Hi, I'm trying to boot DSL from a usb pendrive on a VIA EPIA ML6000. This is what I have done so far:

1) Use the DSL live cd on my regular pc to create the bootable pendrive (Apps --> Tools --> install --> USB HDD pendrive. This seems to work, so far so good.

2) My ML6000 does not have a cdrom or hardisk, so in the bios I set boot from USB HDD.

3) Plug in the pendrive and start the ML6000, the LED of the pendrive flashes, but booting fails with the message 'Invalid system disk'

What did I do wrong? And how to fix the problem?

I forgot to mention: my regular pc does boot from the penddrive. So I figure it's a problem with the ML6000 and tried USB zip instead of hdd. This works fine. I still have no idea why the hdd thing doesn't work...

its because there was no such thing as a usb hard drive when some motherboards were invented. ergo the bios does not support this. remembe there was no such thing as boot from cdrom back in the past. now there is boot from lan card, fibre card etc. but there isn't boot from 'technology foo that no one knows about yet' option.

you may be able to flash your bios, but i think this would be overkill. some bioses are just crap though to be fair.....

the bios does support usb hard drive.

the fact that it says that, unfortunately, doesn't mean that it actually works. I have had this experience in the past.

can you test the usb install on another (newer) pc......

The USB HDD install, that is.

So the problem is definitely with the EPIA, I guess you're right, too bad the bios can't be trusted. Fortunately it does work with USB ZIP install, so it's not that big of a problem.

my pc won't boot if you leave a usb device plugged (presumably it is trying to boot from it).

some bioses are better than others for sure.