# Knoppix on USB drive: not a valid FAT filesystem



## adanedhel728 (Apr 4, 2007)

I've already posted this on the Knoppix forums, but after looking at how often things are posted to that board, I realize it may take several weeks to get an adequate answer, so I'll copy-paste here.

I'm trying to install Knoppix to a USB flash drive using the instructions from this website--

http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Bootable_USB_Key

However, when I run the command "syslinux -s /dev/sdc1" it gives me this error: "syslinux: this doesn't look like a valid FAT filesystem." I don't _think_ I did anything wrong before this, but I realize that I very well might have without realizing it.

There are two things I should mention, though. It might be that neither is relevant, but I thought I'd say them anyway since they might be. The first is that although I inserted the USB drive during the opening screen (the cheat code screen or something like that? whichever one you hit enter on to load from cd), the drive flashed a little while it said it was looking for USB devices, BUT then it wasn't mounted or even recognized by Knoppix once KDE started up. I was able to get it recognized by taking it out and reinserting it, but I know that that's specifically against the instructions on this page (maybe that's the cause?). The second thing I should mention is that this USB drive is a Cruzer Micro 4 GB, which means it has that weird U3 thing. Or it HAD it before I removed it in Windows using the program found here. I bought this specifically to install Knoppix, so I didn't want that U3 stuff.

The computer I'm using is a Dell Inspiron 1501 (laptop) with a gig of ram and an AMD Turion64x2 CPU. I'd give the more detailed specs, but it's been awhile since I've used Linux and I can't remember the command to list off everything. If anything else needs to be known, tell me the command and I'll put it in and copy it here.

Thanks so much to anyone who can help. I can't really offer any reward, but you'll have my eternal gratitude


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## lotuseclat79 (Sep 12, 2003)

The first thing to have done would be to save off everything on the Cruzer Micro 4 GB usb drive.

As I look at mine, it appears that the Cruzer Micro 4 GB drive is formatted as follows after I issue the command from a root account (upon inserting the usb drive into a running Ubuntu Live CD session):
Disk /dev/sde: 4102 MB, 4102887936 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 498 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sde1 1 497 3992135+ b W95 FAT32

The components of the drive are:
Documents: directory
LaunchU3.exe: MS-DOS executable PE for MS Windows (GUI) Intel 80386 32-bit
System: directory

The Documents subdirectories are empty: Downloads Music Pictures Videos
and the System subdirectory contains: 105579458 bytes.

So, first backup the Cruzer. It mounts on /media/disk in my Ubuntu Live CD environment.

Next, it is clear that FAT32 is not recognized as a valid FAT format by syslinux - so, you will most likely need to reformat the Cruzer to accommodate what syslinux requires.

Consult here for information on syslinux.

-- Tom


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