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#1 2013-01-13 21:04:31

rm_win
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2013-01-13
Posts: 29

(Solved) Arch live base USB stick that is recognized by windows

Hello Arch Linux

I have been using Arch for a few months now on a Inspiron 1501. Just a few Bugs I believe work themselves out during boot.

MP-BIOS bug: 8254 timer not connected to IO-APIC
ata3: softreset failed (device not ready)
sp5100_tco: mmio address 0xfec000f0 already in use

laptop is running fine.


I use the Arch Wiki and forum and they usually get me by. But I have not been able to come to a conclusion on how to make my live arch base usb stick be recognized when plugged into a running windows box. Without windows requesting to format the drive.

Being discouraged using vfat for linux root partition I was wonder if there is a way to use vfat for the boot record? Thinking windows may be able to read and direct to a partition that was vfat and /mnt it say /home when booted from.

My intent is to recover user files from a win hard drive that no longer boots before attempting OS recovery. cp to the /home directory. Then plug the drive into a run win. I know that I could just cp to a USB drive that is recognized by win but if possible it would be nice to do with a single drive.

As of now I have one partition on a 4GB USB drive ext4 and syslinux. Just arch base and Midnight Commander installed. Just root user.

Thank you for reading.

Last edited by rm_win (2013-01-17 04:34:58)


Take One Tablet By Mouth Twice A Day! Better to vote for a short term political guardian then to be ruled by a monarchy.

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#2 2013-01-14 14:50:41

Alber
Member
From: Spain - España
Registered: 2011-11-11
Posts: 227

Re: (Solved) Arch live base USB stick that is recognized by windows

Hello

Sorry, surely is my poor English, but I barely understand you (or I understand nothing).
When you talk about win hard drive, do you want to say a windows system?
What is boot record? do you want say boot directory?
If you want copy the home directory from a media that doesn't boot. You can try use a live media linux.
Too, you can add a new vfat32 partition in you USB with a mount point (fstable) /mnt/windows and copy there from linux your files; and Windows could see that partition too.

I don't understand you very well. Maybe these weren't your questions.

Last edited by Alber (2013-01-14 14:52:21)


Because not all of us are native English speakers, try no to use slang or abbreviations, thank you.

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#3 2013-01-14 15:20:12

Trilby
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Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,442
Website

Re: (Solved) Arch live base USB stick that is recognized by windows

I'm also a bit confused.  Do you have arch installed on a drive and you'd like to be able to get data off of it from within Windows?

If so, there is a windows program called Ext2Read which should do this - though I have no first hand experience with it.  It should let you mount your ext(2/3/4) partitions and read/copy files from them.

Note also, though, that without some fancy work-arounds, Windows will not recongize anything but the first partition on removable media - it doesn't matter what the file system is, it simply will not even see other partitions on removable media.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#4 2013-01-16 01:59:16

rm_win
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2013-01-13
Posts: 29

Re: (Solved) Arch live base USB stick that is recognized by windows

Thanks for the replies.

I have a USB stick with arch base installed. It boots any pc I put it in. But if I put it a running windows. windows wants to format the thumb drive.

If a have a windows pc that does not boot. (dead sata/ide) I can boot the pc with the arch usb thumb drive and recover files from the dead windows sata/ide drive. By copying them to the arch USB thumb drive. But I can not transfer them to a working windows OS because windows does not recognize the Arch USB thumb drive file format. (ext4) Or can not read the boot record. Not sure which. It request to format the USB thumb drive.

I was thinking to install arch base to a USB drive that was formated vfat (fat32). But the arch wiki discourages running arch linux on fat file system. although you can install the ISO image to fat, but you can not install any other apps from the repository to the ISO image.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/In … _a_USB_key

I am going to try to install to a fat file system to see what happens. But I do not think it will work. Thanks for the ideas Alber and Trilby. Sorry I did not explain myself. Hope I did here.


Take One Tablet By Mouth Twice A Day! Better to vote for a short term political guardian then to be ruled by a monarchy.

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#5 2013-01-16 02:07:37

anonymous_user
Member
Registered: 2009-08-28
Posts: 3,059

Re: (Solved) Arch live base USB stick that is recognized by windows

You could also just boot your Live Arch USB, mount the Windows partition, and transfer the files that way.

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#6 2013-01-16 02:21:32

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,442
Website

Re: (Solved) Arch live base USB stick that is recognized by windows

I have a couple system-on-usbs that have a ext2 boot partition, ext4 root, and a ntfs data partition.  This works well.  I can boot any computer with it, move data around, from the harddisk to the data partition, then read that data partition from any  OS.

Just make sure the data partition is the first one on the usb, or windows will not read it.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#7 2013-01-16 12:49:33

DSpider
Member
From: Romania
Registered: 2009-08-23
Posts: 2,273

Re: (Solved) Arch live base USB stick that is recognized by windows

Install Ext2Fsd on Windows and use it to mount the ext4 partition. My advice is to mount it as Read-Only, so that your Arch Linux system doesn't get a virus or anything like that.

Alternatively (and this is probably the better choice), is to partition the USB stick in two: the root partition (which can very well contain /boot and /home as simple directories), and a data partition. One of them formatted as ext4 and the other one formatted as FAT32/NTFS. Windows will only read the second partition, while the first partition will be left alone. I'm not sure if the partitions need to be in certain order or anything like that, but like Trilby said, you may need to create the FAT32/NTFS partition at the beginning of the drive.


"How to Succeed with Linux"

I have made a personal commitment not to reply in topics that start with a lowercase letter. Proper grammar and punctuation is a sign of respect, and if you do not show any, you will NOT receive any help (at least not from me).

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#8 2013-01-16 16:58:38

rm_win
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2013-01-13
Posts: 29

Re: (Solved) Arch live base USB stick that is recognized by windows

@tribly

I use cfdisk I know there may be better choices but that is what I am use to. So delete the partition. new data partition at beging of drive, size it, and then type would be "vfat"? I don't recall seeing fat32. If I see it I'll use that.

If I create a boot partion what type is that? root I got that. But where do I toggle boot flag boot partition? IO see the first few sectors of the primary. Ah man I am so twisted in my head. I have to go read the partion wiki again.

@dspider
I kind of need it to plug into several win box without loading software on to the box.

Last edited by rm_win (2013-01-17 04:29:09)


Take One Tablet By Mouth Twice A Day! Better to vote for a short term political guardian then to be ruled by a monarchy.

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#9 2013-01-16 17:08:01

DSpider
Member
From: Romania
Registered: 2009-08-23
Posts: 2,273

Re: (Solved) Arch live base USB stick that is recognized by windows

You don't need a separate boot partition. Only if you want to.

Use GParted and use NTFS for the data partition (since FAT32 has a 4.00 GB file limit).


"How to Succeed with Linux"

I have made a personal commitment not to reply in topics that start with a lowercase letter. Proper grammar and punctuation is a sign of respect, and if you do not show any, you will NOT receive any help (at least not from me).

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#10 2013-01-17 04:34:20

rm_win
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2013-01-13
Posts: 29

Re: (Solved) Arch live base USB stick that is recognized by windows

I got it working. cfdisk. makes we want a command line virus scanner. May even get a larger usb drive and load a desktop.


Take One Tablet By Mouth Twice A Day! Better to vote for a short term political guardian then to be ruled by a monarchy.

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