Problem: A USB stick cannot boot with any of Porteus, the boot-repair LiveUSB, or SystemRescueCD. It used to be bootable with Porteus, and before that it could boot with other Linux LiveUSB distributions.

Solution: unsolved

See also:

• Booting multiple distributions from a USB stick

• Linux distribution booting from a USB drive which has a Windows-viewable partition

Workaround ∞

A heretofore unknown grub bootloader USB, Super Grub2 Disk, was dded onto a stick, and works to chain-load a secondary drive which has its own bootloader.

Perhaps if I could use it for USB stick preparation I could then install another distribution overtop of it.

After using Super Grub2 Disk, putting Slackware 14.2 on it worked just fine.

Putting Porteus on it worked once but I hard powered-off in the start of my first bootup and thereafter could not get the thing to work.

Fucking fuckity fuck fuck.

Things which failed ∞

• LiLi USB Creator
• UNetbootin

• In Linux

  • Deleting the partition
  • Creating the partition slightly smaller than maximum.
  • Using various methods.
  • This worked with one other stick..

• In Git on Windows

  • \dd bs=4M if=/dev/zero of=/dev/STICK
    Perhaps alternately I could have used one of the programs in Testing USB storage which wipes a drive to test it..
  • Format it in Windows
  • Then LiLi USB Creator (Windows) with SystemRescueCD 4.8.3 x86
  • It takes forever to write the MBR, is it copying the files at that time?

Strangely, my original single working stick didn't boot until I completely powered off my machine and started back up again, so there's something else going on. Future testing has to include this complete power down.

flagging the partition as bootable ∞

I'm not sure at what point I tried this, probably after farting around with partitioning in Linux but before zeroing it and formatting.

• What is it that makes some USB sticks not-bootable?

How to Create a Bootable USB Drive Without Using Any Software

Notes ∞

• See also What makes bootable media bootable?

• How can I identify which of my USB drives can be made bootable?

To do ∞

• List of tools to create Live USB systems

• Booting multiple distributions from a USB stick

  • MultiBootUSB
• Try one of the Plop Boot Managers
• https://superuser.com/questions/391176/flipping-the-removable-media-bit-alternatives-to-bootit

• http://www.getusb.info/flip-your-bit-usb-utility-to-make-local-drive/

  • BootIt
  • Sketchy, not found on http://www.lexar.com/support/downloads.html