[Coco] Bootable PCI USB Card? (On-Topic, really!)

[L. Curtis Boyle]

On Thu, 08 Jun 2006 09:46:58 -0600, Roger Merchberger  
<zmerch-coco at 30below.com> wrote:

I know that there is a hardware card that plugs into the IDE cable that  
will allow you to boot from USB cards (either The Register or The Inquirer  
websites just had a review of it). You just plug the hardware into the  
cable (like a normal hard drive or CD/DVD), and the stick into the  
hardware. It translates everything on the hardware, so to the computer  
(and BIOS), it just looks like a normal hard drive, so you can boot with  
it even on really old machines that don't have USB, never mind USB boot  
support in the BIOS.
    An example I found on the web after a quick peek is here:
http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_memory_reader/adidecf.asp
    and they are only about $27.00.

> OK, this is ontopic. Really, it is!
>
> There are a few things that I'm having "issues" with in Win2K and MESS,  
> so I thought "Instead of diddling with floppies & partitions & whatnot,  
> why not set up a bootable USB Key with a dos-only Win98?" so I can run  
> dos apps to tranfer disks & whatnot (and the JV emulator, which I bought  
> many years ago). So I did. I found enough webpages that got me working,  
> and now my 2G Sandisk Cruzer Micro is FAT32 formatted, and will boot  
> from (so far, 3 machines tested) most any machine that can boot from a  
> USB key.
>
> Unforch, the 2 machines I wanted to boot this critter from most, *won't*  
> boot from a USB key. :-((
>
> My lappytop I've pretty much given up hope for - they don't publish BIOS  
> upgrades for it - it's a support issue for them & you have to ship it  
> back to them to update the BIOS. I'd have to boot from CD or floppy with  
> a kernel that knows how to boot the rest of the way from USB, which  
> rather defeats the point; but the internal floppy on the critter is  
> actually USB, so that kinda limited the utility of having a Win98/DOS  
> booter anyway, so not that big of a loss. Tack on no on-board serial or  
> parallel, and that clinches the fact it's pretty much a Winders/Linux  
> box. No biggie, really.
>
> My main desktop machine[1] at home, however, was my main hope, but it  
> doesn't support booting from USB either. It, however, has PCI slots  
> (Lots of 'em!) and I could add (another) USB card to it if necessary,  
> *if* that USB card had a BIOS that told the box how to boot from a USB  
> key plugged into it.
>
> Does anyone know if such a critter (USB PCI card with it's own bootable  
> BIOS) actually exist?
>
> Yes, a lot of wasted electrons for what some might see as a simple  
> point, but better too much info than not enough... ;-)
>
> Thanks!
> Roger "Merch" Merchberger
>
> [1] Tyan 2462 Mobo w/Dual Athlon MP 2600+ CPUs, 6 or 7 PCI slots (most  
> 64-bit) and can take up to 3.5G RAM. Not bad for a 4-year-old system -  
> but the USB spec for booting & whatnot didn't exist (or wasn't  
> solidifed) back when that sucker was built. It was the very first Athlon  
> MP motherboard commercially made; and at almost $500, was destined for  
> serverdom. I had other plans... ;-)
>
> --
> Roger "Merch" Merchberger   | "Bugs of a feather flock together."
> sysadmin, Iceberg Computers |           Russell Nelson
> zmerch at 30below.com          |
>
>



-- 
L. Curtis Boyle