Multiple questions

[Andy]

I installed the Kasper... rescue disk on a CD.

Would prefer it work on a pendrive though.

I can't figure out how to set up the network so I can download updates while using the Rescue disk.

I have setup wireless before, but this is a challenge.

I use a Zoom Combination Router and cable box modem.

It detects eth0 which I saw when using a Linux CD.

I am looking for recommendations for anti virus rescue disks that you have used sucessfully on a pen drive.

I have not had much luck with creating a boot pendrive with a O.S. on it.
I got one working on a Verbatim pendrive, but it stopped working.

I have tried around 6 versions including Puppy Slax, Mint, Debian, etc.

Thanks,
Andy

 

[Twayne]

In

I installed the Kasper... rescue disk on a CD.

Would prefer it work on a pendrive though.

I can't figure out how to set up the network so I can
download updates while using the Rescue disk.

I have setup wireless before, but this is a challenge.

I use a Zoom Combination Router and cable box modem.

It detects eth0 which I saw when using a Linux CD.

I am looking for recommendations for anti virus rescue
disks that you have used sucessfully on a pen drive.

I have not had much luck with creating a boot pendrive
with a O.S. on it.
I got one working on a Verbatim pendrive, but it stopped
working.

I have tried around 6 versions including Puppy Slax,
Mint, Debian, etc.

Thanks,
Andy

It's not the pendrive; it's whether/how your BIOS treats them to be bootable
devices.

I suspect it's an issue with your BIOS Settings (sometimes called CMOS
settings) in the area of order of boot drives. In your case you'd want the
pendrive to be the first one to try to boot from. Then your CD/DVD drive
second, and finally, your Hard Drive assuming that's all you need to boot
from. Once you setup that sequence, you should never change it if you always
want those options.

At first I suspected your BIOS not able to boot from a Pendrive, but you
said it worked once.
If the Pendrive is a problem, why not just use a CD that's been set to be
bootable? Most all AV programs come with an ISO file intended to be burned
to CD and is created automatically during their installs. So you pop in a CD
at that point and in the end you have your bootable Rescue Disc.

You don't give a lot of information so I don't know what you're on about
with routers, etc.. Ehternet cards etc. shouldn't have anything to do with
what you did describe, I don't think.

A BIOS Flash update might be worthwhile but beware; get something wrong and
you can be royally trashed and in for some additional work. Check your BIOS
mfr and see whether it or an update version supports booting from a
Pendrive. If your BIOS is one of those ten year old ones, it may well be
worth the effort to update it. But like I said, with more information to
work with ... .

HTH,

Twayne`

 

[Paul]

I installed the Kasper... rescue disk on a CD.

Would prefer it work on a pendrive though.

I can't figure out how to set up the network so I can download updates while using the Rescue disk.

I have setup wireless before, but this is a challenge.

I use a Zoom Combination Router and cable box modem.

It detects eth0 which I saw when using a Linux CD.

I am looking for recommendations for anti virus rescue disks that you have used sucessfully on a pen drive.

I have not had much luck with creating a boot pendrive with a O.S. on it.
I got one working on a Verbatim pendrive, but it stopped working.

I have tried around 6 versions including Puppy Slax, Mint, Debian, etc.

Thanks,
Andy

For Kaspersky, you could try this page.

http://support.kaspersky.com/8092

But I've never tested the rescue2usb program. I have used
the KAV CDs quite a few times. The distro on there, has the same
kinds of prompts as Gentoo does, so that might be what it's
based on. They've been careful to remove bits of it, so it's
not overly useful. For example, the "docache" option used to
work, and they disconnected that, so that the CD has to stay
in the drive during the scan. A damn nuisance.

In terms of networking, that rescue media is missing the PPP stack
(which consists of quite a few modules). And that will cause
a couple things to break. Kaspersky doesn't support dialup networking,
so you can't use your USR 56K dialup modem with it. Also, if you
had an ADSL modem running bridged mode (meaning PPPOE not
terminated), the missing PPP will also break that (so I've
read). I don't connect directly to my modem, and my router
takes care of the PPPOE part of it.

When the Kaspersky CD comes up, it expects to find a router
on the network, with DHCP running. It asks the router for
an IP address, for the addresses of the DNS servers.
(Basically, what a Windows PC would be doing.)
And then, it can "dial out" to one of the Kaspersky servers,
and get fresh AV definitions. The KAV CD will then pick a
partition on your computer, to store the definitions. The
intention of doing that, is so bandwidth isn't wasted the
next time, downloading updates. But that logic on the CD,
seldom works 100% correctly. So you end up fetching a lot of
fresh updates, the next time you use it. If you want to fix that,
try cleaning out the folder it's using - just leave the
top level and let the CD fill it up again.

As for what works or doesn't work with USB keys, I have several
keys here with Ubuntu on them. I put a 4GB persistent file
on the USB key (filename "casper-rw"). The OS formats that
EXT3 via a loopback mount or something. The USB key itself
is formatted FAT32. That leads in that case, to a 4GB
upper limit for the persistence file (I make mine as big
as possible, so it is 4GB).

When you think you're storing something in your home directory,
the persistent file is an overlay on top of the file system,
and the changes are stored in the persistent thing. It's
a good thing the casper-rw file is formatted EXT3, because
many of the more stupid distros have a bug where that
partition is shut down dirty, and the equivalent of
fsck runs every time on reboot. If your USB key has
relatively slow read/write, that costs you almost an
extra minute at bootup. I have just one distro here,
that I was testing recently, where I noticed the
fsck is no longer running at bootup (meaning at
shutdown, the partition was properly dismounted).

HTH,
Paul

 

[Andy]

In









It's not the pendrive; it's whether/how your BIOS treats them to be bootable

devices.

It can be the pen drive. I have never been able to get a Kingston pen drive bootable.

I suspect it's an issue with your BIOS Settings (sometimes called CMOS

settings) in the area of order of boot drives. In your case you'd want the

pendrive to be the first one to try to boot from. Then your CD/DVD drive

second, and finally, your Hard Drive assuming that's all you need to boot

from. Once you setup that sequence, you should never change it if you always

want those options.



At first I suspected your BIOS not able to boot from a Pendrive, but you

said it worked once.

If the Pendrive is a problem, why not just use a CD that's been set to be

bootable?

CD are extremely slow compared to a pen drive. On the order of 10X slower.

When I had Puppy Linux on my pendrive, it ran lightning fast.

CDs also can't be written to when they are booted from.

There have been times when I wrote data to a bootable pendrive, using files produced by a different O.S. ex. Put XP zip files on a Linux Live CD pendrive.

I don't know if that is O.K.

A BIOS Flash update might be worthwhile but beware; get something wrong and

you can be royally trashed and in for some additional work. Check your BIOS

mfr and see whether it or an update version supports booting from a

Pendrive. If your BIOS is one of those ten year old ones, it may well be

worth the effort to update it. But like I said, with more information to

work with ... .

Since I have booted successfully from a Verbatim pen drive, I would think the BIOS would not be the problem.

I am using an hp 6730b laptop.

 

[Andy]

It can be the pen drive. I have never been able to get a Kingston pen drive bootable.













CD are extremely slow compared to a pen drive. On the order of 10X slower.

When I had Puppy Linux on my pendrive, it ran lightning fast.

CDs also can't be written to when they are booted from.

There have been times when I wrote data to a bootable pendrive, using files produced by a different O.S. ex. Put XP zip files on a Linux Live CD pendrive.

I don't know if that is O.K.







Since I have booted successfully from a Verbatim pen drive, I would think the BIOS would not be the problem.

I am using an hp 6730b laptop.

I got Kaspersky Rescue Disk loaded on a Verbatim 4 Gb pen drive after
doing a quick format to Fat 32.

It scans pretty fast from a pen drive and I also set it up to scan
only certain file types like .exe,.com, etc.

Thanks for everyone's help.

Andy