USB thumb drive questio

[Mikkel L. Ellertson]

Anne Wilson wrote:
> 
> I don't know whether this will give anyone any ideas/clues, but I found this 
> quote:
> 
> "I have Avixe Platinum Drives, 512MB and 1G. They can't be formatted as FAT32, 
> only FAT16, ext2, ext3, etc. and can only be booted as USB-ZIP on BIOS 
> setting, while running FAT16 zip geometry with syslinux as boot loader. With 
> grub as bootloader running on FAT16 non of the BIOS setting 
> USB-HDD/USB-ZIP/USB-FDD, etc. can detect it."
> 
> Mikkel, are you there?  Does this suggest anything to you?
> 
> Anne
> 
I find it strange that any drive of that size can not be formatted
FAT32. I could see where the BIOS might have a problem if it is
looking for a specific signature at the start of the drive. I would
think you could get around it for Grub by installing to the boot
record of the active partition instead of the MBR. I have no idea
why they wouldn't format as FAT32 though. That seems really strange
to me. But I have not used that brand, so maybe there is something
strange about them.
I don't have much experience with booting from USB drives. My laptop
does not support it, and I don't really have much call to boot the
desktops that way. (I will be able to play with this soon - getting
a new laptop...)

Mikkel
-- 

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!