Use a Floppy Image to USB Boot; If you have a system that does not support booting from a USB device, but do have a floppy drive, you can try to boot Linux from a USB flash drive using a Grub Boot floppy disk. When using a boot floppy with a Grub boot loader, Grub locates the USB partition and then attempts to boot loading vmlinuz and initrd.gz from the USB device.
NOTE: The following segment no longer serves its original purpose as the version of Bootable Pendrive Linux it referred to is obsolete!
USB Boot Floppy Requirements
- Linux CD/USB or installed OS
- Floppy drive/Floppy disk
- Your Pendrive Linux USB flash drive
How to Use a Floppy Image to USB Boot
To get your USB drive booting from a floppy disk image:
- Insert a blank floppy disk into your floppy drive.
- Open a terminal and type the following to become root user:
sudo su
- Then to get the zipped PDL floppy boot image:
wget https://pendrivelinux.com/downloads/pdlfloppy.img.gz
- Next, to unzip the file and direct copy it to your floppy disk:
gzip -dc pdlfloppy.img.gz | dd of=/dev/fd0
- Now, reboot your PC:
(1.) During system post, use a hotkey to enter your system BIOS.
(2.) Set your Boot Menu to boot from floppy and save your changes (F10).
(3.) Proceed to boot your computer from the floppy disk. - From the floppy booted Grub Menu select one of the following boot options:
Pendrivelinux (hd0,0) if the PC has no other ATA/USB/SCSI drives
Pendrivelinux (hd1,0) if the PC has other ATA/USB/SCSI drives
Troubleshooting Notes: If you still can't boot, try the following:
- press C at the Grub Menu
- Type
find /casper/vmlinuz
and make a note of which drive is displayed - Press Esc and then Press e
- Press e again to edit the
root (hd0,0)
line - Change the line to reflect the drive displayed in step 2
- Press Enter, then Enter again to boot
You should now be using your Floppy Image to USB Boot!