USB Drive Disconnects

Forum: USB booting
Topic: USB Drive Disconnects
started by: jhoff80

Posted by jhoff80 on April 02 2005,09:49

I'm really confused. I ran syslinux (I needed to use a 2.x version, since the 3.0x versions didn't work for me) on my Sandisk Cruzer Mini 128 meg drive. I then copied over all of the files from the DSL-embedded.zip file. DSL boots perfectly from within windows and within a different linux instance using qemu. My problem occurs when I try to boot DSL directly from the drive. The drive is recognized fine, and the boot sequence begins normally, and at one of two places, (either of the two times where the usb interface is scanned for devices) the drive will basically disconnect itself. It will appear to be unplugged and the LED will turn off, even though it is still physically in the port. Has anyone seen this before, and does anyone know of a fix?

Posted by tronik on April 02 2005,12:34

My suggestion to you, is to first try installing DSL to the USB Drive WITHOUT Using the 5way method. If it works then, THEN You can experiment with the 5way method.

Posted by jhoff80 on April 02 2005,20:30

I tried that too, using both the files included in the DSL iso in the boot folder and then changed the isolinux.cfg to syslinux.cfg, and deleted isolinux.bin....

I also tried using the Bootusb.img files in order to boot off the USB drive.

When it seems to happen most often is when the following message comes up.

"USB found, managed by hotplug: (Re-)scanning USB devices...sync:[001 002 003 001" and then the LED on my drive turns off as if it wasn't recognized anymore.

Posted by jhoff80 on April 02 2005,20:56

I'm not sure if this is related or not, but I just tried booting into DSL from the LiveCD, and then plugged in my USB drive after everything finished booting, in order to check the pendrive's geometry like the documentation says to do using sfdisk. (The other linux I've used is Puppy Linux, which apparently doesn't have the sfdisk tool) However, the USB drive wasn't recognized at all. I'm assuming that this has something to do with the problem. I have run Puppy Linux off of this USB drive fine before, so I know its bootable and everything.

Posted by jhoff80 on April 03 2005,02:39

I figured out a solution to my problem. Booting with the "toram" option loads the DSL image into RAM, and then it doesn't matter if the drive disconnects during the boot process.

Posted by michael on April 06 2005,10:31

I had the same problem. Using 'dsl toram' helped in my case too. Thank you :-)

In my case the USB-stick was booting sometimes and sometimes it wasn't. As you told, I could see switching off the LEDs of the USB port short after loading the USB modules into ramdisk. I guess a timing problem of the mainboard or bios.

Posted by michael on April 11 2005,16:34

Finally I found a solution for the disconnect-at-boottime-problem. The script linuxrc (in minirt24.gz) is controlling the boot-process including loading the necessary (usb-)modules. For my hardware (a gigabyte 7vtx- mainboard) I had to remove the module usb-uhci.o. It's not needed to load drivers for both types of usb-controllers (ohci and ehci).

Posted by muellerr1 on April 25 2005,21:25

I was having the same problem. My solution was also to use the 'toram' option, but I think in my case it was related to my usb hub. Disconnecting the power to the hub or using the drive in the other usb port on the motherboard fixed the problem.