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Reactos on USB-Stick

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 10:05 pm
by typofant
Hello

While I'm sure it is possible to boot ReactOS from a USB-Stick, I do not know how to do it. When I format the stick with one of the tools to make it bootable I'll get a DOS-Stick. :(

Copying the image-contents from the live-cd will not help because a usb stick looks like a floppy or a harddisk but not like a CD.

Which would be the files needed on a stick to boot ReactOS from the stick and to show it to others? :D

kind regards
typo

USB memory stick formatted as HDD able to boot?

Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 11:12 pm
by steveh
I most often format my USB stick in HDD style.

I connect it under linux, then create the partition(s) with "fdisk" and format them. First primary partition as FAT32 and set active. If first boot device is set to be the removable device in the BIOS, it should be able to boot?

First install reactos on a virtual HDD in qemu. Then mybe you can boot knoppix in qemu, and copy physical sectors 0 and 14 from the virtual qemu HDD onto the USB?

yes but ...

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 12:57 pm
by typofant
I do not have any problem to install DOS, WIN or a UNIX (a.e. Damn Small Linux) on a USB-stick, but with any of you need a primary loader (Linux people use LILO) and a image to load.

This step is called bootsrtrab, therefore I must know the name of the first image to load into the memory and how to load it.

I'll try the qemu-variant though, thank you!

typo

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 2:45 pm
by hto
I must know the name of the first image to load into the memory and how to load it.
You can use GRUB to load freeldr.sys, the ReactOS bootloader.

thank you

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 3:28 pm
by typofant
Great thank you. I'll report when it works.

kind regards
typo

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 3:42 pm
by shevegen
A fun project would be to have ReactOS dump its current settings + all stuff needed, to put on an USB stick and use that on another machine as a ReactOS LiveSystem :-)

Live system

Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 4:43 pm
by typofant
A life system was, what I wanted to create! though I could play around with ReactOS and find out if I should replace my Winstallation. I tried several linuxes but I like it to develop in VB6 and DarkBasic which both do not work on unix and I'm very bad in programming C on unix systems.

Then there is the issue with the office applications when I write a doc in OpenOffice (the first time I tried it is was named staroffice on unix) I had always to think that I would have to save the papers as MS-doc-files. Which worked for me but it worked not for my family. The kids where missing theire games... In the meantime OpenOffice has become a powerful and convenient software and could be used by everyone (only the MSACCESS peoples got a problem there). While ReactOS keeps the look and feel of Win it is a possibility to avoid the problems with windows (I like the idea). But on Linux most of the games are missing.

Therefore I hope ReactOS will have a bright ans shiny future and lots of applications to run on it and with ReactX. Then it will be a real replacement for win and because it is free a great success.

typo

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 6:43 am
by Mrkaras
just be aware, some previous versions of reactos run (or partialy anyway) a lot more than current, so that will probably come back befour long.

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2007 11:34 am
by typofant
@mrkaras

Which version would you recommend then for a life system to show around?

Sorry, no USB boot yet...

Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 3:42 pm
by Jaix
Well, I'm sorry to say, but it is not possible to boot ReactOS from USB yet, this is because when the freeloader hands over to the kernal reactos needs USB drivers that loads and loads with boot support, this isn't supported yet. But if you chill for a while I'm sure we will, in fact, I am sure we will support installing to USB-stick in the future to be able to bring your OS in your pocket on your journeys.

One thing though that I am playing with in my mind is to let the bios and bootloader load the entire image to a RAM-disk and boot from that, in that way the bootloader doesn't have to hand booting over to a USB supporting kernal (with drivers) but to a kernal that supports booting from RAM-disk. However, I don't think that is supported yet either, even though I havn't investigated it.

Re: Sorry, no USB boot yet...

Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 4:20 pm
by typofant
Jaix wrote:Well, I'm sorry to say, but it is not possible to boot ReactOS from USB yet, this is because when the freeloader hands over to the kernal reactos needs USB drivers that loads and loads with boot support, this isn't supported yet. But if you chill for a while I'm sure we will, in fact, I am sure we will support installing to USB-stick in the future to be able to bring your OS in your pocket on your journeys.

One thing though that I am playing with in my mind is to let the bios and bootloader load the entire image to a RAM-disk and boot from that, in that way the bootloader doesn't have to hand booting over to a USB supporting kernal (with drivers) but to a kernal that supports booting from RAM-disk. However, I don't think that is supported yet either, even though I havn't investigated it.
Thanks Jaix

Chilling is agreat idea, I'll wait with the USB in the meantime I'll work with the quemu variant.

have a nice weekend
typo

Re: Reactos on USB-Stick

Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 10:46 am
by Megachip
Anything new on this?

Re: Reactos on USB-Stick

Posted: Tue May 04, 2010 12:10 pm
by EmuandCo
USB is in the works.

P.S. No Thread necromancy plz. This one was 3 years old.