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Computers-Hacking Title: Booting from flash drive (Win 7 - XP) Just suppose that I wanted to create a machine that would FYI - I am planning to create this thing on a new Zotac So what I'm basically trying to do is create a 'disk-less' Thanks for any help / insight! ZBOX 1320-U:
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#5. To: Willie Green, Chuck_Wagon (#4) Working great with mint linux installed. But running off the USB (thumb drive and external dvd) is noticeablly slower than the internal hard drive. USB3, just as with USB2, does not actually maintain the advertised maximum speed of the interface in sustained data transfers. IOW, even if the interface is rated at the same speed, SATA or Firewire always beat USB2 or USB3 at the same rated speeds. A USB3 flash drive running at 5Gbps is much slower than any common SATA3 6Gbps solid-state drive. Using USB flash drives as a system drive only makes sense for portability between various computers. Since these are bookshelf computers to begin with, the portability can't be much of an issue. And the drive controller on a hard drive is just much better than a USB flash drive and has RAM cache that really helps the speed and reduces the rewrites.
#6. To: Chuck_Wagon (#0) Just suppose that I wanted to create a machine that would boot from a USB flash drive - a relatively big flash drive - 32gb to 64gb - or whatever is required. And I wanted this thing to boot either Win7 or XP. Forget it.
#7. To: Willie Green, TooConservative, Pridie.Nones, cranky (#4) ...noticeablly slower... The only reason I am considering this bootable USB I have a little problem - my right hand and arm are
See, last time I had to do something like this, Staples So if I'm going to pack all of the parts into a box and ship Thanks for your help folks!
#8. To: Chuck_Wagon (#7) You need more friends. I hate asking for favors too, but when I do they are cheerfully honored. What you are asking for is a very small favor. And YouTube will likely show your friend exactly how to do it. I learn lots of useful things from YouTube videos.
#9. To: Chuck_Wagon, all (#0) SSD drives are the way to go, and some are fairly in-expensive. I built a desktop computer last year, and put my OS on a SSD. It boots up in seconds. Shortly prior to that I purchased a Samsung NPSeries 9 Ultrabook, with a 128 GB SSD for a hard drive. I've owned lots of laptops, but none compared to this one. I did finally run out of disc space, and so I'm going to have to sell and replace it. I ordered another Samsung Ultrabook, with 256 GB SSD (NP940X3G-K04US. I'm sold on SSD's. “Let no one mourn that he has fallen again and again; for forgiveness has risen, from the grave.” John Chrysostom www.evidenceforJesusChrist.org #10. To: Fred Mertz, Chuck_Wagon (#8) The only reason I am considering this bootable USB option is the problem of installing a 2.5 inch drive in a little bookshelf case. Actually, I found installing the 2 sticks of RAM to be more difficult than slipping in the hard drive. But this YouTube shows the hard drive being inserted, so you can judge for yourself: Zotac ZBOX BI320 Mini-PC Overview - Newegg TV And here is another YouTube that shows both the hard drive and RAM being installed on an older model: Zotac ZBOX HD-ID11 - How to Upgrade (The only difference is the newer model takes 2 sticks of RAM instead of just one.) I haven't tried this one-handed, but assuming that you still have fairly normal dexterity in your left arm, I don't think this should be too difficult for you to accomplish on your own. It's not like older desktops with 5¼" floppy or CD drives or 3½" hard drives with those ribbon connectors and power connectors that can be such a pain in the butt, even with two good hands. These newer 2½" drives that they use in laptops really just slip in a slot quite easily. But watch the videos and judge for yourself. The most difficult part is getting it (and the RAM) lined up with the connector at the right angle to slip them in place.
#11. To: Chuck_Wagon (#7) See, last time I had to do something like this, Staples charged me $40 bucks. A five minute job. Surely you could hire a neighborhood kid to do this for you. If you can handle opening and closing the case yourself, it's a two-minute job. Watch Willie's vids. A lot of laptops and tiny PCs with 2.5" drives are built so that the drive is almost self-guiding into a groove and onto the SATA data/power connectors. It is much much easier than messing around with IDE cables and power cords.
#12. To: TooConservative (#11) Surely you could hire a neighborhood kid to do this for you. I pay 'friends for favors' with beer. My neighbor won't take any money, but he will take a bottle of Canadian Mist. He's helped me more than a few times over the past twenty years. My friend's wife needed a ride to the tavern last week while he was working on getting his car's starter working. She wanted to buy me six beers (a bucket). One was sufficient for me. That's how we roll.
#13. To: Fred Mertz (#12) I pay 'friends for favors' with beer. That works too.
#14. To: TooConservative, Fred Mertz (#11) Try doing it with one hand.
#15. To: Chuck_Wagon (#14) Don't do it yourself, you g**damned retard. Get help from a friend or neighbor or kid. Sorry, I couldn't resist, since you don't listen very well.
#16. To: Chuck_Wagon, TooConservative, Fred Mertz (#14) Try doing it with one hand. Well they lopped-off my left leg above-the-knee a-year-ago-Christmas, so I'm not as unsympathetic to your plight as Fred. But seeing as I actually have a Z-Box, I decided to conduct an experiment and accept your challenge. And I am quite pleased to report: Success!!! Using ONLY my left hand (and I'm right-handed):
Yeah, it is a bit more awkward than using two hands (especially since my left hand is all thumbs.) Nevertheless, the whole experiment didn't take me much more than 10~15 minutes, if that much. But in the end, you'll have to judge for yourself whether you think you're up to it or not... Just don't go spending $40 for somebody to do it for you... it's waaaaaaay too easy... I'd say $5 max... or just buy him a beer...
#17. To: Chuck_Wagon (#0) So what I'm basically trying to do is create a 'disk-less' computer. Why? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь #18. To: Willie Green (#16) Nice post.
#19. To: Willie Green (#16) Okay. Sorry about your leg.
#20. To: Chuck_Wagon (#19) Thanks... it definitely slows me down a bit, but it's not as bad as I would have imagined... and hopefully I'll get approval for a prosthesis after my cardiologist gets a couple more tests done,
#21. To: Fred Mertz (#15) I couldn't resist, since you don't listen very well. I take after my Mom.
#22. To: Willie Green (#20) Yeah - I have a MOFO brace on my lower right leg -
#23. To: Willie Green (#16) (Edited) And I am quite pleased to report: Success!!! Good job. Thanks for the inspiration in your experiment.
#24. To: Chuck_Wagon (#21) YOU get her to listen to my investment advice. It's how our aging parents get even with us for being rotten all those times when we were kids.
#25. To: Chuck_Wagon, Fred Mertz (#22) But the leg presses got me out of the wheelchair. Yeah... being in a wheelchair isn't much fun, but I don't complain about it since I'm actually much better off physically than many others. For instance, I can pretty easily stand up and hop around on one leg using my walker (I call it my hopper.) I suppose I could use crutches if I wanted, but I don't trust them. The walker has more stability when I plant it solidly on the ground to help me hop.
Self-serve gas stations are a pain in the patoot, but I manage. At other stores, I can push around a full-size shopping cart if I have to, but I prefer the smaller carts or hand-baskets if they have them. And inside the grocery store, it's pretty easy for me to lock my wheels and stand up to get something off the top shelf... or to get my wallet out of my hip pocket at the check-out line. So all-in-all, I have nothing to complain about... I get along very well... Just hoping a prosthetic leg will help get me accomplish things a little quicker... believe me, although I can do it, pumping gas is REALLY tedious right now...
#26. To: Willie Green (#25) ...being in a wheelchair isn't much fun... Nope, it ain't. Good luck to you! I still use these for grocery and other shopping: Can't decide which I prefer: The Amigo, or the Smart Cart... LOL
#27. To: Chuck_Wagon (#26) The Amigo, or the Smart Cart... LOL I've never seen the luxury model with the fancy armrests...
#28. To: TooConservative (#24) ...how our aging parents get even with us for being rotten... Hey, I was a GREAT kid. With the possible exception of
#29. To: Chuck_Wagon (#28) (Edited) Obviously you were beyond suspicion. It's so unfair. So are you going to follow Willy's advice and install your own 2.5" hard drive? It was the point of the thread. I like for how-to threads to resolve themselves into action.
#30. To: sneakypete, Chuck_Wagon (#29) I like for how-to threads to resolve themselves into action. So did you find ever someone to trench that Ethernet cable out to your shop for Roku streaming there? I kinda wondered if the ground got too frozen for that to be a winter project.
#31. To: Willie Green (#27) Just leave it there(?) Shoprite (grocery store) has a policy that a bagger or I choose the 'vestibule' option, park the cart, and then
#32. To: TooConservative (#29) I like for how-to threads to resolve themselves into action. First I'm going to find my set of jewelers screwdrivers If yes - I shall proceed to do it. If no I will take the
#33. To: TooConservative, Chuck_Wagon (#29) I like for how-to threads to resolve themselves into action. The Z-Box with 4 Gb RAM, a 2½" hard drive and 64-bit Linux Mint 17.1 "Rebecca" Xfce Edition is working great for me. That's what I'm using right now.
#34. To: Chuck_Wagon (#32) First I'm going to find my set of jewelers screwdrivers Unnecessary... DON'T go spending $40 at Staples, for cripesakes. This is pretty easy to do and you'll make me feel bad that I talked you into buying this thing. I'm pretty sure you can do it.
#35. To: Chuck_Wagon (#31) I choose the 'vestibule' option, park the cart, and then set out with my quad cane: Yeah, that quad cane looks like it will be useful AFTER I get a prosthetic leg.
#36. To: Willie Green (#35) The walker works... Not for me. So it's: "Quad Cane Left! Proceed!" for me.
#37. To: Chuck_Wagon, TooConservative (#0) Just suppose that I wanted to create a machine that would boot from a USB flash drive - a relatively big flash drive - 32gb to 64gb - or whatever is required. And I wanted this thing to boot either Win7 or XP. Anybody here have any experience with such an experience? I had a 10gig netbook that was obsolete and I use as my bathroom wifi radio now and it ran on Windows XP - but barely. So I bought an Ubuntu loaded thumbdrive and ran it off of that and that was fine for a while until it stopped working and then I got a thumbdrive running Chrome and it works fine most of the time for wireless Pandora or radio.
#38. To: Pericles (#37) I used to run Ubuntu on a couple of old Celeron machines.
#39. To: Willie Green (#33) (Edited) The Z-Box with 4 Gb RAM, a 2½" hard drive and 64-bit Linux Mint 17.1 "Rebecca" Xfce Edition is working great for me. I'm impressed with these sweet tiny budget boxes. And my last new machine was a Mac Pro workstation, top of the line stuff, 2.6Ghz, lots of RAM. So I am used to being a power user. It would be great if they could get the price of the i7 quad-core versions of these TinyPCs down under $300. Zotec also have their Nano models. Small as a USB hub. Too cute. I'm using an i7 Mac Mini, another tiny device. It has room for a second hard drive, two slots for RAM. I put 16GB in it (Crucial 16GB kit, DDR3, $135 shipped from Amazon). My Mini never uses swap partition at all. Not even if I use VMWare and run Ubuntu Linux 14, Windows XP or Win7, and Apple's OSX 10.9.5 simultaneously on multiple virtual screens along with several browsers (Firefox, Chrome) with 50 or more browser tabs open at once. It's completely smooth, all the time. Virtually no hesitation at any time. I like my Mini more than my Mac Pro workstation which I do still have. (It's a total power hog, scandalous really. It makes the meter spin!) I'm trying to make the point that we can just virtualize these OSes (if we have adequate RAM and multiple cores) and run everything at once very smoothly if we have enough RAM and CPU cores. Years back, adding RAM beyond a certain point (2GB or 4GB) was a waste of time because the apps and OS didn't take advantage of it. That has changed on all platforms and they readily gobble up and use any amount of RAM well. For serious use, you should have 8GB or 16GB. If running a single OS, 8GB will do well enough for everything but commercial Photoshop or 3ds Studio Max or other similar workstation class apps. Here's one of those Zotec Nanos ($198.99 shipped):
#40. To: Pericles, Chuck_Wagon (#37) I had a 10gig netbook that was obsolete and I use as my bathroom wifi radio now and it ran on Windows XP - but barely. So I bought an Ubuntu loaded thumbdrive and ran it off of that and that was fine for a while until it stopped working and then I got a thumbdrive running Chrome and it works fine most of the time for wireless Pandora or radio. Well, sure but Chuck seems to want Windows and some apps, not just a Chromebook browser setup with a few media extensions.
#41. To: Pericles, Chuck_Wagon, Willie Green (#37) I had a 10gig netbook that was obsolete and I use as my bathroom wifi radio now and it ran on Windows XP - but barely. So I bought an Ubuntu loaded thumbdrive and ran it off of that... When you ran Linux in your bathroom, did you invoke the toilet command? With or without the "gay" border option? : ) Linux.com: Fun with figlet and toilet You make think this is an odd topic but a single web search revealed that there has been a formal conference on Linux In The Bathroom for some time. ZDnet: Conference Encourages Linux In The Bathroom Yes, they want to use Linux to flush their toilets, among many other tasks. That's all I got for computer potty humor for today, I think.
#42. To: TooConservative (#39) Isn't that just darling? What a sweet little box. Yeah... I was looking at those higher spec Zotacs, as well as Intel NUCs & HP Chromeboxes. At least the ones that weren't out of my price range. But I finally decided on the more modestly priced ZBOX-BI320-U because it had both HDMI & DVI-D video output and my monitor only accepts VGA or DVI-D. Most of the other little boxes I looked at only have HDMI output, and I didn't want to go through a converter to hook up my monitor. But yeah, the technology of these little boxes is simply amazing and so affordable compared to what's been available for the last 25+ years... It really makes you wonder where this old world is headed!
#43. To: Willie Green (#42) But I finally decided on the more modestly priced ZBOX-BI320-U because it had both HDMI & DVI-D video output and my monitor only accepts VGA or DVI-D. A smaller distro like Mint Linux needs no more than 4GB to really fly for ordinary uses (browsing, office suite, most games). And 4GB is enough for bigger distros like Ubuntu too. But, yes, it is incredible when your big pricey Xeon workstation can be replaced by a 9"x9"x2" box with comparable or superior performance. A real eye-opener.
#44. To: TooConservative (#43) A smaller distro like Mint Linux needs no more than 4GB to really fly for ordinary uses (browsing, office suite, most games). And 4GB is enough for bigger distros like Ubuntu too. I've been using lightweight linux desktops (like Fluxbox, Xfce & LXDE) on old/cheap/obsolete PCs for almost 10 years now. So yes, I really am pleased at how well they run. But I did have the latest Ubuntu installed on my ZBox for a short period of time on Sunday/Monday as well. It worked well... but I just didn't like the weird "Unity" Ubuntu desktop, so I simply installed a lightweight environment that I was more familiar with. I suppose a more traditional, full featured desktop like KDE or Gnome would also work well with 4Gb... but why undergo the extra overhead when the lighter/faster desktops do everything I want to do anyway?
#45. To: TooConservative (#39) Here's one of those Zotec Nanos ($198.99 shipped): I like it. More power than the cheap bookshelf Celeron, Too bad that we're not coming up on Christmas -
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