Table of Contents
Create Bootable USB Drive
I will go straight to the step by step instructions and put the so-called theoretical information towards the end of this page, so that people who are only interested in getting it done can get straight into it 
I have done this a lot of time on Linux, but I recently discovered that I may be able to do it on Windows as well - so I may insert something on that later.
Linux Platform
Tools needed (mostly available by default on all major Linux distro):
- fdisk - for partitioning (recommended for USB drives with >4GB storage)
- mkfs - for preparing filesystem (go for something specific e.g. mkdosfs for FAT filesystem)
in progress…
Windows Platform
coming soon…
Hard Disks and Geometries
- talk about CHS and LBA
Disk Partitions
Information on MBR and GPT partitioning schemes.
Master Boot Record (MBR)
Some notes on MBR used in classic/legacy BIOS-based system.
- first sector of a partitioned storage
- also known as disk boot sector
- contains a partition table (info on how the disk is partitioned)
- classic MBR
- 446 bytes executable code
- 64 bytes partition entries (4 primary partitions)
- 2 bytes boot signature (0x55 0xAA)
- modern MBR
- 218 bytes executable code
- 2 bytes (always 0x00?)
- 4 bytes disk timestamp
- 216 bytes executable code
- 4 bytes disk signature
- 2 bytes (always 0x00?)
- 64 bytes partition entries (4 primary partitionss)
- 2 bytes boot signature (0x55 0xAA)
- primary job of embedded code is to boot/load Volume Boot Record (VBR)
- superseeded by GUID partition table (GPT) - Read more @ wikipedia
Volume Boot Record (VBR)
- first sector of a partition on a partitioned storage
- also known as partition boot sector
GUID Partition Table (GPT)
Some notes on GPT used in currently standard UEFI-based system.
work-in-progress…
Using fdisk
Creating 2GB partition at the end of the drive
- for 512-bytes sector size, allocate 2x1024x1024x1024/512=4194304 sectors
- subtract this value from total sector
- make sure the end value of previous partition ends on resulting value
Case study 1
For 16GB devices (~14GB+2GB), when making the second partition as active partition, installing syslinux onto that partition is still okay. But when doing similar config on 32GB devices, syslinux fails. Why?