Pandora Act As A Virtual Drive Over Usb

[kloplop321]

Well, I was wondering this the other day, I am sure it is possible, but how easily possible: I do not know. As many know, you can make a lot of linux ISOs or Windows Installation disks work on a boot-able flash drive. Well, how easy would it be to say, select an ISO on the Pandora that is stored on the SD card, and feed that to a computer to boot it up? Now this is without actually modifying or copying to a flash drive, but rather just selecting an ISO from your SD and connecting directly from your pandora to the PC.

Would be interesting since I do a lot of computer repair on site and I wouldn't have to carry around multiple flash drives or disks to do things.

So, how easily could software for this be developed?
(Does this belong in the Dev Section?)

And how many would find this possible feature useful?

 

[GizmoTheGreen]

id sure as hell find this useful, why not even be able to select a hdd image to feed through the usb?

boot a live linux os from the panda to a hdd less comp, awesomeness

 

[-Tj-]

If it's possible (and it sounds like something like this is possible), I'd certainly find this useful as well. I wouldn't have to take a spare HDD with me, and wouldn't need to worry if my friend or family member has an SD card slot to transfer files.

 

[aq21]

g_file_storage module that is used for emulating a mass storage device gets as an input the file that should be presented to the host, so it should be easy to implement (only a front end needed for selecting file and doing rmmod/insmod with correct parameters). If you also add the cdrom=1 option, it will emulate a CDROM, instead of a hard disk.

 

[Pleng]

Not sure about selecting an ISO, but as it acts as a mass storage device you could certainly keep a bootable SD card in one of your slots, connect Pandora to computer via USB and and boot from that.

 

[lulzfish]

So it would be possible to put a CD ISO on an SD card, then have the Pandora emulate a CD drive, and boot from it?

Edit: Boot a separate computer from the Pandora, obviously... Not the Pandora.

That's awesome... If only I had it right now, I need to install Arch Linux but I'm too lazy to burn a CD or screw around with my USB drive, and trying to hard disk install is a pain.

 

[dflemstr]

That's awesome... If only I had it right now, I need to install Arch Linux but I'm too lazy to burn a CD or screw around with my USB drive, and trying to hard disk install is a pain.

Dude, there are specialized USB images for Arch. You just have to download the .img file and do a "dd imagefile.img /dev/sdd" where sdd is your USB drive. It can't become any easier, and no screwing necessary

Anyways, will Pandora's USB link really be configurable in such a way that an SD card can be accessed like a normal USB drive through the link? I find that very improbable. With an actual translation driver (g_file_storage) and an ISO file, well that sounds more probable in my ears.

 

[Phawx]

I never thought about the Pandora acting as a Virtual disk. That would be a fantastic application to have and use.

 

[Kimundi]

And now extend that Idea to an virtual USB-Hub connected to an Virtual USB Keyboard (Pandora Keyboard), an Virtual USB Mouse (Analognubs or Touchscreen), an Virtual USB CD/DVD-Drive and an Virtual USB Hardrive.

You would have an Emergency Hardware/Software Solution for any MB that supports USB Boot and/or USB HIDs.

 

[darionapole]

i'm not sure if that virtual keyboard and mouse would work (you would have to code a lot and make a module to capture the keyboard and touch screen input) but the virtual drive idea is awesome ^_^
+1

PS: not that i would do it but if the pandora could work as a virtual drive you wouldn't need Daemon Tools to mount a ISO and play a pirated game. Plus, there wouldn't be problems with secuROM or those detecting daemon tools and refusing to run......
Many notebook users use usb cd-drives, i don't think they would stop it from running, if the drive is detected to be USB (as they did with iSCSI (virtual) drives)

 

[Titcher]

This is a VERY cool idea. I'd definitely use something like this if it was easily available. It'd have to use the USB 2.0 port for the extra speed though, although not all BIOS' will use USB 2.0 when booting off of USB. The keyboard and mouse idea is also a very cool idea, would be very handy for on-site diagnosis and repairs. I'd probably donate to a developer if they got something like this going nicely.

 

[kloplop321]

Well, my desire isn't really to emulate a drive for ISOs for like playing Pirated or Dumped games. My desire is to be able to use an ISO for booting an x86/64 computer from the Pandora acting as a bootable USB drive, or a CD/DVD drive(either is fine, I don't have a need to write back to the Pandora really).

My idea is to have a "keychain" of ISOs I can select from to use the correct tools.
Like a Vista Recovery Disk for fixing the boot files; or Avira Anti-virus boot for checking the hard drive for viruses, even rootkits; Ubuntu, Gentoo, Open Suse, Fedora, what ever for various reasons.
I know you can mount an ISO as a folder in the terminal, so it should be possible to do this over the USB as a device.

Not sure about selecting an ISO, but as it acts as a mass storage device you could certainly keep a bootable SD card in one of your slots, connect Pandora to computer via USB and and boot from that.

I don't want that. I would need to wait for things to copy over, format, etc. for things to get prepared. I want it so it is less than 4 steps to get this running.
Select ISO on Pandora-->Connect through USB to computer-->Push power button on computer

That simple, no hassles.

That's awesome... If only I had it right now, I need to install Arch Linux but I'm too lazy to burn a CD or screw around with my USB drive, and trying to hard disk install is a pain.

Dude, there are specialized USB images for Arch. You just have to download the .img file and do a "dd imagefile.img /dev/sdd" where sdd is your USB drive. It can't become any easier, and no screwing necessary

Anyways, will Pandora's USB link really be configurable in such a way that an SD card can be accessed like a normal USB drive through the link? I find that very improbable. With an actual translation driver (g_file_storage) and an ISO file, well that sounds more probable in my ears.

you don't have the dd syntax right, you are forgetting if=imagefile.img of=/dev/sdd
"if" being input file, and "of" being the output file, but I don't think it works that way, I know it works from dev to file, but not the other way around(I used it today)

But the problem is for that, Okay I got /dev/ssd, but that doesn't mean I have it set up to act as the USB device once the pandora is connected, how would one go about doing that?


Looks like quite a few people like my idea

 

[WizardStan]

It'd have to use the USB 2.0 port for the extra speed though

Which one? They're both USB2.0
It should use the OTG port though.

 

[WizardStan]

I know it works from dev to file, but not the other way around(I used it today)

Did you do it as root? "sudo dd if=file of=/dev/sdX" is a common backup/restore strategy (specifically the restore)

 

[dflemstr]

Sorry for the faulty dd syntax, I should really know better. For some reason, I confused it with cp, even though I use dd at least 10 times a day...

EDIT: and yes, it does work like that, I know because I've used it often enough to install Arch or Haiku or other OS's that provide raw image files beside LiveCDs

 

[Titcher]

Which one? They're both USB2.0
It should use the OTG port though.

Ah yeah my bad, I realise now that the port I thought was 1.1, is 2.0 limited to 100mAh power usage.

 

[Phawx]

@keaft

Minus the KVM stuff. The original idea would be to connect a pc to your Pandora. Have the Pandora load an .iso and have the PC *think* the Pandora is an optical drive with whatever disc you loaded. Like a previous poster said, you could load up Windows for recovery or installation purposes. Currently trying to get a Windows iso to boot off a USB stick is hell.

 

[Titcher]

...as long as the battery would last...

The USB connection from the PC would dish out some power to the pandora, add to this a PSP style USB to 5VDC and that should be more than enough to keep a pandora going.

 

[may88]

...as long as the battery would last...

The USB connection from the PC would dish out some power to the pandora, add to this a PSP style USB to 5VDC and that should be more than enough to keep a pandora going.

Does the Pandora charge over USB? Anyway I have a power supply and an extra battery on order so in the holdall I'd be carting about with all this paraphernalia I'd also have a USB Pen drive with my ISO image installed.

 

[Enverex]

...as long as the battery would last...

The USB connection from the PC would dish out some power to the pandora, add to this a PSP style USB to 5VDC and that should be more than enough to keep a pandora going.

Does the Pandora charge over USB? Anyway I have a power supply and an extra battery on order so in the holdall I'd be carting about with all this paraphernalia I'd also have a USB Pen drive with my ISO image installed.

Pandora will charge over the OTG USB port, they said it may not get enough power to run AND charge at the same time via the OTG port though.