How can i boot from an external USB DVD drive?

zenofronia · 12-13-2009, 05:28 AM

Box = IBM ThinkCenter, 3.0Gb CPU, 1Gb RAM, with CD drive.
Today i added an external USB DVD drive. I am unable to select this as first Boot option in the setup. When I put the DVD I burned of a SuSE 11.2 LiveCD in the internal CD drive it lists the contents but when I try to boot from it, the HD boots instead.

I thought of adding the DVD USB drive to the fstab list. Would this work?

Thanks,

Zenofronia (Geoffrey)

linus72 · 12-13-2009, 06:14 AM

Um
you can try Plop bootmanager
thats what I use...

its here-
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html

the thing you want is called plpbt.bin or plpbt
it doesnt install or anything, just boots stuff

plpbtin, plpbtin.img, etc install to MBR

you can use the one I use which is plpbt
I made a floppy out of plpbt.img(floppy) and then skanked
the executable as sometimes plpbt.bin doesnt work as good?

anyway, if you want mine> Link > plpbt

and heres grub menu.lst entry for it

Code:

title Plop bootmanager
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/plpbt

thats assuming its on partition 1 (hd0,0)

it works good on my 3 computers, 2 of which have no BIOS support
for usb boot at all

zenofronia · 12-13-2009, 10:24 AM

[QUOTE=linus72;3789587]Um
you can try Plop bootmanager
thats what I use...

its here-
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html

the thing you want is called plpbt.bin or plpbt
it doesnt install or anything, just boots stuff

plpbtin, plpbtin.img, etc install to MBR

you can use the one I use which is plpbt
I made a floppy out of plpbt.img(floppy) and then skanked
the executable as sometimes plpbt.bin doesnt work as good?

anyway, if you want mine> Link > plpbt

and heres grub menu.lst entry for it

Code:

title Plop bootmanager
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/plpbt

thats assuming its on partition 1 (hd0,0)

it works good on my 3 computers, 2 of which have no BIOS support
for usb boot at all

Thank you very much for your suggestion. I already have Ubu9.04 on part 1&2. Will this fix work with that config? I'm reading the doc at the site but if you can give a succinct answer, it would be appreciated. There's a reason I posted in the newbie forum.

Zenofronia

linus72 · 12-13-2009, 10:32 AM

OH
uh that entry will work for grub old grub 9.04 grub
for 9.10 grub.cfg it would be

menuentry "Plop bootmanager" {
recordfail=1
if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
set quiet=1
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 9a3a9fca-1add-4643-8312-a6c3e306f79a
linux16 /boot/plpbt
}

you would have to adjust set root=(hd0,1)
and the UUID --set ?????

zenofronia · 12-13-2009, 01:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by linus72

OH
uh that entry will work for grub old grub 9.04 grub
for 9.10 grub.cfg it would be

menuentry "Plop bootmanager" {
recordfail=1
if [ -n ${have_grubenv} ]; then save_env recordfail; fi
set quiet=1
insmod ext2
set root=(hd0,1)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set 9a3a9fca-1add-4643-8312-a6c3e306f79a
linux16 /boot/plpbt
}

you would have to adjust set root=(hd0,1)
and the UUID --set ?????

===================================================================
Once again, thank you for answering, and so swiftly. But. I saw this on the plbt site:

>>Warning Linux users: Install LILO or GRUB to the boot sector of your >>Linux instead of the Master Boot Record (MBR). The PLoP Boot Manager is >>not a Linux loader and cannot start Linux without LILO, GRUB, Syslinux >>and similar!

...and it puzzled me how i could boot a LiveCD without installing plbt in my first partition or MBR which i would be loath to do. So?

Hopefully not tediously,

zeno