[olug] Best Brand for Bootable USB Thumb Drives

[Rob Townley]

On 9/10/07, Dan Linder <dan at linder.org> wrote:
>
> I like my 1GB Corsair "Flash Voyager" - physically, it's rugged and has
> withstood being my main USB key for the past two years.  It's got a
> rubber shell rather than hard plastic so it take knocks quite nicely
> (yes, you could probably snap it in half if you wanted to try).  I've
> got FreeDOS booting from it and it sees it as a 1GB "C" drive - good
> when you need to run a DOS-only flash update program.
>
> My only complaint is that I'm on my third one.  The first two died at
> almost exactly 11 months old, and this one is "due" in in a couple
> months.  (And when it dies, it dies hard - no machine even sees a USB
> device plugging in much less having a chance to get anything off.)  What
> I *have* learned is that Corsair tech support is great - just get the
> RMA from their on-line tech guy forum site, shipt it to them, and about
> a week later you get a brand new USB drive back.
>
> My second USB drive is a red Verbatim 1GB that I got at Office Max when
> my first Corsair died.  It is more of a spare, but it too lives on my
> keychain and has survived the day-to-day abuse.  I can't speak to it's
> bootability, but I am pretty certain that I tested the FreeDOS image on
> it first and it worked fine.
>
> IMHO, the biggest issue with booting from a USB keychain is not the USB
> key as much as it is the BIOS in the computer.  Some expect the USB
> device to show up like a HDD, others expect a CDRom, and some others
> want a ZIP or Floppy device.  I don't know what the pros/cons are but my
> Voyager works fine in most computers if I try "USB HDD".
>
> Dan
>
> --
> - - - -
> "Wait for that wisest of all counselors, time." -- Pericles "I do not
> fear computers, I fear the lack of them." -- Isaac Asimov
>
>
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deja-vu!  Had this same problem with bootable cds many years ago, the answer
was an OpenSource BIOS like LinuxBios or OpenBios.

Shortly thereafter, i had a problem with pxe/mba v.99n and again the answer
was an OpenSource BIOS.

Now, bootable usb sticks require an OpenSource BIOS.

You would think they would have learned by now.  If you can't tell, this has
really got me aggravated.