I did try using unetbootin to make a freedos usbkey using freedos from the standard list in the available options within unetbootin but the key I prepared would not boot! I don't know if it is critical to put the partition table into the key in a particular way - but I tried using gparted and making a standard msdos partition table followed by making a new partition which was fat32 with boot and lba labels. I have seen some articles which have the old 63 sector start point for the first partition on the usbkey - but again when I tried that the key would not get recognised by the arch system when I plugged it in.
So is there any magic incantation in formatting the usbkey in the first place before putting writing the MBR and placing the syslinux boot files and image files in the key? If using grub2 via grub-install on the key is there any magic incantation for that ? I guess if I can get freedos to boot on the key I may be closer to getting something going! (Or getting sysylinux to boot - either would be a solution)
You remember me when I had to burn Windows7 dvd on a USB key because in the middle of the installation the setup program was suddenly complaining about a missing dvd player driver even if it got loaded fine from the dvd drive! I was in a hurry to find a magic incantation or a magical recipe from the internet to do just that for literally a whole night. Before that, the last time I had to create a bootable disk was back from DOS where everything was simply done with just format /b a: I failed and after a couple of hours of sleep. I decided to take some time to just read grub2 documentation. Just by stopping trying to take shortcuts and just read the grub documentation, I have been able to build my first bootable USB key! I suggest you to do the same. Just half an hour and bootloading won't have any secrets to you anymore. ________________________________ CONFIDENTIALITY : This e-mail and any attachments are confidential and may be privileged. If you are not a named recipient, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose the contents to another person, use it for any purpose or store or copy the information in any medium.