Could someone recommend a simple (non-graphical) distribution that fits on a USB stick, boots without HD access, providing the functions of Super Grub Disk. I find the instructions for creating a Super Grub USB confusing. Even the CD version has cryptic operating instructions. Yes I know there is always Knoppix, but it is graphical (slow loading) and lacks the grub manipulating functions.
Thanks.
You could try PartedMagic. They have a flash key version I believe. It is a GUI but a simple one although you can do about anything in it as far as repair and partitioning that is needed. Here’s where to download it: News
Tom
Thanks for the suggestions. I checked out PartedMagic, but I could not find how to actually boot a drive or partition that had a damaged or missing boot loader. Super Grub Disk identifies any drive and partition that has a kernel on it and can boot it. But it would be handy to also be able to mount a partition using the booted USB stick if no hard drive is bootable. Having a shell with CLI commands available would be nice. So far I have been unable to create two bootable partitions on the same USB stick.
Example. I have a netbook with no access to CD. I boot Super Grub from the USB stick. If it finds a bootable HD I have a solution. If it doesn’t, then I boot (with Super Grub) the CLI Linux on the USB stick and save what data is still intact on the HD.
You can use a LiveCD for this. Let it boot, init 3, login as root. You would have to find out where the “/” partition is. Let’s say /dev/sda1, from here i’ts like this:
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
mount -bind /dev /mnt/dev
chroot /mnt
mount /proc
mount /sys
yast
Configure Bootloader
You cannot make 2 bootable partitions on one stick. But…you can make 3 partitions, one for booting ( use syslinux and edit some files ), 2 for live images.
Unfortunately there is no CD drive available.
I’m not sure I understand this, but it sounds interesting. Do you mean that I can have two Linux live versions that can be started from a single boot partition?
Click. My brain just kicked in. Yes, I can boot from the live USB stick to level 3. Thanks.
Also, with Parted magic you can choose the ‘extras’ option from the boot menu, from there you can boot to super grub disk1 or 2 , memtest86 etc.
Thank you VERY much for pointing that out. It has opened up a new door for me. I used “dd” to copy the iso to a USB stick. I now have the best possible rescue options all on one stick.
Thank you VERY much for pointing that out. It has opened up a new door for me. I used “dd” to copy the iso to a USB stick. I now have the best possible rescue options all on one stick.
PartedMagic is impressive in the collection of software and, how well it has been put together into a bootable OS. GUI, or CLI.
And, nice to see my tip helped.