Booting From External Usb-3 Hard Drive

[BugJackBaron]

Hey everyone,

I am considering buying an external DVD-drive to replace my broken internal one.

I can save 500 baht this way but I have heard that booting from a linux CD or DVD via usb-3 external is problematic.

Anyone have personal experience or knowledge about this?

Edited April 25, 2011 by BugJackBaron

[RKASA]

Booting into a usb device has been OK as long as the BIOS has the option and the USB can be placed in the boot order like:

CD

USB

HD

In your case the CD option would be unlisted to save it from timing it out and then it would go to look for a bootable image on the USB before the HD.

[BugJackBaron]

Booting into a usb device has been OK as long as the BIOS has the option and the USB can be placed in the boot order like:

CD

USB

HD

In your case the CD option would be unlisted to save it from timing it out and then it would go to look for a bootable image on the USB before the HD.

Maybe I should have been clearer. As a distro hopper i am well aware of bios boot priorities..However,

there is a rumor in a linux hcat channel that USB-3 booting off an external HD

is problamtic. Most new laptops are now USB-3.

I dont think USB-2 is a problem but I am considering a new laptop and replacing

the dvd drive with a SSD. For dvd use an external.

So my question is..does the usb-3 standard cause any problems for dual booting via external DVD?

Or is the rumor baseless?

Edited April 25, 2011 by BugJackBaron

[urandom]

Booting into a usb device has been OK as long as the BIOS has the option and the USB can be placed in the boot order like:

CD

USB

HD

In your case the CD option would be unlisted to save it from timing it out and then it would go to look for a bootable image on the USB before the HD.

Maybe I should have been clearer. As a distro hopper i am well aware of bios boot priorities..However,

there is a rumor in a linux hcat channel that USB-3 booting off an external HD

is problamtic. Most new laptops are now USB-3.

I dont think USB-2 is a problem but I am considering a new laptop and replacing

the dvd drive with a SSD. For dvd use an external.

So my question is..does the usb-3 standard cause any problems for dual booting via external DVD?

Or is the rumor baseless?

isn't it problematic only if the device itself is using USB3.0 (genuine question, I have no idea) ?

you could check if your distro kernel does support USB3.0 by booting the live CD and check if the USB3.0 module is there:

# zgrep -i xhci /proc/config.gz

and see what it returns (not set, y or m)

that's for the kernel, but I guess we should check the initrd as well.

locate it on the install CD and copy it somewhere. change its extension to .gz and decompress it (gunzip filename.gz) then check which modules are included (we're looking for usb_xhci_hcd)

cpio -id filename (the one we just decompressed)

now check the modules and look for the USB3.0 one. if it's there, I guess you should be fine.

disclaimer: I do not have any USB3.0 machine

Edited April 25, 2011 by urandom

[urandom]

sorry for bumping instead of editing but there's a typo in the cpio command and I thought it would be better to bump the thread instead. it should be:

cpio -id < filename

[BugJackBaron]

Well it seems to be a grey area - after all it was only this year that usb 3 latops seemed to appear in the

IT malls around thailand.

As for linux, I think the kernel has had support for usb-3 even before windows did.

That of course doesn't mean distros have enabled it....

[justsumhelp]

Bottleneck, but if just moving MB's no problem, booting and running will be a turtle