burned latest version 5.0.6 on cd, hangs then choosing to boot from usb

[sugarfreetomato]

so basically I burned plpbt.iso on cd, rebooted and waited for plop to load before plugging in memory stick with ubuntu 9.10, selected boot from usb, plop showed screen loading ehci or something like that and then it freezed. my memory stick has led that blinks then it is accessed - it didn't do that at all. so I am assuming plop cannot see the memory stick for whatever reason.

can I see a log file or something while attempting to boot from usb? does plop let you rescan usb ports and why would it freeze?

my notebook is manufactured in year 2005 by Mitac, it has Iniside bios that doesn't allow usb boot, but has wake from lan (never tested), usb-zip (don't own such device), cd (works fine) and hard drive boot support (works fine). where isn't much I can configure in bios besides password, boot order, date and numlock.

and by the way - is there any other boot manager I could try that supposedly supports usb boot like Plop does it?

[Elmar]

hi,
what happened when you press "ctrl shift u" in the main menu?

regards
elmar

[sugarfreetomato]

then exactly do I have to press Ctrl Shift U? before choosing usb boot or after?

[Elmar]

this activates the usb boot with special modes

[sugarfreetomato]

It found the memory stick and offered me a choice to press N to continue search or press any other key to boot the device. I pressed L and it successfully started Ubuntu 9.10 from my USB memory stick.

Thank you.

[sugarfreetomato]

small update:

I haven't used PLoP since last year December and now discovered that Ctrl-Shift-U trick doesn't work any more for me. I downloaded version 5.0.8 and got the same result as with 5.0.6:

after pressing Ctrl-Shift-U it finds something and boots it, but after the message (white text on black background) "something .... Linux.... debian.... Boot:" everything stops.

I used UNetbootin to prepare the bootable USB memory stick, I even tested one another with the same result. I also tried a few variations in bios config (Numlock option and boot order) and all four USB slots without any change.

Any suggestion what might have happened?


edit:
using Ubuntu's own USB memory stick creator I get strange black screen with white Ubuntu text and logo in center and "keyboard=human figure" in lower part.

What is that supposed to mean?



2nd edit:
Fedora 12 on USB memory stick with UNetbootin

I get hard freeze if I use U in plop menu after:

Code Select Expand

LOADING EHCI DRIVER
SEARCHING ON HOSTS
HOST 1

Boot stops if I use Ctrl-Shift-U or Shift-U:

Code Select Expand

SYSLINUX 3.63 Debian-2008-07-15 EBIOS Copyright (C) 1994-2008 H.Peter Anvin
boot:
_
The last sign "_" is blinking forever. I can reboot any time using Ctrl-Alt-Delete.


I also let PLoP search for more devices once using Ctrl-Shift-U:

Code Select Expand

LOADING UHCI DRIVER
SEARCHING ON HOSTS
HOST 1
HOST 2
USB 2.0
FLASH DISK
LOADING BOOT SECTOR...
WAITING FOR ANY KEY TO BOOT
N=CONTINUE SEARCH
I press N

Code Select Expand

SEARCHING ON HOSTS
HOST 3
*** BOOT ERROR ***
NO BOOT DEVICE FOUND, PLEASE RETRY IT


I think it could be that I don't have any Windows operating systems installed right now (though I am not certain if there were any then PLoP worked) Can they influence PLoP/BIOS somehow? I also tried plpbtnoemul.iso without any visible change.


3rd edit:
Doing
Ctrl-Shift-U
Then pressing
N
Then pressing
Spacebar
Then pressing again
Ctrl-Shift-U
And this time pressing any other key than N will boot the memory stick successfully.

So basically I have to run Ctrl-Shift-U twice for whatever reason. I also noticed that if I have USB keyboard plugged in then it stops working after the first scan - does that signify something? Anyway the most important is that I got PLoP working again.