Partboot for USB floppy drives

Partboot for USB floppy drives (Partboot-usb)

Last modified: Jan. 26, 05

What's New

Parted updated to 1.6.21.
NTFS Tools and library, which contains ntfsresize, has been updated to ntfsprogs-1.9.4.
Busybox, a set of many common UNIX utilities, has been updated to 1.00.
Some tools from e2fsprogs and lphdisk are included. (Jan. 26, 05)
Parted updated to 1.6.11.
NTFS Tools and library has been updated to ntfsprogs-1.9.2.
Fdisk updated to 2.12a.
Some international keyboard layouts are supported: German, Danish, Spanish, Finnish, French, Italian, Japanese, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, and British. (May 23, 04)
Kernel 2.4.20 has been adopted; bzip2 patch applied with which kernel image and initrd compressed.
Pcmcia cardmgr updated to pcmcia-cs-3.2.4. (Aug. 9, 03)

Preface

GNU parted is the most useful and reliable partitioning tool I've ever used. The only problem I have had is that the Partboot doesn't boot off of USB floppy drives which are common with mobile laptops. So I modified Partboot by adding USB bootability, USB connectivity, and some extra functionalities. You can also customize your disks by reading the README file.

Features

"Partboot for USB" is separated into two floppy disks:

Fundamental command set from Busybox
USB capability of keyboard and storage devices
EXT2, EXT3 and MINIX filesystem
Some international keyboard layouts support
and "fdisk"

PCMCIA storage cards connectivity
MS-DOS, VFAT and NTFS filesystem support
CD-ROM driver and ISO-9660 filesystem driver
Many types of SCSI host adapter drivers (auto detected)
Vi editor
ntfsprogs-1.9.4 to create/resize NTFS volumes
Badblocks, dumpe2fs, tune2fs, and e2label from e2fsprogs
and lphdisk, utility for preparing a hibernation partition

In many cases you may only have to use the Partboot-usb disk alone. Use the Supplement disk when you need to use PCMCIA/SCSI devices, ntfsprogs, and/or other stuff.

List of Modules

This table shows the kernel configuration and module list in the disks.

Downloading

Download partboot-1.6.21-usb-2.4.20.tgz, su to root, and unpack it with:

# tar zxvf partboot-1.6.21-usb-2.4.20.tgz

Then you'll retrieve these files:

README ..................... Readme file
README.jp .................. README in Japanese
partboot-1.6.21-usb.img .... Partboot-usb disk image file
supp.img ................... Supplement disk image file
Changelog .................. Change log
partroot ................... Perl script to extract root filesystem
kmapconv ................... Perl script to convert keymap file
.config .................... Configuration file to build kernel
linux-2.4.20-bzip2.diff .... Kernel patch for bz2bzImage
bdlilo.conf ................ LILO configuration file
pci.tgz .................... Source for "testprobe", a pci bus scanner
parted-docs/ ............... Parted license and manuals
ntfs-docs/ ................. NTFS Tools license and manuals

Prepare two diskettes. Put the first disk in your floppy drive, change directory where image files are placed, and type:

# dd if=partboot-1.6.21-usb.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k

Then change the disks and type:

# dd if=supp.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k

If your floppy drive is a USB model, replace /dev/fd0 with /dev/sda above. Now call them "Partboot-usb disk" and "Supplement disk" respectively.

For Windoze users

Partboot-usb should work properly redardless of the OS which is installed on your hard drive. However, it may not be easy to uncompress the tgz file and create disks if Linux environment is not available. In this case, please read here.

Usage

To use the Partboot-usb disk:

Insert the disk in either conventional or USB floppy drive.
Power on your PC.
When the boot process is complete, a prompt "#" appears. Now it's ready to execute commands. For instance, type:
# parted /dev/hda
You can also connect USB devices. Note that you need to mount/unmount the storage devices manually.
To change keyboard layout from default (us), run:
# kcfg

and select an appropriate keytable.

To use the supplement disk:

After booting the Partboot disk, change the disks and say:
# mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy (in case of conventional floppy drive)
or:
# mount /dev/sda /mnt/floppy (in case of USB floppy drive)
Invoke:

# /mnt/floppy/install
Now it's ready to use PCMCIA and/or SCSI storage devices.

Enjoy!