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Introduction to ISOstick


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#76 MedEvil

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Posted 22 February 2012 - 01:12 AM

It is meant for booting as a CD or DVD
Don't you read Chinenglish! :loleverybody:

Unless i misread, the chinese "version" requires a running OS to switch the ISO.
It can't be done during boot.
But of course, once a iso is loaded, one can also boot from it. Just like with U3-Sticks.

:cheers:

#77 TheHive

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Posted 22 February 2012 - 09:12 PM

Chinese IsoStick
http://hinet.dyndns....drom_manual.pdf
Neat idea to actually insert the SD card into the USB connector!

Had the same idea when isoStick was brought up. but, wasn't sure it was possible. Thought the interface for the microsd card would interfere with usb connection.


I like the idea of having a Portable program that would be included with ISOstick, it would be able to create a blank Floppy of any size / Raw Image /CD/DVD/BluRay Virtual Burner Creator, ect. Sorta combining Imdisk and TotalMounter but made Portable for isoStick.


Anyone for a
USB Floppy Emulator V3 / Floppy to USB Converter
http://www.ipcas.com...mulator-v3.html

#78 elegantinvention

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Posted 26 February 2012 - 08:30 AM

Anyone for a
USB Floppy Emulator V3 / Floppy to USB Converter
http://www.ipcas.com...mulator-v3.html


Hah! That's neat.

Interesting idea, re: portable program that would create images. I do plan to add floppy emulation and make isostick also show up as a CD/DVD/HD-DVD/BluRay burner, which would just write what you "burn" to an image file on the microSD.

:cheers:

#79 bblaauw

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Posted 26 February 2012 - 09:57 AM

Ah so that also makes http://hxc2001.free....ndex.html#intro redundant :)

#80 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 26 February 2012 - 10:31 AM

Anyone for a
USB Floppy Emulator V3 / Floppy to USB Converter
http://www.ipcas.com...mulator-v3.html

Have you actually noticed the tag price? :w00t: :ph34r:
Just for the record (and FYI):
http://reboot.pro/8944/page__st__13

:cheers:
Wonko

#81 knoks

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Posted 28 February 2012 - 12:44 PM

Is there a solution to boot the iso if the bios do not support usb booting? For FAT32/NTFS partitions there exist a PE kicker-CD to boot without bios support.

#82 elegantinvention

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Posted 28 February 2012 - 04:38 PM

@knoks isostick shows up as a usb cdrom, so if your bios can boot usb cdrom it will work. Many bioses can boot usb cdrom, even if they cannot boot usb flash/hdd.
Of course, isostick also shows the flash drive, so if you cannot boot usb cdrom you can still try to boot from usb flash.

#83 bblaauw

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Posted 28 February 2012 - 05:24 PM

There's always something like PLoP, or Grub or Smart Boot Manager to enable booting from some non-traditionally supported devices.

#84 TheHive

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Posted 29 February 2012 - 09:43 AM

Some Dells dont seem to recognize and show the Zalman when trying to boot from ISO image using Virtual CD/DVD.

#85 steve6375

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Posted 29 February 2012 - 01:20 PM

Some Dells dont seem to recognize and show the Zalman when trying to boot from ISO image using Virtual CD/DVD.

Did you try the Zalman in ODD mode only (i.e. not in dual mode)?

#86 knoks

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Posted 29 February 2012 - 08:56 PM

@bblaauw
PLoP can not boot a usb cd drive. May be there is a solution with grub4dos and dos usb drivers. But i do not know which drivers are needed and how the menu.lst should look.

#87 TheHive

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Posted 01 March 2012 - 04:12 AM

Did you try the Zalman in ODD mode only (i.e. not in dual mode)?

I did both ways. But I had the same result at the time. So I had to use a Burned CD I had of the PE.
On reading on some other forums. It might had something to do with the BIOS version or that you had to Remove the default REAL DVD writer before that Dell model would recognize the USB EMulator. Didnt get a chance to test it. It was picked up by the owner before I had a chance to see if I removed the DVD Writer and if it made a difference.


Have you actually noticed the tag price? :w00t: :ph34r:

:cheers:
Wonko

Lol!

#88 mateuszek

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Posted 22 March 2012 - 03:07 PM

I DID NOT READ THIS WHOLE THREAD
but can you explain me the difference between isostick and lexar retrax ?
for example lets take first from google offer
--- link removed ---
$15.99

and i can makeit to be fixed or removable or with cdrom lun or floppy lun or even with protected partitions ?

why not lexar is better for lower cost ?

Edited by Nuno Brito, 22 March 2012 - 03:43 PM.
Removed link to commercial site


#89 MedEvil

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Posted 22 March 2012 - 03:45 PM

Just read the first post, that should answer all your questions.

Also, please do not compare the price of ISO-Stick to the prize of crapware, like Lexar JumpDrive Retrax.
If you need to compare prices, while disregarding features, compare it to something of equal quality.

:cheers:

#90 bob-mnemonic

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Posted 22 March 2012 - 05:58 PM

I did both ways. But I had the same result at the time. So I had to use a Burned CD I had of the PE.
On reading on some other forums. It might had something to do with the BIOS version or that you had to Remove the default REAL DVD writer before that Dell model would recognize the USB EMulator. Didnt get a chance to test it. It was picked up by the owner before I had a chance to see if I removed the DVD Writer and if it made a difference.


Thanks for this, I just tested it today on an Optiplex GX620 and it worked, however the oddities of the BIOS mean that it only works in a certain way.

To get it working I had to do the following.
  • Plug the Zalman in in ODD mode and select ISO while machine was on.
  • Powered off machine and disconnected internal ODD.
  • Rebooted machine and hit F1 at the error about missing internal ODD
  • Machine then booted from the ISO on the Zalman. :clap:
I also noticed when testing this that when you hit F12 at boot and select the option 'Internal or USB ODD' the machine looks for the internal drive only and because it is disconnected throws an error, however if I then hit F1 to continue the machine booted off of the Zalman, but only because the boot order of the machine I was on was set to ODD then HDD.

So in order to get the Zalman to boot when in ODD mode, on the old Dell optiplex's you need to disconnect the internal ODD and make sure the Boot order is set correctly in order for it to work. I will test this on other models to make sure, alot of our clients still use the old optiplex's so testing won't be too difficult.


@elegantinvention: I really like the idea of the ISOstick, and although I have one of Zalman drives I will probably be tempted by this if it is quicker then the Zalman, as its physical size is definately more convenient. Can't wait to see the finished product.
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#91 bblaauw

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Posted 22 March 2012 - 06:10 PM

The physical size as well as being recognised by BIOS as Optical Disk Drive and being able to present a menu allowing selection of which ISO ('cdrom') file to boot are the advantages of ISOstick. Speed unfortunately isn't an advantage yet, as controller, interface or storage medium (NAND flash chips) were limited to about 12MB/s if I read correctly.

A Zalman VE-200 (USB2.0) has the same limitations (interface, controller or the 2.5" hdd/sdd you put inside it), but at a higher level. Assuming no internal bottlenecks you'll likely end up at about 45MB/s (due to USB2.0).
The VE-300 (USB3.0) raises the bar even further. Put a fast SSD inside it (benchmark it first on SATA) and you'll be limited by either theoretical USB 3.0 speed (500MB/s ?) or by a USB3.0 chip (inside the VE300 and/or inside your computer).
So on speed and capacity the Zalman unit would win, otherwise Isostick.

If someone dislikes Isostick's capacity and transfer speed limitations as well as a Zalman unit's physical size, there's not much of an option besides getting a random fast USB3.0 stick and trying to emulate CD-booting using GRUB for example.

#92 steve6375

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Posted 22 March 2012 - 07:03 PM

Thanks for this, I just tested it today on an Optiplex GX620 and it worked, however the oddities of the BIOS mean that it only works in a certain way.

To get it working I had to do the following.

  • Plug the Zalman in in ODD mode and select ISO while machine was on.
  • Powered off machine and disconnected internal ODD.
  • Rebooted machine and hit F1 at the error about missing internal ODD
  • Machine then booted from the ISO on the Zalman. :clap:
I also noticed when testing this that when you hit F12 at boot and select the option 'Internal or USB ODD' the machine looks for the internal drive only and because it is disconnected throws an error, however if I then hit F1 to continue the machine booted off of the Zalman, but only because the boot order of the machine I was on was set to ODD then HDD.
So in order to get the Zalman to boot when in ODD mode, on the old Dell optiplex's you need to disconnect the internal ODD and make sure the Boot order is set correctly in order for it to work. I will test this on other models to make sure, alot of our clients still use the old optiplex's so testing won't be too difficult.

Rather than disconnect the internal ODD, why not just disable it in the BIOS menu - then it should boot straight to the ZalMan - or is there no option to disable the internal ODD?

#93 MedEvil

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Posted 22 March 2012 - 08:43 PM

Speed unfortunately isn't an advantage yet, as controller, interface or storage medium (NAND flash chips) were limited to about 12MB/s if I read correctly.

Since ISO-Stick uses a MicroSD card as medium, which does not come with the stick and not some build in flash memory, it's speed will depend on the quality of the SD card you buy

Assuming no internal bottlenecks you'll likely end up at about 45MB/s (due to USB2.0).

Don't forget the needed overhead! 33MB/s is more likely.

:cheers:

#94 bblaauw

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Posted 22 March 2012 - 08:58 PM

ISOstick still contains a controller, its processing speed was 12MB. The tested SD-cards (separate card reader) also had about the same speed, sometimes slightly more.
Following bottlenecks exist, slowest one determines maximum speed:
1) speed of the flash chips
2) speed of the controller in the USB device
3) practical speed of the USB port (yay protocol overhead!) on your machine
4) theoretical speed of the USB port on your machine
5) controller and/or bus your USB port on the machine is attached to.
6) processing power of CPU (routers with USB 2.0 port are infamous for getting below 10MB/s.
7) medium you're likely to transfer your data to (faster or slower than the USB storage device)
8) BIOS init speed of the USB controllers/stacks.
9) memory speed (usually not a bottleneck)

Just consider a PCI USB3.0 card on an ancient Pentium (i80586) and imagine what kind of speeds you'd get there :)

#95 MedEvil

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Posted 22 March 2012 - 09:51 PM

You forgot: 'size of files to transfer'.

Also the fact, that the card gave about the same performance on another reader, suggests that the card was the weakest link, not the controller.

:cheers:

#96 bob-mnemonic

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Posted 22 March 2012 - 10:25 PM

Rather than disconnect the internal ODD, why not just disable it in the BIOS menu - then it should boot straight to the ZalMan - or is there no option to disable the internal ODD?


Can't remember if there was an option or not, will look next time I'm fixing one of them.

#97 bblaauw

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Posted 23 March 2012 - 12:18 AM

You forgot: 'size of files to transfer'.

Also the fact, that the card gave about the same performance on another reader, suggests that the card was the weakest link, not the controller.

:cheers:


There's a small chance both the card and the controller were limited to same speed, but in general I think you're right.
Was it micro-SD that ISOstick is accepting as storage? And SDHC as standard instead of SDXC (or whatever the fastest one is right now) ?
There seems to be a benchmark at: http://www.tomshardw...-MB-s,2745.html
22MB/s for the top ones.

#98 saddlejib

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Posted 23 March 2012 - 12:38 AM

As mentioned by steve6375, homepage + video

https://sites.google.../cardrom_en/OEM

#99 MedEvil

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Posted 23 March 2012 - 01:18 AM

There's a small chance both the card and the controller were limited to same speed, but in general I think you're right.

You're right, but only when the reader was pretty old. Every reader build within the last 2 years definitly surpasses 12Mb/s read - and 6MB/s write speed.

Was it micro-SD that ISOstick is accepting as storage? And SDHC as standard instead of SDXC (or whatever the fastest one is right now) ?
There seems to be a benchmark at: .... 22MB/s for the top ones.

Yes, topspeeds are above 20MB/s for read as well as for write with the latest cards.Read, 21MB/s write- and 25MB/s readspeed, for a 16GB Class 10 Samsung card.:cheers:

#100 elegantinvention

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Posted 23 March 2012 - 01:20 AM

Yeah, the chip I'm using limits me to roundabout 12MB/s read and ~10MB/s write. It should be SDXC compatible in terms of storage space (this is yet untested, but if at all possible I will patch to make it work), but the top speed will remain the same in that case.
:cheers:




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