I'm having trouble getting syslinux to install a bootloader onto my usb flash drive
which is connected to my win2k machine. The drive is labeled as my G drive in windows and is formatted as FAT32.

I have extracted the syslinux files to my G drive (usb flash drive.) When I open up a dos command prompt (C:\DOCUME~1\ADMINI~1>) and enter:

syslinux.exe G: as the below instructions indicate, I get this error:

'SYSLINUX.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

The below instructions make it seem obvious as do the man pages for syslinux but I am completly lost. Please Help? Help.


Then run syslinux, which will install the bootloader needed for Feather Linux to be able to boot from the USB drive.

in Windows type: syslinux.exe E:

if your USB drive is found at E:. That should make your USB drive bootable, and now you can run Feather Linux.

since no-one has replied for a week, I am guessing your distro slax with featherlinux with MS has scared off some posters......until you get a better answer consider my proposal

1) it looks like you want to keep MS on the non-usb drive and have linux on the usb?
2) we may be able to use grub the bootloader mbr of the 2000 hd to boot usb
3) you would need to have a MS cd for 2000 to repair the mbr if my suggestion fails
4) you will need to play with your bios so that initially, you disable the 2000 hd and boot to cd and have usb drive available and install feather to usb
5) but before we re-enable your 2000 hd reboot a few times to ensure that usb drive boots ok
6) then comes the messy bit (messier)
your current system is
bios to usb mbr to usb booting files for linux
either that works or does not

it will fail if usb stuff is not compiled into your linux kernel and as I have never tested feather you may need to post a separate question of whether usb is enabled or only a module in feather.

if someone can help you with that quest I will tell you what steps 7 etc are

SUGGESTION 2

of course my first suggestion as probably scared you off, heh heh

so an easier one is that you keep on going into your bios and change the boot order from
usb to internal drive
so its either

bios to usb mbr to usb linux
bios to hd mbr to w2k

I think your original problem is that you didn't have syslinux.exe in a executable path. Try to find it and execute it there or copy it someplace else. Windows simply couldn't find the program.