Booting from the pandora

[bzar]

Reference link


Now that more people have their pandoras, I'd like to revisit this idea. Is it possible (AFAIK should be)? How hard would it be to implement? Any downsides compared to booting from an actual CD/DVD?


I think this would make a wonderful addition to the repertoire of the already oh-so-versatile pandora. I'd love to have a rescue livecd image always handy . USB stick booting is for some reason half-functional on some systems. Works most of the time but nowhere near as reliably as a CD/DVD.

 

[gruso]

This would be super cool. I'd love to keep UBCD on an SD card!

 

[Benoît E. Donnette]

Nothing is impossible, it is just a matter of time and competence.


I have yet to see how a CD/DVD USB drive sees through the USB bus, but it ought to be quite documented. I guess it should behave just as a SCSI drive - if I am correct, mass storage already implements SCSI over USB.


However, this means user interaction is necessary on plug-in. This might be the tricky part. Unless the config is such that you get notification upon activation of a controlling application, and get back to a fallback default when it is not (sau, SD card).


I am eagerly waiting for my Pandora to build up an USB analyzer, but this one thing could become #2 Pandora application

 

[darfgarf]

has anyone tried just using the pandora as an sd card reader, if it uses the regular usb mass storage protocol most things should be able to boot off it

 

[gruso]

@Benoît E. Donnette - I have moved your post here from the other thread. B-Zar linked it for reference, the idea being that we continue the discussion in a new thread, without bumping the old one.

 

[bzar]

^ Thank you

 

[id10t]

has anyone tried just using the pandora as an sd card reader, if it uses the regular usb mass storage protocol most things should be able to boot off it

I have a micro SD card in a usb reader. I run UltimateBootCD4Win from it.


The same SD card mounted in the pandora and exported as a mass storage device


is not detected by the Bios as a bootable device on my laptop, whereas the


usb reader is.


This is only one test on one machine, but past experience showed me that


not every SD reader can be used to boot.


ID

 

[John Bedlam]

Well, we have a USB client port. We have Linux. That in itself should answer the possibility question. :lol:


In fact, there's no technical reason the Pandora couldn't act as virtual CD/DVD-ROM drive, keyboard and mouse at the same time. It's just a whole lot of work that would need to be done. But it would be so worth it if it means never having to scavenge for a keyboard and mouse again.

 

[skelso]

I've just been messing around with "g_file_storage" and I can make an iso on the Pandora visible to my laptop running linux.


My wife's newer Windows 7 laptop can't (won't) recognise it as a CD image.


I know she can boot from usb but it doesn't seem to detect the pandora plugged in when booting.


Don't know if that is of any help to anyone but it kept me busy for a couple of hours!

 

[bzar]

^ It's a start!