Repartitioning and/or reformatting a live Linux USB memory stick, anyone?

Nick,

Should be possible via the partition mangler.

I think select the the unused partition and unmount it if is mounted

Then, perhaps, right click on the partition you want to resize and select resize/move from the drop down offered?

If you want to email me with your actual set up - distro, partition mangler (gprated, Kparted etc.) we can take this off group with pictures?

Avpx

Just thought you may not be able to expand the partition if you have booted from that partition.

Avpx

Oh reformat the whole damn thing

Not sure you can reformat a partition that is actually running as the root drive. Not on the same machine.

Yes. That is the sticking point. You need another machine running something else to do that.

Thanks to each of you! After a couple of false starts I've expanded the partition to fill the whole drive, formatted it and am populating it with some backup files as I write.

FWIW I had taken an old HP Mini and used a Live Linux memory stick to load Linux Mint as a dual boot. Seemed a shame not to make full use of the memory stick afterwards.

Thanks again!

Nick

Oh yes. I have a spare portable USB drive that I use for that.

Or I burn an SD card for raspberry PI zeros..

For possible future reference, there are some live distributions which allow the whole stick to be used, particularly those which are designed to allow users to install further software and store data persistently.

The distribution web page will mention this if it is possible.

Ta for that. Rather than download the image file and stick it on an

-er- stick I prefer to shell out a modest amount of money and buy a stick pre-loaded. I'm likely to have to do that again sometime, even if not in the immediate future, and I'll try to remember to look out for that feature.

Nick

TORAM=yes

as a boot line option.

This will allow you to clean or alter your boot stick. You can even pull the boot stick out, then plug it back in, and have the (now RAM based OS) discover it for you. As a party trick.

Obviously, if you set up Persistence on your media, first you would remove some detail of the Persistence, so it doesn't... persist. Then you should be able to do a TORAM boot, and clean the stick with no other help. Exactly why you would do that, in a room full of computers, is unclear. But it would make a nice bar bet.

You can just as easily use TORAM=yes on a DVD boot, as you can on a USB boot.

when you TORAM=yes on a DVD, you can select "eject" for the DVD and it allows ejecting. Normally, in a Linux or a Unix, materials you boot from would deny an attempt to use eject or unmount or whatever.

That generally works in a Debian based distro. Not sure what "syntax" works for other areas of the Linux tree.

Even Windows Installer DVDs, use a RAMDisk and the letter X: for booting. This allows, for example, a Macrium Rescue CD to be ejected after the OS image loads into RAM. You can pull out the Macrium Rescue CD (or any other WinPE type boot DVD), and select shutdown in the environment, and it quickly shuts down without throwing a hissy fit.

Paul

Tools for preparing USB boot sticks, need a lot of test by their user.

It's not a topic with a lot of first time success, but you will get there eventually.

For Windows preparation of Win/Linux materials.

AlmaLinux, Arch Linux, Archboot, CentOS , Clonezilla , Damn Small Linux , Debian , Elementary OS , Fedora , FreeDOS , Garuda Linux , Gentoo , GParted , Hiren's Boot CD , Kali Linux , Knoppix , KolibriOS , Linux Mint , Manjaro Linux , NT Password Registry Editor , OpenSUSE , Raspberry Pi OS , Raspbian , ReactOS , Red Hat , rEFInd , Rocky Linux , Slackware , Super Grub2 Disk , Tails , Trinity Rescue Kit , TrueNAS CORE , Ubuntu , UEFI Shell , Ultimate Boot CD , Windows XP (SP2+) , Windows Vista , Windows 7/8/8.1/10/11 , Windows Server 2019

That uses syslinux as a wrapper, and even uses syslinux to boot Windows.

Paul

Cripes. £5 por more for ten minutes of button and mouse pushinhg?

Are you joking?

Its a piece of piss

What on earth difference would te ditribution make?

An ISO is an ISO

"Hey, I have this jpeg reader, but it can only read jpegs off canon cameras?

F*ck me

just download and install Ventoy onto a big USB stick

then copy all the ISOs to the USB stick and then reboot

You will then have a boot menu of all of your ISO's to choose from.

I use a 1TB NVME in a USB3.0 caddy. fast boot up times!