Yes, the F12 at post gives one access to the Boot Menu (only) the default "first boot" device is marked, (a reflection of BIOS information) one can now for this boot only select any of the other boot functions listed. What appears at the F12 boot menu and within the BIOS are the same, and unfortunately USB flash drive is not shown as an option, only USB FDD, ZIP, CD & HDD. Other options listed are the normal ones: Floppy, LS12, HD, CDROM, ZIP & Legacy LAN.
Maybe you should check for a motherboard bios update...
Yes the USB 2.0GIG stick has been formatted as FAT16, Macrium created the rescue.iso saved to my HD. I then used UNetbootin to put the .iso file onto the USB stick.
Yes, the F12 at post gives one access to the Boot Menu (only) the default "first boot" device is marked, (a reflection of BIOS information) one can now for this boot only select any of the other boot functions listed. What appears at the F12 boot menu and within the BIOS are the same, and unfortunately USB flash drive is not shown as an option, only USB FDD, ZIP, CD & HDD. Other options listed are the normal ones: Floppy, LS12, HD, CDROM, ZIP & Legacy LAN.
Following our discussion the other day on USB speed, bandwidth etc, perhaps I need to disconnect all USB's devices (2 printers, HDD, business card scanner etc.) who knows and maybe just maybe I need to locate the 1 and only "Enhanced USB port".
I can tell you that when I use the flash drive to boot there is nothing plugged in other than a USB mouse.
Strange non of the USB options in the boot menu work for you. Did you try another flash drive? Maybe the one your using is just not working. PC's are flaky that way. Even try another USB port. I've seen a device work in one port but not another for no apparent reason.
No worries - I didn't know you could do the latter until you posted; I'm glad you did. That's the whole interesting thing with this stuff - so many different ways of doing things.
How true, now I think I shall try disconnecting all the USB hanger-oners, and go through the boot menu options (F12 quickest way) one by one prefixed as USB?????, nothing to loose and everything to gain.........know how. Thanks for your interest marmite.
I can tell you that when I use the flash drive to boot there is nothing plugged in other than a USB mouse.
Strange non of the USB options in the boot menu work for you. Did you try another flash drive? Maybe the one your using is just not working. PC's are flaky that way. Even try another USB port. I've seen a device work in one port but not another for no apparent reason.
"Try another USB port"...........yes that is a good idea, I shall give that a go i.e. bandwidth and power supply to USB ports are different. Unable to try another USB stick as the other sticks I have here with me are 8gig & 16gig, and from memory you can not format FAT16 over 4gig. I shall report back.
I can tell you that when I use the flash drive to boot there is nothing plugged in other than a USB mouse.
Strange non of the USB options in the boot menu work for you. Did you try another flash drive? Maybe the one your using is just not working. PC's are flaky that way. Even try another USB port. I've seen a device work in one port but not another for no apparent reason.
Well I did try all available ports, disconnected all other USB devices and still no good. Even though a careful study of the MB documentation where under Integrated Peripherals - Legacy USB storage detect, which states "determines whether to detect USB storage devices, including USB flash drives, and USB hard drives during POST. (default: enabled). I have checked that this is enabled, still no go. I have to assume there is something amiss with the 2.0gig USB flash drive, what I am not sure as I can use it as one would normally do without any issues. I can only assume it is a MB issue (still under warranty) I shall look to updating the BIOS to see if that sheds any light on the subject. Thank you Anomaly for your input.
The penderivelinux method in the first post uses different USB formating (FAT32) and it may be a different linux flavour (although really I doubt that's a factor) ... could be worth a go
Incidentally I've actually restored my system volume from a USB boot - so I now have complete confidence in USB boot as a recovery mechanism
Incidentally I've actually restored my system volume from a USB boot - so I now have complete confidence in USB boot as a recovery mechanism
I have restored several machines using the USB flash to boot from. I no longer bother with the CD/DVD I only use the flash drive. I do this because some PC's I maintain for friends and relatives are net books with no optical drives and because Macrium updates the rescue CD periodically and it's no problem to reformat the flash drive and put the updated ISO on it. With the CD/DVD you either have to scrap it and use a new one or use a CD-RW/DVD-RW and they can be flaky to boot from which is why regular CD-R is recommended. Also Flash drives are so cheap now days and so small and boot faster than CD/DVD I see no reason to use discs any more for this type of thing.
Well I did try all available ports, disconnected all other USB devices and still no good. Even though a careful study of the MB documentation where under Integrated Peripherals - Legacy USB storage detect, which states "determines whether to detect USB storage devices, including USB flash drives, and USB hard drives during POST. (default: enabled). I have checked that this is enabled, still no go. I have to assume there is something amiss with the 2.0gig USB flash drive, what I am not sure as I can use it as one would normally do without any issues. I can only assume it is a MB issue (still under warranty) I shall look to updating the BIOS to see if that sheds any light on the subject. Thank you Anomaly for your input.
IS the Macrium ISO the only thing on the flash drive? Is the ISO installed to the root of the drive?
I have restored several machines using the USB flash to boot from. I no longer bother with the CD/DVD I only use the flash drive. I do this because some PC's I maintain for friends and relatives are net books with no optical drives and because Macrium updates the rescue CD periodically and it's no problem to reformat the flash drive and put the updated ISO on it. With the CD/DVD you either have to scrap it and use a new one or use a CD-RW/DVD-RW and they can be flaky to boot from which is why regular CD-R is recommended. Also Flash drives are so cheap now days and so small and boot faster than CD/DVD I see no reason to use discs any more for this type of thing.
My restore was just a test, not out of necessity - so I was rather glad to see it go without hitch.
Agreed about the USB advantages - particularly the ease of update. Also it's nice to be able to launch other isos from the same drive - becomes a recovery toolkit on a stick.
Agreed about the USB advantages - particularly the ease of update. Also it's nice to be able to launch other isos from the same drive - becomes a recovery toolkit on a stick.
Haven't tried that yet. I assume you are using the program you linked in the first post to do this. I will reading up on that and making use of it. It will definitely give me more options with my flash drives.
I should have posted this straight back yesterday when we "talked" about it, but I got sidetracked.
I would never have thought to go down the Macrium Rescue Flash Drive road. So a pat on the back for starting the topic, which seems to have generated quite some interest.
I don't have anything in my BIOS enabling me to boot from a USB, but the MEMTest "Test" bootloader confirmed that all of my USB's are picked up and displayed in the "Boot Options" menu if the Flash Drive has a BootLoader installed.
I wasn't keen on the PenDriveLinux, although it did work fine, and I ended up yesterday using UNetbootin to do the job, found at this link:
It's an oldish link, and I will point out that although it says to format the Flash Drive to FAT16, it actually works fine for me with FAT32 as well, which I found out from here:
I assume you are using the program you linked in the first post to do this.
Yup.
Next step is to unload one iso and load another without rebooting. That may depend on a combination of how the iso program terminates and your linux skills - not currently my forte.
Thanks again for starting the topic marmite, it's a really useful addition to anyones recovery arsenal.
Cheers Dennis. Anomaly came out with the Macrium link earlier; I've now added that to the first post since that may be quite sufficient for most users.
I've learned quite a lot from various posters' feedback and it's been a pretty constructive exercise
I don't have anything in my BIOS enabling me to boot from a USB, but the MEMTest "Test" bootloader confirmed that all of my USB's are picked up and displayed in the "Boot Options" menu if the Flash Drive has a BootLoader installed.
Which is why I posted what I did. I figured many people would look in the BIOS and not see the option for the flash drive. They would need to use th boot menu instead.
I wasn't keen on the PenDriveLinux, although it did work fine, and I ended up yesterday using UNetbootin to do the job, found at this link:
That link was posted way back in the thread by me.
Good for you Anomaly.
I had those links, information, and a reply for marmite ready to post around 2.00pm yesterday, until something else came up.
So I posted the links I found yesterday, and the reply to marmite I didn't have time to post, as it wouldn't have been true to say I found the info from yours.
Nice attitude from a moderator. Please don't respond to any of my posts or participate in any thread I might start from now on and I will do the same for you. You ruin an otherwise good forum.
I'm sorry you feel that way, but my reply to marmite was just that. A reply to marmite.
It was relevant to what we discussed yesterday, it was composed yesterday, and I didn't see any reason to do a complete edit of it simply because one of the links had been posted in the meantime by someone else.
Your reply was completely unnecessary, and you shouldn't be surprised to get a negative response.
Your other comments are your prerogative, but I'm afraid I have no intention of placing any restrictions on where and when I post.
What you do is entirely your own choice of course.
Hey, DennisD, do I remember correctly that you use an HP machine? I ask because I do, mine is about 4, 5 years old, and when I start w/ the escape key, I get the BIOS boot menu (not the BIOS editor) and whatever usb sticks were plugged when the machine started are shown as bootable devices. I have booted up SLAX from usb that way.
Does this not work for you? :-(
Sorry cannot put up a screen shot. Will use a camera if it would help and if I can figure out how.
Thanks for the heads up, and don't be offended when I say I already mentioned this in post 31 above:
I don't have anything in my BIOS enabling me to boot from a USB, but the MEMTest "Test" bootloader confirmed that all of my USB's are picked up and displayed in the "Boot Options" menu if the Flash Drive has a BootLoader installed.
EDIT: Just for info, the Esc key accesses the boot option screen on my HP Desktop.
But if I hadn't found that out I would be thanking you most profusely.