you for your input.
There is a branch for fbinst. Why not break in down for us?
Everything on the mindmap has been substantiated and proofed. This branch should be also. There has to be (I hope) a logic in why you think
people should use fbinst and be done with it
Please clarify it.
Please provide sustenance and justification for your opinion, methods to test the validity of your reasoning, and sources for further reading if one choses to learn more on the subject.
I tested several applications before starting this thread, and fbinst was one of them. As the expression goes, it was "chinese to me" (and I am not refering to the language, even though that was also "chinese to me", even with translation).
I could not
understand why so much space "vanished" at the beginning of the disk. I could not find any proper english documentation. It may be the best at everything in the world, but if I'm lost, it's useless to me. I do not like "operating blind" because when things go wrong, you can't respond (actually you can: blindly). Things will go wrong, it's always a matter of "when", not "if", when you do it enough times.
In all fairness, of all the applications I tested, RMPrepUSB was the one that made the most sense. There was an on screen help that told me where I was, anywhere I pointed my mouse. I understood what the targets were without too much effort. However, I still needed the information necessary to make the decisions I needed to make. The utilities only give you tools to work with, not the tools to make the decisions to choose them instead of others, nor the tools to decide what to pick, or how to fill them.
That is where this document fits.
The steps in the RMPrepUSB GUI are clearly laid out and labeled. This is a model implementation. Just so you know, I also used the GUI for fbinst, and yes, it boots my machines. But so did the UFDs I prepaered with any other tool. My problem was that I was not sure I was doing the right thing, and it was not because I did not make the effort, but rather because what was written seemed to be written by developers for developers in forums where they were addressing each other, not the common "layman".
When I went to a friend's house to fix his kids computers, I found my stick not booting, and I could not
understand what was going on. I played in the BIOS and did what should be, but it did not resolve the issue. Luckily, I had also prepared a companion boot CD.
Depending on the size of the tools you need on your disk and the size of the disk itself, you may find yourself in the position where you can not afford a chunk cut out of your drive. Then what?
The first post in this thread reads:
This is an attempt to help reason through the process of UFD preparation to achieve the best possible compatibility across brands and models.
* What format should I use on my UFD to achieve maximum bootability?
* What utility would be the most appropriate to boot most computers?
* What file system should I use?
* What boot manager should I use?
* How do the above compare and how do they differ in methods?
Please share your experience, and provide information that will enable newcomers to make intelligent decisions based on their specific needs.
and my signature says
I would like compile a useful one stop page that can be used as a guide. It will include the product of all the discussions that have been going on all these years in a concise simple but yet comprehensive easy to follow guide.
it is not about blindly getting rid of the "formatting stage", but rather empowering common users to be able to use the applications (which is, I believe, the reason
why they were created).
and my signature ends with
If you or any one you know can provide anything of value, please do so.
... Any input is welcomed. Keep it coming.