Older Motherboards - No USB Boot

[jimwhite]

I have a few older P4 boards around that I could use as secondary un-raid systems but they don't have USB boot.... I wonder - could the distribution be "transfered" to a bootable CD and still be keyed to the USB flash?  Could the boot be set up to start on the CD and then continue on the USB flash?

 

 

[aaron330i]

I was in the same position with my Asus A7M266-D motheroard. After a lot of searching and trial & error, I was able to make a bootable floppy "Kicker Disk" or "Kicker Floppy" that loaded USB drivers, deteced the thumbdrive, then used loadlin to hand off the rest of the booting to unRAID.

 

There is a download (you'll need to google for it) called kicker.rar that has three different floppy images in it that you can then modify.

 

i'm sure the boot from CD has the same principal, I was just unwilling to part with a PATA port.

[arcticool]

I am in the same position as I'm sure are many.

I have a few older P4 boards with CPUs and RAM all set to go but no USB boot.

Seems like these guys are really killing their hardware compatibility list with this requirement.

[jcolo]

I was in the same position with my Asus A7M266-D motheroard. After a lot of searching and trial & error, I was able to make a bootable floppy "Kicker Disk" or "Kicker Floppy" that loaded USB drivers, deteced the thumbdrive, then used loadlin to hand off the rest of the booting to unRAID.

 

There is a download (you'll need to google for it) called kicker.rar that has three different floppy images in it that you can then modify.

 

i'm sure the boot from CD has the same principal, I was just unwilling to part with a PATA port.

 

What parameters did you use on your LOADLIN to hand off the booting to unRAID ?  I found the correct kicker floppy that recognizes my USB flash, but I am at a loss on the correct invocation of the LOADLIN command.

 

EDIT:  I switched to LINLD 0.97 and was able to boot UNRAID to several of my older motherboards.

 

Find the kicker disk which has the Panasonic USB driver.  That driver was the only one which recognized my motherboard USB.   

 

Create your kicker floppy and modify the AUTOEXEC.BAT file with the following LINLD command:

 

     LINLD image=c:BZIMAGE initrd=c:BZROOT "cl=root=/dev/sda1"

 

 

[bobbintb]

i still have not been able to find a viable solution for this. has anyone? i just need a cd that will redirect it to usb.

[WeeboTech]

Another option I used at one point.

 

Get a small compact flash, an IDE to CF adapter, format it with FAT, SYSLINUX it, load unraid onto it.

You can also use a very small hard drive.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/IDE-to-Compact-Flash-CF-Adapter-w-PCI-Bracket-A2_W0QQitemZ370046106200QQihZ024QQcategoryZ101282QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247

 

Unfortunately you still need a USB key for unraid to license itself for more then 3 drives.

 

On the plus side you can use one to backup the data onto other. (just cannot boot from the other unless you upgrade).

 

[musicmann]

I tried to put together a development system on the cheap and ended up with a board that can't boot from USB.  I managed to make an unRAID boot CD.  I'm away from home, so it'll be this weekend before I can give the exact details, but here is the jist.

 

I did this under a linux distro, so someone else might know how to do it under windows.  Also, prepare a USB stick just like you would for normal unRAID.  The software on CD will still mount it (if it is labeled correctly) to the proper place and save configuration files correcly.

 

• (Under a linux install) Create a directory for the CD image you are building
  
• Copy isolinux.bin to that directory (isolinux is the CD equivalent of syslinux; it was installed on my distro as a part of syslinux and it was under one of the usr/lib directories)
  
• Download the latest unRAID zip to the same directory and unzip it there
  
• Rename the syslinux.cfg file to isolinux.cfg (I didn't have to make any other changes; bzroot and bzimage need to be at this same level, or you'll have to change the config file
  
• Create the iso.  I think the command was mkisofs or something like that.  Google isolinux and you should find links to the iso building command.  I'll also post the exact command this weekend (If I remember)
  

[bobbintb]

this is just what i was looking for:

 

http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanagerdl.html

[musicmann]

USB boot without BIOS support (UHCI, OHCI and EHCI)

 

bobbintb, that DOES sound like the perfect solution.  Far better than my CD method because you don't have to create a new CD each time there is a new unRAID version.

[daquint]

I tried following the plop directions, but i think i am missing something.

 

does anyone have any step by steps on how to boot from CDROM and make a USB bootable with UNRAID?

 

thanks

mark

[kansei]

 

EDIT: I switched to LINLD 0.97 and was able to boot UNRAID to several of my older motherboards.

 

Find the kicker disk which has the Panasonic USB driver. That driver was the only one which recognized my motherboard USB.

 

Create your kicker floppy and modify the AUTOEXEC.BAT file with the following LINLD command:

 

LINLD image=c:BZIMAGE initrd=c:BZROOT "cl=root=/dev/sda1"

 

 

 

This worked for me, I had to format the flash drive as FAT (instead of FAT32) in order to boot into it (all other instructions for making a flash UNRAID disk remain the same). I got the kicker floppy images from here: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/lou.greyfaulk/ and only had to modify autoexec.bat.

 

I'm not sure which floppy image I used, there are 3 and each has different USB drivers. As you're booting from the floppy it will tell you it discovered your memory stick (if you're using the correct floppy image). If it doesn't, try a different floppy image.

 

The USB boot is a bit slower than I anticipated.

 

____________________

 

Edit:  back to the drawing board.  While it boots from the flash drive it can't find the UNRAID volume.

 

[WeeboTech]

Edit:  back to the drawing board.  While it boots from the flash drive it can't find the UNRAID volume.

 

Make sure you have a capital UNRAID on the label of the flash drive.

That's all that is needed.

[kansei]

It was labeled UNRAID when I tried it first (and it didn't work). I re-labeled it UNRAID and it works now.

 

Before this I set up an old HD to boot with UNRAID. I was getting ready to buy a new motherboard and getting pretty frustrated with the whole thing.  It took me several hours to get the booting part straightened out, I tried all kinds of motherboard settings and kicker CDs, floppies, etc.

[loomdog32]

I came across an old ZIP 250 IDE drive and was wondering if using a ZIP 250 disk instead of an USB drive for unRaid??

 

I guess that would leave 2 queations...

1 - will unRaid boot from a ZIP 250

2 - would you be able to register the ZIP disk instead of an USB drive

[WeeboTech]

 

> 1 - will unRaid boot from a ZIP 250

Quite possible, It's syslinux that needs to boot from the zip drive.

Once the kernel and initrd are loaded the drive doesn't come into effect until later.

I've been able to boot from an IDE adapter for compact flash and also a partition on a regular hard drive.

 

> 2 - would you be able to register the ZIP disk instead of an USB drive

Probably not likely in it's current incarnation. (unless you can find a GUID for it. which I'm not sure IDE drives have).

 

It's possible to boot from the zip drive and still have a USB key in the machine, thereby registering that USB key.

You would need to duplicate the files and directories from the zip drive onto the USB key.

[RobJ]

I could be very wrong, but I don't recall ever hearing of Zip drives as being bootable.  Generally, you have to boot another OS, then load ASPI drivers and the Zip driver (Guest or another Iomega driver), before you can access the Zip drive.  That is how it works in DOS and Windows, and I assume there must be a Linux Iomega Zip driver.

 

Which makes a Zip drive pretty unusable here...

[loomdog32]

ZIP are defiently bootable (used to have a Zip 100 in my old 486 when I was in school - worked very nicely for a bootable live os - how i learned linux back in the day)... I just havent played with one in a very long time.. I came across a ZIP 250 drive (in a Dell GX280 im actually tring to sell rite now, yah I know, good luck) and thought it might be a viable alt to using usb drives..

 

so, if to boot, all thats required is syslinux support, then it passes #1, no problem.... then I guess I need to plug in the drive and check on the GUID..

 

[WeeboTech]

You can also boot from a CDROM.

[Mopar_Mudder]

I also am trying to boot from a Asus P4T533-C mother board that won't boot from USB, so I want to do it from a floppy.

 

I down loaded the Floppy Kickers here http://homepage.ntlworld.com/lou.greyfaulk/

 

The Panosonic Version seems to doad the USB drivers correctly. It goes through Initializing host and scanning usb devices.

 

Then I get the following message:

LINLD v0.97

Kernel command line:

root = /dev/ram0 rw

Can't open kernel file

 

The USB drive it plugged in and created correctly acording to the UnRaid instructions

 

I am guessing this has something to do with editing the autoexec.bat file, but I have to admit that I am stupid when it comes to that. Any Help would be apreciated.

When it comes up with the command prompt should I beable to get into my flash drive and see it's contents? No drive letters work other then the A:

 

 

 

[WeeboTech]

I was never able to get loadlin to work with unRAID.

The furthest I got was loading the kernel up with all the periods, then the system hung.

I question if loadlin can handle the large initramfs/rootfs. I think it was designed to use initrd instead.

 

I was working on a boot floppy with GRUB and GRUB4DOS. It still required the OS to be loaded onto the hard drive (or CD ROM).

I might suggest creating a bootable CD just to get the OS up and running.

If your flash is prepared correctly, it should be seen and mounted.

If it is seen and mounted, then you can work with unRAID prepare your disks, rsync the /boot partition to /mnt/disk1/boot and use a floppy thereafter to boot up. (or just stay with the CD).

 

I've been working on a way to use the cache drive for a boot methodology and slackware development system.. But have been sidetracked lately.

 

 

To be totally comprehensive.. What is the command line you are using with loadlin?

It does require a parameter to specify the initial root ram disk. 

I think the parm is

initrd=bzroot

[Mopar_Mudder]

Well I will try to answer, Linux and command codes not my thing. I am guessing you are talking about the command line in the autoexec.bat file.

 

this is the line in the file as it was downloaded

A:\LINLD.COM image=C:\NASLITE.01 initrd=C:\NASLITE.02 cl=@A:\NASLITE.CL

 

I replaced it with this line as posted earlier

LINLD image=C:BZIMAGE initrd=C:BZROOT "cl=root=/dev/sda1"

 

Both have the same results. Cant load Kernel

 

I can switch to C: drive but it shows nothing in it, is this my Flash drive?

 

Thanks for he help

[WeeboTech]

remove "cl=root=/dev/sda1"

I do not believe it is needed.

 

The flash drive should have bzimage & bzroot on it.

Did you prepare the flash per instructions on a windows machine?

it's possible the flash could have shown up as a different drive?

Check all drives.

[Mopar_Mudder]

I tried the three different following commands, no dice....

 

LINLD image=C:bzimage initrd=C:bzroot

LINLD image=C:BZIMAGE initrd=C:BZROOT

LINLD image=C:\bzimage initrd=C:\bzroot

 

The flash was made on a windows machine per the instruction page. bzimage & bzroot are on it when I view it in window.

 

I check all drive letters

A: is floppy of course

B: shows same content as A

C: does lock in by shows no files found

D-Z: Invalid

 

 

 

[WeeboTech]

if you cannot see the bzimage & bzroot files from dos via dir, then chances are ldln will not see them either.

I'm a bit baffled by this one. Perhaps someone else has another idea.

There's no guarantee that ldln will work even if it can see the files. As I mentioned, it did not work for me.

It got as far as reading the whole bzroot then hung.

[PhilH]

When I first started playing around with unRAID I tested it out on a PIII with a kicker disk. I got the same error you did about the kernel.

 

I formated the flash drive with the hptool & all was well. Maybe that will help you.

 

It's been awhile so I may be remembering wrong.