Q: possible to USB HD boot for stand-alone & VirtualPC?

Hello.

I hope this is the right place to ask this.

Is it possible to make a vfat partition on a USB-2 attached HD that would
start up Linux both as the boot device for the whole PC and also in a
Virtual PC session? Could we also have a nice, large ext3 partition to
chroot to and some swap file space on the HD?

I am a long time fan of Fedora and I also really appreciate all the neat
things that Knoppix brings to the world.

I would like to be able to carry around an external USB HD and have
everything I need right there to get Linux going even on a machine that is
already running that other OS that supports Virtual PC ... or just as easily
take over the whole PC from a fresh boot.

Thanks in advance.

Take care.   James.   :o)

James Lehman wrote:
> Hello.
> 
> I hope this is the right place to ask this.
> 
> Is it possible to make a vfat partition on a USB-2 attached HD that would
> start up Linux both as the boot device for the whole PC and also in a
> Virtual PC session? Could we also have a nice, large ext3 partition to
> chroot to and some swap file space on the HD?
> 
> I am a long time fan of Fedora and I also really appreciate all the neat
> things that Knoppix brings to the world.
> 
> I would like to be able to carry around an external USB HD and have
> everything I need right there to get Linux going even on a machine that is
> already running that other OS that supports Virtual PC ... or just as
easily
> take over the whole PC from a fresh boot.
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> Take care.   James.   :o)
> 
> 
> 

"Bruce Coryell" <bcoryell@chesco.com> wrote in message
news:47ce865f$0$14623$1e6826b@news.chesco.com...
> James Lehman wrote:
> > Hello.
> >
> > I hope this is the right place to ask this.
> >
> > Is it possible to make a vfat partition on a USB-2 attached HD that
would
> > start up Linux both as the boot device for the whole PC and also in a
> > Virtual PC session? Could we also have a nice, large ext3 partition
to
> > chroot to and some swap file space on the HD?
> >
> > I am a long time fan of Fedora and I also really appreciate all the
neat
> > things that Knoppix brings to the world.
> >
> > I would like to be able to carry around an external USB HD and have
> > everything I need right there to get Linux going even on a machine
that
is
> > already running that other OS that supports Virtual PC ... or just as
easily
> > take over the whole PC from a fresh boot.
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
> >
> > Take care.   James.   :o)
> >
> >
> >
> Why VFat?

I thought that it would probably be the way to go, so that MS Windows can
see at least enough space to be able to load a boot image into Virtual PC.
Then, once that got up and going it could see the other part of the drive,
mount and chroot to it. There would be no way to directly address the ext3
or the swap partition from MS. I think a special bootable iso image would
work, but there would have to be another mechanism to make the USB HD boot
as the primary (motherboard) boot device. There seems to be a lot of option
for that part.

James.   :o)