came over this few days ago, well just info for all those who think u3 has some ultimate security build in
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We never doubted your word Otto.
If U3 wasn't dead already, it is now. U stands for utterly useless (security).
I imagine the CD partition can be used to install live CDs right? (maybe the U is for Ubuntu? eh?)
You mean to boot OS from the USB (using the read-only partition)? I don't know if this is necessary, I was under the impression that you can just boot straight from the USB drive as long as the motherboard supports (which I think most do these days). Furthermore, you can install a LiveCD quite easily by putting it into a CD-ROM drive and turning on the computer.
I wasn't saying U3 is completely useless necessarily but with this tool the security is. If you can change/remove the password at will that's as good as having no password at all.
This illustrates the point that Otto always makes about software security and how you can use other software to get around or circumvent the original software under the right circumstances. It also demonstrates to users who request password protected drives using a software solution that they are wasting their time. A hardware solution is really much better and a lot more secure.
I read it. Clicked "Reply" and for some reason the first paragraph seemed bigger with information that I didn't read before.
Anyway...
But (I said this a while ago) its easier to carry a flash drive than a CD in your pocket.
I'm wondering, though, if I can use my flash drive and boot off my CD part of my flash drive, even though the motherboard doesn't support it.
Plus, I've never used (shared or owned) a computer with a DVD or even CD burner on it. So this could be even more useful.
And I agree with your last paragraph.
Lets just hope you didn't edit it again before I click "Save" here...
Not too long ago I booted a Linux OS (I think it was Puppy) from a USB CD drive (maybe the motherboard really supported USB booting?), so I suppose that's some sort of proof of concept (maybe). It's crazy but it might just work. You could even save your Puppy data on the regular partition of the USB drive and have a pristine OS to boot into every time. If that 100MB ISO is too big for you then try Slitaz which I think is only about 40MB.
If I had a spare flash drive I might be tempted to try it just for kicks.
there are plenty of linux distros larger than that
Oh, and I don't mean to rub it in, but I do have a spare 2 GB USB U3 flash drive.
So, yeah. I'll see how my 10-year-old can handle USB-CD(TM) and report back.
does not work so simple unfortunately.
This is still not a CD drive which can be so simply used by any older bios as proper CD drive can be.
It is not a big problem to replace the CD portion, even it can be created on other , non sandisk, sticks. One has to have a software supporting the particular controller inside and so write proper fake to it.
In fact I have one such stick, it s not sandisk, it is some chap junk, and I took one of the software items from uwe siebers famous website.
Any ISO can be copied that way to it and have it so ready.
Have no clue what for, since the booting from it is still not so simple. There exist some computers apparently which will boot from it, none of mines did that time.
So far I have now one rather 'modern' HP mini110, this supports full booting from any stick with MBR and partition table, so have given up trying the others, they have CD drives anyway.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
Windows says the CD is corrupt or its in a format thats not supported when I try to open the CD part. IDK why but oh well.
The first time I tried it, I was a bit rushed, so I didn't have a chance to really get a look at it. But I tried again to put an ISO and it worked.
I got Damn Small Linux (because I figured it'd be faster to load a smaller one), just to test it.
And then I took it to the public library and I tried booting it. It didn't have an option to boot off of a removable drive other than the floppy (they ordered the new ones with floppy drives I think for people with older computers).
I looked under CD drives, and the CD partition of the drive was there!
I tried running it, but I got an error during startup saying that it couldn't find Knoppix (even though I knew it was there).
So yesterday, I tried again to put a new ISO: this time Puppy. And it didn't work. DSL was still there, but I couldnt open any sub directories.
IDK why, but I'll try to put puppy on it again today.
I think Otto is right, although it's a CD image, the hardware isn't a CD drive so it's not going to work. Although my external CD-RW drive connects via USB it still is a CD drive after all.
what happened was that it started to boot, complete with the extracting and everything, and tux up top left, like always, then it got to the part saying that it couldn't find knoppix and was going to give me the bare minimum.
I also looked inside the CD partition, and, of course, it came with two folders and a file, something, something, index.html. And inside one of the something folders was a file called KNOPPIX (which is 48 of the 50 MB of DSL).
IDK why, but, like I said, I'll try again with puppy, and if that doesn't work, I'll put on BT3. And if that doesn't work, I'll give up and send a full report back to the u3-tool devs.
What do you mean "bare minimum"? It wasn't going to start X? Did you get a command line? Or did it quit before that part? Honestly, I haven't looked at DSL in ages (notwithstanding that the project is dead AFAIK), I'm more (relative term) familiar with Puppy.
tux was there, some colored, command-style text, and then it said "knoppix#" and there was a cursor where you could type stuff in (I guess its the equivalent of command prompt where "C:\Documents and Settings\[username]" is "knoppix#" but I'm not positive either.
I think that DSL was morphed into some new distro, but I can't remember what it was called...
One of the primary developers left DSL to create TinyCore Linux. It's not a fork, it's a completely new project. There is no new DSL that I'm aware of. TinyCore is a little too hardcore though, all you have is the desktop environment. Granted, it is fairly easy to add a handful of everyday apps like a browser (Firefox) and word process etc.
So it sounds like it actually worked it just didn't start X for whatever reason. I believe you can do that by typing "start X" funnily enough.
However, I still question how it is detected/booted by the BIOS. I need to find a spare USB drive to play with.
Anyway, keep up the good work experiment-monkey!
Its too tiny.
Oh, and I tried booting it on my ten-year old, but it didn't detect it
And I tried booting it at school, but the BIOS is (not surprisingly) password protected.
Thanks evil insect!
Then Otto is probably right(as usual), and it's really booting as a USB Flash device not a (USB) CD-ROM.
In which case there's no point messing around with ISOs/partitions and so forth, you might as well just use one of the many Live Linux USB installers that are out there.
Always fun playing around though.
I think that the computer was able to boot off of USB, but it was disabled in the BIOS at the library (and thus hidden from the user). The computer showed the CD partition from the USB and didn't hide it because it saw it as a CD, but used its ability to detect USB in order to find it.
In which case I still have to (want to) do some more experimenting.
I always do
I JUST BOOTED PUPPY ON THE LIBRARY PC (FROM THE CD PARTITION!)
I just typed this to you from Opera on puppy!!!!!!
(now I'm leaving before they find me...
is not same thing in all cases.
Earlier computes were not able to boot at all from the usb.
Then later some of them were able to boot from it, but only if the media was a floppy or so called supperfloppy. That means it is quite different from any CD drive.
In some cases it was possible to cheat the bios in a way that the boot part of the CD was really a floppy image.
In fact it is often so, but it is not accessible for us so simple.
Finally now computers can boot from a normal partition with MBR and all the rest from usb mem stick itself.
I have definitely one computer here, which will boot from usb connected floppy, but not from usb connected CD drive. It will boot from its own CD drive sure.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland