ok,

i wanted to make my removable HDD bootable and install something like live linux on it....
please help me...

I tried slax, tried ubuntu even cant install full linux.... the problem is the HDD connects through USB and may be it searches for /dev/sdb1 before fstab is created or something, i am newbie and dont understand much....

help needed badly

If you want to use a "live" Linux--you can simply boot up from a live CD. Many are available---from your post, I infer you might already have one.

If you have a 400GB drive, why not make a small Linux partition?

i already running slackware 10.2 and Fedora core 4 on my main 400Gb...

i have live CD's too...

but i want to use my removable HDD and not CD's i need help with this

Try searching here on "booting from usb" or something like that.

Suggest changing the title of your post---eg: "Linux on USB removeable drive"

"Linux one" almost sounds like the marketing dept.'s name for a new distro...

Have you looked at DSL. I have ran it from a USB key on both Windows and Linux. It is run on top of the OS but it was quick enough. It might be the kind of thing you are looking from

thank you guys but is booting from usb flash drive and usb HDD the same.....

@pixellany
changed the title..... it was actually meant to be on

@lees
i'll see if that helps....
but the guy on this page has a similar problem like mine
http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin/fo...=&&#entry61778

ok after a bit of a search i found this guys....

http://rz-obrian.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/knoppix-usb/

now i figure out that i need to do this, to make the kernel find /dev/sdb...
but as i am a newbie i need help understanding the steps and applying ot to DSL-2.3....

and please tell me if i am talking nonsense...lol....

info that might be useful...
my usb HDD is detected as /dev/sdb by most linux distros..
I have a 5Gb ext3 primary boot partition and 500Mb swap for this purpose so dont worry about the space i wanna get this working
i dont want to install a full linux for my machine but something like live CD that works on any kind of hardware.... if it is uncompressed on HDD still better

Please help me understand the boot process of linux as i have no idea... what happens after what... where do i get the relevent usb modules for my hdd...
thanks in advance

Bump.....

is someone there to help me...!!!!

Hi kniwor,

If you download the DSL zip file you can run it from anywhere as it is not actually booting from USB. It runs on top of your existing OS. I ectracted it to a folder in my home directory and ran it straight from there no probs. As long as you can mount your USB drive you can run DSL from it.

To run on a Linux box you simply run the dsl-linux.sh and to run on a Windows machine you run the dsl-windows.bat

What this essentially means is that you can extract DSL to the root of your USB hard drive and whereever you plug this hard drive into you can run your DSL distro with all of your files and installed programs also on your USB hard drive. It is a great way to have a portable OS

but the thing is i want to make my hard disk bootable.... standalone...

say i wanted to boot a pc which does not have a HDD, FDD, CDrom, network card....
and nothing exept my USB-HDD....

hope u get my point..... i know almost all computers have a CDROM and a live CD will do everything but there should be a way i can do that from my USB-HDD, this has more space,is more flexible, faster..... then why not use this