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great article...there's also PuppyLinux for USB drives...
first off, thanks for such a useful article. i've been using UFD-based Linux installs (PuppyOS specifically) for some Windows diagnostic work, but the potential problems with Linux and NTFS partitions have made me wary of using this method for really crucial rescues. i'm glad to have the option for a Windows-based one. also, it's nice to have a better understanding of the different BIOS scenarios for getting USB drives to boot. i have encountered a number of BIOS configurations that *seem* to support booting from Flash drives, but aren't very easy to configure to actually *do* it. in particular, i didn't realize that some BIOSes will only show it as an option if it's already plugged in at startup. =) sweet.
i've used Bart'sPE to make some custom boot CDs. it's a really fantastic program and can be customized pretty easily if you spend some time with the documentation and the configuration files. the main obstacle is finding applications that allow read-only functionality. www.portableapps.com is a good place to start.
secondly, while i've used Knoppix and PuppyLinux live-CDs for accessing NTFS partitions, they can be really slow to boot on some machines, or not an option if the optical drive is dead. i wanted to recommend PuppyLinux (www.puppyos.com) as a compact but very powerful Linux option for UFDs. you can use an image that's only 80MB and has most of the programs available on a live-CD (Firefox, GAIM, GIMP, more) as well as NTFS read/write access. the DE is a little weird to get used to (i don't think it's Gnome or KDE, but it's similar to Knoppix), but aside from that it's really small and really useful.
it may be that Damn Small Linux has the same basic feature set with the same image size, i've not used it and i can't be certain. but i know one of the primary motivations for the creator of Puppy was to have as many apps and as much flexibility as possible in the smallest amount of space, something he apparently wasn't finding with other Linux distros.
good luck with the bootable Vista!
i've used Bart'sPE to make some custom boot CDs. it's a really fantastic program and can be customized pretty easily if you spend some time with the documentation and the configuration files. the main obstacle is finding applications that allow read-only functionality. www.portableapps.com is a good place to start.
secondly, while i've used Knoppix and PuppyLinux live-CDs for accessing NTFS partitions, they can be really slow to boot on some machines, or not an option if the optical drive is dead. i wanted to recommend PuppyLinux (www.puppyos.com) as a compact but very powerful Linux option for UFDs. you can use an image that's only 80MB and has most of the programs available on a live-CD (Firefox, GAIM, GIMP, more) as well as NTFS read/write access. the DE is a little weird to get used to (i don't think it's Gnome or KDE, but it's similar to Knoppix), but aside from that it's really small and really useful.
it may be that Damn Small Linux has the same basic feature set with the same image size, i've not used it and i can't be certain. but i know one of the primary motivations for the creator of Puppy was to have as many apps and as much flexibility as possible in the smallest amount of space, something he apparently wasn't finding with other Linux distros.
good luck with the bootable Vista!
Posted by radicalspud
13th Aug 2007
