Another Ubuntu on external drive question

[Kent Paul Dolan]

> From: Derek Broughton
> Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2008 19:58:53 -0400

> Tipton, Timothy wrote:

> Just a thought, but have you tried to reverse
> engineer a "pen-drive" distro and how they do it?
> I mean it would use the same concept, right? I
> donno, just thought I'd throw it out there...

> I think my basic understanding was correct, but
> that the hardware just sucked - I _did_ get it to
> mostly work, but there were write errors on the
> drive.  I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to
> try a better drive, or booting off a pen-drive
> with the majority of the system on the internal
> drive.  That would involve messing with
> mother-in-law's computer, though...

> I don't think I'm that brave.

Does the pen drive have a filesystem, or can you
install one on it, so that you can run a "bad
sectors check" and mark as unusable the sectors
that give read/write errors? [Yes, I know this
suggestion is more than a little off the wall, pen
drives are cheap enough that buying one that works
correctly is usually a better option, but some of us
are dirt poor and look first for the zero added cash
options.]

That would exempt you from messing with mom-in-law's
computer, at least.

xanthian.