USB Stick Boot Help...

Hi all! From Computer Land comes a complicated little problem, which I just *know* must have a solution. Unfortunately, I do not know what that solution is; at least, not yet.

Here is the story:

I have a thinclient, a really tiny computer, which boots off of a compact flash card. I like to use Acronis True Image to make backups of the card, so that I can quickly and easily update/change/repair a dead system. Since the computer lacks a CD-ROM and floppy, I decided I wanted to boot off USB.

Acronis True Image allows me to make either a set of boot floppies, or, a boot CD. The BIOS on the computer in question allows three kinds of USB booting:

1) USB Floppy
2) USB CD-ROM
3) USB-HDD

So, first I tried using a large floppy image, incorporating the Acronis True Image software into it, applying the boot sector from the first floppy to the image, and writing it to the USB stick. I set the BIOS to "USB Floppy," but it was not to be. It did not work.

Next, I tried the same thing, but with "USB-HDD." It did not work either. But, I did discover that when you set the BIOS to "USB-HDD," it looks for an MBR. If and only if there is an MBR, and if and only if the filesystem is FAT32 (I tried FAT12/FAT16), the USB flash drive will boot! This brings me to my present problem.

I have two bootsectors to work with. I have the floppy boot sector, and I have the bootsector from the CD-ROM/ISO. However, I need the *third* flavor, that of a fixed drive, or MBR. Does anyone know of a utility that can convert *either* a CD-ROM bootsector *or* a floppy bootsector to the type of MBR found on a hard drive? It's driving me nuts.

Thank you to anyone who may know the answer!




LEDAdd1ct

LEDAdd1ct,

have you seen http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm ? may help.

was_jlh said:

LEDAdd1ct,

have you seen http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm ? may help.

Click to expand...

I did check out that site, but thank you very much for posting! I finally found a solution, but it does not work on converting boot sectors. For anyone else trying to boot Acronis products off USB, these are the sites that saved me:

http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=176958


http://www.purviancecs.com/acronis.htm

It relies on an image the guy made, complete with MBR, which you just apply to any USB device. Most newer computers are not as picky as my thinclient; they can boot off USB devices in many different formats. However, my device was a pain because it would *only* boot off traditional hard drive format, with a real MBR and boot sector.

Although the nice person who wrote the above tutorial helped to solve my problem, I would still be interested if anyone knows how/can explain how to transform a CD boot sector or floppy bootsector to a traditional MBR.

LEDAdd1ct