pcmcia usb pccard

Started by Elmar, July 07, 2010, 15:47:15 PM

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Elmar

there are news for you about pcmcia :)
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmngrusblog.html

regards
elmar

Jarod

Hello Elmar!
It's very good news. I'll be waiting for a new version.
BTW, on integrated USB 1.1 Plop 5.0.6 (that's version I use) and v.5.0.11-test3 too working pretty good! 

Elmar

hi,
the pcmcia test version is available for download.
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanagerdl.html

regards
elmar

Jarod

No, the test version hangs up on record
"Loading EHCI driver
Searching on hosts
Host 1" (Blue graphic window)
With booting 1 flash-drive (Transcend 2 Gb)
And with another flash-drive (Transcend 16 GB)
Plop passes graphics mode, and even reports capasity of flash-drive.
But hangs up on black screen, where written:
FAT12 BPB found with 0xEB (jmp) leading the boot sector.

probed C/H/S = 80/2/18, probed total sectors = 28800
...................................

Both flash-drives working properly on integrated USB.

P.S. When I plug PCCARD in another slot  can not find it at all.

I hope this information will be useful for you.
Regards :)

Elmar

thanks for the infos, what kind of laptop is it?

Elmar

the pcmcia-test2 is available for download
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanagerdl.html

regards
elmar

walterav

#6
Quote from: Elmar on July 23, 2010, 23:53:35 PM
the pcmcia-test2 is available for download
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanagerdl.html

regards
elmar

The bootloader is not able to boot from usb from the PCMCIA on these two very old laptops. It does detect a PCMCIA usb expension card either in slot1 / slot2 on both machines, but they both give a error that it doesn't find any suitable devices on the card to boot "the usual red letter warning".

Travelmate7100TE "you know :p"
cardbus=Cirrus Logic PD 6832 rev c1

Fujitsu Siemens C6175 "you also know :p"
cardbus=TI pci 142000:04.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1420 PC card Cardbus Controller
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Limited. Device 1095
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 11
        Memory at 18100000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=05, sec-latency=176
        Memory window 0: 08000000-0bfff000 (prefetchable)
        Memory window 1: 0c000000-0ffff000
        I/O window 0: 00001800-000018ff
        I/O window 1: 00001c00-00001cff
        16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001
        Kernel driver in use: yenta_cardbus
        Kernel modules: yenta_socket

00:04.1 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments PCI1420 PC card Cardbus Controller
        Subsystem: Fujitsu Limited. Device 1095
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 168, IRQ 11
        Memory at 18101000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Bus: primary=00, secondary=06, subordinate=09, sec-latency=176
        Memory window 0: 10000000-13fff000 (prefetchable)
        Memory window 1: 14000000-17fff000
        I/O window 0: 00003000-000030ff
        I/O window 1: 00003400-000034ff
        16-bit legacy interface ports at 0001
        Kernel driver in use: yenta_cardbus
        Kernel modules: yenta_socket

Cardbus brand "sweex" it has a NEC usb2.0 chipset.
06:00.0 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43) (prog-if 10)
        Subsystem: DTK Computer Device 0105
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
        Memory at 14000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd

06:00.1 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB (rev 43) (prog-if 10)
        Subsystem: DTK Computer Device 0105
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 11
        Memory at 14001000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: ohci_hcd

06:00.2 USB Controller: NEC Corporation USB 2.0 (rev 04) (prog-if 20)
        Subsystem: DTK Computer Device 0205
        Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 68, IRQ 11
        Memory at 14002000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
        Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2
        Kernel driver in use: ehci_hcd



Elmar

#7
which pcmcia pccard is it?
does it say usb 3x initialized at startup?
does it show host 1 below the ehci message in the boot manager window?

walterav

#8
Quote from: Elmar on July 24, 2010, 15:20:40 PM
which pcmcia pccard is it?
does it say usb 3x initialized at startup?
does it show host 1 below the ehci message in the boot manager window?

I updated the earlier post.

USB 3x? I will have another look.
EHCI
UHCI
OHCI

"BOOT ERROR, NO BOOT DEVICE FOUND PLEASE TRY AGAIN"

Elmar

#9
hold the ctrl key at startup. do you see the message "usb controller initialized" and how often do you see it?

at usb boot:
in the boot manager window, what do you see between ehci and uhci?

walterav

Quote from: Elmar on July 24, 2010, 16:09:07 PM
hold the ctrl key at startup. do you see the message "usb controller initialized" and how often do you see it?

at usb boot:
in the boot manager window, what do you see between ehci and uhci?

Travelmate 7100TE:
"PC card found, searching for USB controllers
cardbus bridge end
pcmcia end"

Fujitsu siemens:
"PC card found, searching for USB controllers
USB controller initialized
USB controller initialized
USB controller initialized
cardbus bridge end
pcmcia end"

The Fujitsu siemens does more than the Travelmate...

Elmar

@walterav: please try this version
http://download.plop.at/tmp/plpbtwav.bin

i don't think that it really change something, but try it.

walterav

Quote from: Elmar on July 24, 2010, 21:33:16 PM
@walterav: please try this version
http://download.plop.at/tmp/plpbtwav.bin

i don't think that it really change something, but try it.

This version will not find a PC CARD at all when I press CTRL during boot of bootmanager.

fcassia

Quote from: Elmar on July 07, 2010, 15:47:15 PM
there are news for you about pcmcia :)
http://www.plop.at/en/bootmngrusblog.html

regards
elmar

Hi Elmar,

This is very good news.Just to be sure I understand, you mean on old computers without USB, inserting a cardbus card with usb controller (typical models are 32-bit cardbus providing two usb 2.0 ports) and use those ports for booting?.

If so, I think you should label this option "pcmcia-usb" booting not just "pcmcia".

Because there are other types of cards... stright 16-bit PCMCIA TO IDE cards.

I have two of those cards, very cheap and all from China.

These are 16-bit PCMCIA cards, not cardbus.
As you know pcmcia is ISA with a different form factor.

http://www.darkwire.com.au/html/pcmcia_to_44_pin_ide_adapter.html

I opened one of the two I have and was surprised to find it almost empty, just straight traces from the pcmcia slot to the ide port. A few of the lines are connected to a SINGLE big surface mount chip, one second smaller IC, and a lot of surface mount resistors, with no other component whatsoever.

The main chip is a W29EE512T-70, which according to this datasheet is a flash memory

http://www.chipdocs.com/datasheets/datasheet-pdf/Winbond-Electronics/W29EE512P-12.html

the smaller one is a Philips 74HC02D (Quad 2-input NOR gate)
http://www.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheets_pdf/7/4/H/C/74HC02D.shtml

So basically these kind of cards seem to be an "ISA IDE controller" turned 16-bit PCMCIA. When one plugs it into Windows XP, it automagically detects as "secondary IDE interface", and whatever you plug into it (CD, or IDE disk) just works. But of course, you cannot boot.

Any chances of getting these cards supported (basically a secondary IDE port as ISA) supported?. It´d be akin to an old PCI/ISA PC motherboard of the Pentium era, with the addition of a secondary ISA IDE controller (from the software point of view).

I hope you get what I mean...

FC
PS: Smart Boot Manager promised to support CD-ROM booting from these kind of PCMCIA interfaces, but that option is not even documented (the program is open source, but the author disappeared from the face of the Earth about 9 years ago).

http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/about.html

Elmar

hi,

Quote from: fcassia on July 27, 2010, 07:29:01 AM
This is very good news.Just to be sure I understand, you mean on old computers without USB, inserting a cardbus card with usb controller (typical models are 32-bit cardbus providing two usb 2.0 ports) and use those ports for booting?.

yes, i mean booting from usb pccards.

Quote from: fcassia on July 27, 2010, 07:29:01 AM
If so, I think you should label this option "pcmcia-usb" booting not just "pcmcia".

in every further text i speak from usb pccards. but you are right, i changed the title of the topic

Quote from: fcassia on July 27, 2010, 07:29:01 AM
Because there are other types of cards... stright 16-bit PCMCIA TO IDE cards.

I have two of those cards, very cheap and all from China.

These are 16-bit PCMCIA cards, not cardbus.
As you know pcmcia is ISA with a different form factor.

http://www.darkwire.com.au/html/pcmcia_to_44_pin_ide_adapter.html

I opened one of the two I have and was surprised to find it almost empty, just straight traces from the pcmcia slot to the ide port. A few of the lines are connected to a SINGLE big surface mount chip, one second smaller IC, and a lot of surface mount resistors, with no other component whatsoever.

The main chip is a W29EE512T-70, which according to this datasheet is a flash memory

http://www.chipdocs.com/datasheets/datasheet-pdf/Winbond-Electronics/W29EE512P-12.html

the smaller one is a Philips 74HC02D (Quad 2-input NOR gate)
http://www.datasheetcatalog.com/datasheets_pdf/7/4/H/C/74HC02D.shtml

So basically these kind of cards seem to be an "ISA IDE controller" turned 16-bit PCMCIA. When one plugs it into Windows XP, it automagically detects as "secondary IDE interface", and whatever you plug into it (CD, or IDE disk) just works. But of course, you cannot boot.

Any chances of getting these cards supported (basically a secondary IDE port as ISA) supported?. It´d be akin to an old PCI/ISA PC motherboard of the Pentium era, with the addition of a secondary ISA IDE controller (from the software point of view).

I hope you get what I mean...

i know what you mean. basically, it should not be a big problem to enable the pccard that any other program can access the secondary ide port with direct port access. to make it bootable its required to write a small driver that hooks the int13h and provides all necessary functions for reading and a few more when you want that the secondary ide controller can be used under dos. i am sorry, but i don't think that it makes much sense to spend time to this very special case.


Quote from: fcassia on July 27, 2010, 07:29:01 AM
PS: Smart Boot Manager promised to support CD-ROM booting from these kind of PCMCIA interfaces, but that option is not even documented (the program is open source, but the author disappeared from the face of the Earth about 9 years ago).

http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/about.html

i didn't know that (pcmcia and disappearing)

best regards
elmar

forest

Many thanks Elmar for this great software! I works very well with my Dell C400, both the stable version and PCMCIA one.  :)

The PCMCIA allows me to install win XP without the need for an external CDrom. and it copied files much much faster than the suing the integrated USB 1.1 port. 

I have also successfully boot XP-PE from USB (so that I can run DriveimageXML from it to back up the system). Using the PCMCIA also helps it boot XP-PE much faster than the integrated usb 1.1.

Keep up this great work!

Best regards,

Forest

Elmar

@forest: thanks for the info

best regards
elmar

vesalocal

Quote from: Elmar on July 27, 2010, 10:54:27 AM
i know what you mean. basically, it should not be a big problem to enable the pccard that any other program can access the secondary ide port with direct port access. to make it bootable its required to write a small driver that hooks the int13h and provides all necessary functions for reading and a few more when you want that the secondary ide controller can be used under dos. i am sorry, but i don't think that it makes much sense to spend time to this very special case.

Elmar,

please think of an old vesa local board with no USB at all.
Simply insert an PCMCIA to ISA adapter (lots of them out there) and you have two 16bit card slots.

Unfortunately there is no 16bit pcmcia to USB card, so booting from USB via PCMCIA is not an option.
I only found PCcard to USB cards...

However, the mentioned pcmcia flash cards (or CF-cards with adapter) would be a solution - if they
only were recognized by your great bootmanager!

Please think about it again!

Best wishes
Andreas

fcassia

Quote from: vesalocal on July 27, 2010, 22:32:46 PM
Quote from: Elmar on July 27, 2010, 10:54:27 AM
i know what you mean. basically, it should not be a big problem to enable the pccard that any other program can access the secondary ide port with direct port access. to make it bootable its required to write a small driver that hooks the int13h and provides all necessary functions for reading and a few more when you want that the secondary ide controller can be used under dos. i am sorry, but i don't think that it makes much sense to spend time to this very special case.

Elmar,

please think of an old vesa local board with no USB at all.
Simply insert an PCMCIA to ISA adapter (lots of them out there) and you have two 16bit card slots.

Unfortunately there is no 16bit pcmcia to USB card, so booting from USB via PCMCIA is not an option.
I only found PCcard to USB cards...

However, the mentioned pcmcia flash cards (or CF-cards with adapter) would be a solution - if they
only were recognized by your great bootmanager!

Please think about it again!

Best wishes
Andreas

Andreas,

I think that you´re correct. The current "cardbus USB" adapters and Plop upporting code helps only one kind of machines, those with 32-bit cardbus ports.

But machines with 16-bit pcmcia only cannot run any cardbus USB adapter (all there are are 32-bit, not 16-bit, plus ISA/16bit pcmcia would not have enough bandwidth to run USB 2.0 ports over it.

However, machines with 16-bit PCMCIA (My Pentium MMX powered IBM Thinkpad 380ed running Win98SE just fine) do have access to EXTERNAL CD ROMs. These exernal pcmcia cd-roms can be found everywhere (just do an ebay search for "pcmcia cdrom",and you´ll see). But the problem is that more often than not, these cd-roms are not bootable.

The first thing that breaks on a laptop is more often than not the optical reader. So even if your old laptop cdrom dies and you buy a secondary, external pcmcia cd-rom you cannot boot from it.

Plop bootmanager could change that...

Question to Elmar:

maybe myint13h.asm and hd_io.asm from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/btmgr/files/btmgr/3.7-1/btmgr-3.7-1.tar.gz/download

... could be of help to implement secondary ide port over 16-bit pcmcia?

Best regards,
FC

Elmar

#19
Quote from: fcassia on July 28, 2010, 00:44:20 AM
Question to Elmar:

maybe myint13h.asm and hd_io.asm from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/btmgr/files/btmgr/3.7-1/btmgr-3.7-1.tar.gz/download

... could be of help to implement secondary ide port over 16-bit pcmcia?


fcassia, i will not and do not plan to implement any source code from others. my personal ide cdrom driver (implemented in the plop boot manager) works great since over 10 years. the great thing with pcmcia is, that it only has to be enabled, and then you are able to access the additional hardware in the same way like pci connected hardware. so basically, i only need to enable the 16bit pcmcia card and then my already developed ide cdrom driver should work without any modifications.

but you must not think that ide cdroms and ide hard disks are working in the same way. if you connect a cf card or any hard disk to the pcmcia port, then its required to write a hard disk driver. because the layout of hard disks and cdroms are different. for example the block size of a hard disk is 512bytes, cdrom block size is 2048bytes. the boot sectors are different, ....

however, before i make a development release for cdrom over pcmcia, i need some cheap test hardware. i did developing over network too often, its too time expensive. i will take a look to ebay. but i promise nothing. you can post a link to a hardware, that i know what i am looking for

best regards
elmar

WinstonRumfoord

Not able to boot from a USB stick in a pcmcia card with my Sony Vaio PCG-GRX616MP laptop.

If I hold down the CTRL key when running plpbt.iso (plpbt-5.0.11-pcmcia-test2) from CDROM I get output twice:-

"found PCI to CardBus Bridge
searching pccard...
no pccard found
CardBus Bridge end"

I guess it is not detecting the Sitecom wireless card and the Belkin USB card in the VAIO's two slots.

The USB stick is a Transcend 2GB.
PLOP on CD does boot from the stick when using the VAIO's own USB ports, but they are USB 1.1.

It is possible that as a newbie I have got the wrong end of the stick, or is there a way forward?

Elmar

hi,
Quote from: WinstonRumfoord on August 12, 2010, 14:09:59 PM
Not able to boot from a USB stick in a pcmcia card with my Sony Vaio PCG-GRX616MP laptop.

please try to put in only the usb pccard in slot 1. whats happening?

regards
elmar

WinstonRumfoord

Thank you Elmar for your prompt response.

When the Belkin pcmcia USB hub is in slot 1, and nothing in slot 2, the message is the same.

Elmar

are you able to run dos or linux?

for dos use http://members.net-tech.com.au/dft0802/downloads.htm and download pci.zip.
run pci.exe >output.txt
do it one time without plop and one time with plop started
post both output.txt as attachment (with 1 and 2 in the name)

when you run linux the use "lspci > output.txt" i need to know what pcmcia controller you have

regards
elmar

WinstonRumfoord

Hi again Elmar,
it's eighteen years since I've booted into DOS so I hope pci32 gives the information you need. (pci32 is pci.exe ported into the Windows console window.)

output1_pci32_grub2_XP.txt is the output from pci32 with WindowsXP booted via grub2.
output2_pci32_plop_XP.txt is the same booted via Plop 5.0.11.

I think they are the same.

report_lspci_grub2_ubuntu.txt is the output from lspci with Ubuntu booted via grub2.

In all cases the Belkin USB and Sitecom wireless cards were fitted.

Elmar

the problem with windows (and linux) is that it initializes the pcmcia controller. and i need the uninitialized state info.

maybe you can boot from a dos cd and tell me the infos of the "pccard" sections. or make a digital photo. if its not possible, then i have to add some debug infos to the pcmcia boot manager

about linux i forgot "lspci -v >output.txt"

WinstonRumfoord

Hi Elmar,

It took some time to work out a way.
( 1.On an external USB floppy, XP My Computer > A:floppy > context - Format >Create an MS-DOS startup disk.
2. Add PCI program to floppy,
3. Boot direct from floppy {didn't know the PC would boot from USB floppy}
4. run PCI, photo screen. )

I have all of the pci.exe output on photo. I hope I have selected what you want, see file:- PCI_screenshot_0593.gif

I also tried booting from the floppy via Plop but it did not boot up (both Floppy and USB selections).

The verbose Linux output is report2_lspciv.txt

I also ran pci.exe from the Universal Boot CD (UBCD), it was 100 times faster than the floppy, but I do not know if it is the environment you need.

Regards, WinstonRumfoord

Elmar

thanks, can you make a photo from the first screen too? but pci > pci.txt should work too

regards
elmar

WinstonRumfoord

First screen:- PCI_screenshot_5068.gif

WinstonRumfoord

P.S. Prefetchable memory range passed to secondary bus : F0000000h to F7FFFFFFh

Elmar

hi,
please try this customized test version http://download.plop.at/tmp/plpbtwinston.bin

regards
elmar

WinstonRumfoord

Hi Elmar,

It has moved forward a stage.
Running plpbtwinston.bin from GRUB2. The two pcmcia cards are detected, but unfortunately not that one is a USB hub.
So output twice " ...pccard found, searching for usb controllers..."

Regards, WinstonRumfoord

Elmar

ok, try this http://download.plop.at/tmp/plpbtwinston2.bin
but only with the usb card inserted. you should see now additional chars in the sequence "a-d". what do you see?

elmar

WinstonRumfoord

With the Sitecom wireless card removed, and the Belkin USB card fitted, I get the same message twice:-
"abcdCardBus Bridge end"

Elmar

whats the exact name of you belkin card?

WinstonRumfoord

The card is a Belkin USB 2.0 Notebook Card F5U222v1

WinstonRumfoord

Hi Elmar,

I don't know if this verbose output from lsusb (usboutput.txt) is any help.
The VAIO has three USB 1.1 ports, one is fitted with a Logitech wireless mouse.
A 2GB Transcend stick is fitted into one of the ports of the Belkin USB 2.0 card.
(For simplicity I removed the USB connection from the other port of the Belkin card to an external USB hub).

Regards,  Winston Rumfoord

Elmar

hi winston,
i was busy, i will add the latest changes to a public test version and when it still works on all current machines, then i make the 5.0.11 release. it will still not work on your machine (and i am sure on others too), but i don't think that i can solve it without the hardware. over the web its too time expensive. there are now 2 possible solutions.

1. i find a cheap model of your laptop at ebay
2. you send me your laptop + pccard (internal hard disk is not needed), i fix the bug and send it back to you.

when you can accept the second solution, then we should discuss the via email.

best regards
elmar

WinstonRumfoord

Hi Elmar,
Thanks for your work on this, it must be very frustrating, debugging from a distance.
Unfortunately the VAIO is my main computer. (I think it is still the only laptop with a 1600x1200 screen, but next year I will probably stop upgrading it and get a new computer.)
The Belkin card shouldn't be too eccentric, so hopefully something will occur to you.
In the meantime, thank you again for providing to the community with such a usefull utility - I will keep using it to load Puppy Linux over USB 1.1.
Regards, WinstonRumfoord

Elmar

#39
ok, i hope you still try test releases and report it when it suddenly works

regards
elmar

EDIT: 5.0.11 pcmcia-test3 is available

Toadleyb

I am having the same issue as Winston.  I have a Dell C400 which I notice someone earlier in the thread said was working great for them.  My pcmcia card is a Rosewill RC-600.  I am dual booting Ubuntu 10.04 and Windows XP.  I have setup Plop Boot Manager to boot from Grub2.  It works great with 5.0.10 with my USB 1.1 port on the laptop but when I try pcmcia test3 to boot from the USB pcmcia card all I get is "pccard found searching for usb controllers" and it just sits there.

This is a fantastic piece of software.  I have been messing with it all day.  Great way to boot from USB with an older laptop.  It will be even better when I can boot from USB 2.

Thanks

Elmar

hi,

Quote from: Toadleyb on September 17, 2010, 05:18:41 AM
when I try pcmcia test3 to boot from the USB pcmcia card all I get is "pccard found searching for usb controllers" and it just sits there.

please try this version http://download.plop.at/tmp/plpbttoad.bin
you should see now some additional debug chars. which one do you see?

regards
elmar

Toadleyb

#42
Elmar,

That actually fixed it.  Works perfect now.  Thank you!

Now my next question.  I am trying to use this with a USB drive created using pendrivelinux multi boot iso.  I get to the boot manager screen now and can boot from the usb, but I cannot actually run anything from the usb because whatever I try to run appears to not be mounting the pcmcia card and it errors out. 

Is it possible to use boot manager with the pcmcia card and a flash drive with multi-boot iso?

Todd

Elmar

you said pcmcia test3 did not work, but the plpbttoad worked? strange. what about this http://download.plop.at/tmp/plpbt.bin

Quote from: Toadleyb on September 17, 2010, 15:22:24 PM
Is it possible to use boot manager with the pcmcia card and a flash drive with multi-boot iso?

i depends on the linux. for example, my ploplinux has no problem with that. i am sure, there are other linux distros too that will work. puppy linux should work too.

Toadleyb

That file works as well.  One oddity, I am adding this to grub by editing the /etc/grub.d/40_custom file and then running update-grub.  For some reason with the test3 file and the plpbt.bin that you just posted when I run update-grub it adds an entry to my boot menu for Windows Vista (which I don't have) but when I used the plpbttoad.bin file it did not add this entry.  Actually it removed the entry for Windows Vista that the test3 file had added.

This is the text I added to 40_custom;
# Boot Plop Boot Manager
menuentry "Plop Boot Manager" {
set root='(hd0,1)' #Change to your boot partition
linux16 /boot/plpbt.bin
}


I tried running puppy linux from the multiboot flash drive using this method and it would not work.  The only programs I can run from the flash drive are DOS based, nothing linux will work.

Todd

Elmar

Quote from: Toadleyb on September 17, 2010, 17:32:00 PM
That file works as well.  One oddity, I am adding this to grub by editing the /etc/grub.d/40_custom file and then running update-grub.  For some reason with the test3 file and the plpbt.bin that you just posted when I run update-grub it adds an entry to my boot menu for Windows Vista (which I don't have) but when I used the plpbttoad.bin file it did not add this entry.  Actually it removed the entry for Windows Vista that the test3 file had added.

very strange

Quote from: Toadleyb on September 17, 2010, 17:32:00 PM
I tried running puppy linux from the multiboot flash drive using this method and it would not work.  The only programs I can run from the flash drive are DOS based, nothing linux will work.

have you tried my plop linux?

regards
elmar

Toadleyb

I have not tried plop linux.  I have to head to work now.  I will play some more tonight.  I created my multiboot flash drive using the tool from pendrivelinux.  I cannot run anything linux based even from the laptops usb 1.1.  After reading a lot I believe what I need to do is add Grub to the flash drive somehow.  Any idea how I would go about this?

Thanks again for all the help.  If I figure this out I will definitely post it here for others.

Todd

Elmar

why do you think you need grub? give syslinux a chance. however, it should be an own topic

Toadleyb

Thanks again for all the help Elmar.  I have solved the mystery of why update-grub kept adding Windows Vista to grub2.  I ran update grub with the usb stick in the computer and it was finding a Windows 7 install that I had on the usb stick.  I removed the stick and ran update-grub again and the Windows Vista entry is gone.

I have started a new thread with my other questions.  It is not a grub problem.

Todd

ramonpg

Hello, first of all, sorry for my English.

After searching over the forum, I have found this topic which is exactly what it is happening to me.

My variables are:

* Old LapTop (Asus L3800S)
* Died optical drive
* USB 1.1
* No BIOS USB boot option
* 2x 2.0 USB-PCCard Conceptronic CSP480C2
* USB Stick EMTEC 4Gb with Live Linux
* Can boot with your fantastic software from local USB 1.1 ports
* Can not boot through USB-PCCard

When I hold down the Ctrl key I can see the same as WinstonRumfoord ie:

searching pccard
pccard found, searching for usb controllers...
no USB pccard found

with the plpbttoad.bin I can see:

searching pccard
pccard found, searching for usb controllers...
acdno USB pccard found

... but still don't boot from the USB stick plugged in the USB pccard

I have attached a image file with what it can be seen in the booting window.

I have read about the difficulties of web debugging but if I could do something I'll be granted to.

Thanks in advance for your fantastic SW.