USB key/disk as a Floppy

[Portelly]

First of all, i know that the Bios used by Fusion don't support the "usb boot" but :

Is there any possibilities to use an usb key/drive as a floppy drive

thx

P

[RDPetruska]

Go to HP's site and look for the "HP Drive Key Boot Utility" (it's free, and works with non-HP PCs just fine). You can install this and then change the format of your USB key to appear as either a floppy or a bootable disk.

I guess you'll probably need to find a Windows PC to install it on first, however.

[ClayMon]

The utility works running in a VM. Thanks for the tip.

It seems to only allow the 1.4MB floppy image to be visible when formatted as a floppy. Has anyone been able to use the rest of the flash drive?

[RDPetruska]

Yeah, I found this in an issue of MaximumPC several months back in their list of "must-have" utilities. I think I configured my flash key as the hard drive option - not the floppy, due to that limitation of a floppy disk size.

[Portelly]

I know, i'm using it.

That's not the point. I know how to make a usb key bootable but i need VMware to boot on it.

I need to "trick" Fusion that he can see my key as a floppy in the virtual machine hardware setup and not a virtual floppy of 1,44 or trick Os X (i don't think you can trick BSD) to create the illusion he had mount a floppy.

[admin]

Why do you need Fusion to boot off the USB key - will it work to boot off a file on the key?

[getwired]

USB Flash Drive (UFD) boot is actually getting to be pretty common with Windows PC's (it is a logo requirement for a Windows Vista PC, actually) - I'd imagine many people want it so that they can boot to Windows PE on a Flash Drive... It's not critical, since booting from an ISO is so easy - but booting from a UFD would be nice (in all VMware products).

[Portelly]

I need it to test my work.

i'm using WAIK (aka WinPe for Vista) actually imageX (a part of the WAIK) and still need a real pc to test.

Booting to the iso or the Pxe boot is not the same process and i must test my work before release.

And NO booting to the iso is not the same thing as booting to a usb (key or hard drive)

[RDPetruska]

Well, then sorry to say, but you're out of luck at the moment. All VMware guests use a virtual Intel 440BX chipset motherboard. And USB bootable devices did not exist back then, so there IS no support in that chipset for such function.