[Thinkpad] Re: USB Thumb drives

Hello,

In order to boot from an USB solid-state disk there need to be several
components in place:

First, the USB solid-state disk needs to specifically support this feature.
Not all USB SSDs do, and I believe it requires special firmware within the
and/or additional circuitry within the device itself in order to be bootable.

Second, you have to have special software from the manufacturer to format
the USB SSD as bootable disk--at least that has been my experience with
Microsoft Windows ME, 2000 and XP; you may be able to format one as a
bootable disk using Windows 98SE. This special software from the
manufacturer makes the appropriate structures at the beginning of the USB
SSD, formats the disk and places the operating system files on it.

Here's where things get interesting: Apparently there are at least two
different ways USB SSDs can be formatted. The first is USB Floppy mode,
which, I assume, creates an operating system boot sector at the beginning
of the disk and then formats the SSD using the standard FAT file system
(FAT12 or FAT16 depending upon the size of the device, I believe). The
other mode is USB Hard Disk mode, which, I assume, creates a master boot
record with a partition table at the beginning of the SSD, and then creates
and formats a FAT volume on the SSD, just as if it were a hard disk drive.
I have seen reference to a "third" way, USB ZIP mode, but I believe this is
the same as USB Floppy mode. So, there are two (at least) different ways of
formatting a USB SSD.

Third, you have to have a computer capable of booting from the USB SSD in
the mode it has been formatted in. For example, my desktop PC (Intel
D875PBZ motherboard) only supports booting from USB SSDs formatted using
one mode, while my IBM ThinkPad T23 only supports the other. This makes
it a little inconvenient to use the USB SSD universally without reformatting.

On top of that, the particular USB SSD I have, an Apacer Handy Steno TN202,
comes with software that only formats in one mode under Windows 2000 and
another mode under Windows XP. Four emails to their tech support asking when
formatting under both modes will be supported under either OS have gone
unanswered. Oh, and it seems SP4 for Windows 2000 broke the special formatting
software there. Needless to say, this is one device I would not recommend.

On the other hand, if you do want to use a USB SSD specifically with your
IBM ThinkPad, then you might want to consider IBM's own offering, a 256MB
USB 2.0 device. They call theirs "memory keys," by the way. These are
designed to specifically work with IBM brand computers and if you have a
problem you should be able to get support for it. Here's a link to the
description on IBM's web site:

<http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=0&uid=psg1MIGR-45847&loc=en_US>

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

At 04:02 AM 10/23/2003, you wrote:
>Message: 5
>From: "BLITZSTEIN-INVESTIGATIVE SERVICES" <truthfinder@comcast.net>
>To: <thinkpad@stderr.org>
>Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 20:38:19 -0400
>Subject: [Thinkpad] USB Thumb drives
>
>Hello all:
>
>My Thinkpad does not have a floppy drive and instead of purchasing an old
>technology, I'd rather pick up one of those mini (USB) thumb type drives.
>I have noticed that some companies who advertise these drives say their
>specific brand is "BOOTABLE".
>
>Are some bootable and some not? Can one of these mini USB drives be made to
>be a boot drive?
>
>A friend lent me one of these drive and we put the necessary boot files on
>the drive, however, when I boot up my laptop I get a message that the
>current drive does not support boot...............
>
>Any ideas aside from getting a 3.5" floppy drive..........
>
>
>Thanks in advance,
>Steve
>truthfinder@comcast.net
>

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Received on Thu Oct 23 19:22:57 2003