USB problems - please help!

[emptybee]

Hi all,

been playing around with TCL today and it works brilliantly. Exactly what I wanted to run on my MSI wind as a secondary OS. I copied it to a usb key using unetbootin and have just figured out how to get the boot options to work (using the waitusb=5 command). However, when I restart the os or shut down and turn on again the usb stick becomes sdb1 (it was previously sda1) this messes with the other boot options I have set to make it persistent. If I go into windows and then restart with the usb in it switches back to sda1 and the persistent bits work again.

Does anyone know why this is and how I can fix it? I'm a novice so please speak slowly! If I can get this working properly I want to go ahead and get the wifi sorted and then I'll have the perfect quickbooting OS I always dreamed of.

Many thanks,
Max

[curaga]

Most of the options don't need to be specified after the first time if you're using the default values. Such options are for example tce, local, and restore. If they are left out, TC autoscans for the correct device.

Please post your complete boot line.

Oh, and welcome to the forums

[emptybee]

My syslinux.cfg is:

default vesamenu.c32
prompt 0
menu title UNetbootin
timeout 1

label unetbootindefault
menu label tinycore
kernel /boot/bzImage quiet
append initrd=/boot/tinycore.gz quiet waitusb=5 tce=sda1/tce home=sda1/home backup=sda1

The folders tce and home are E:/tce and E:/home respectively is this the right place?

[curaga]

Yes it's the right place for both. However, you should not use both home and backup, they overlap; also home should not be used on fat32.

Since you've already booted, and because tce and backup are scanned for, you could delete the E:\home folder and replace the append line with this:

append initrd=/boot/tinycore.gz quiet waitusb=5

[emptybee]

Cool, thanks for the help/ Its been driving me slowly nuts. Will let you know how I get on.

Thanks again!

[emptybee]

Worked a treat, thank you very much.

[Jason W]

Here is a couple of other tidbits-

If you want to have persistent home on a fat16/fat32 usb key or other media, you can go with the encrypted home option since it creates an encrypted ext2 formatted loop file that can reside on a fat formatted volume.

Persistent /usr/local is similar if you choose to create a tclocal file for it instead of a directory as the ext2 loop file that is created can live on fat volumes as well.

[chrigi]

Hello

I also tried to set some persistence options for my USB installation but ran into some problems.
I edited the syslinux.cfg file but it seems to load the extlinux.cfg... so I put my settings there:
append initrd=/boot/tinycore.gz quiet cryptohome=sdc2 restore=sdc3 local=sdc4 opt=sdc4

These are all ext3 partitions on the USB stick and tc is installed into sdc1.
Sadly it seems like it doesn't work as it never asks me for a password (needed for my cryptohome)

Oh... and is this set up correctly for Mode 3 (the one with the tcz files)? or do I also have to specify a tce=XX ? (Sidequestion: the home directory is never fully loaded into ram, right?)

[Juanito]

Is sdc1 formatted fat or ext3? I don't think syslinux will work on an ext3 partition.

If sdc1 is an ext3 partition, then I presume you are booting with extlinux and the config file should be called extlinux.conf, not extlinux.cfg

[chrigi]

Yes, it's ext3. Thank you, now everything works

//Edit:
Seems like I just got lucky... it looks like tc won't scan for cryptohome and opt settings and I can't specify them as my stick is sometimes sdc and then sdc, etc.