AClark
August 23rd, 2008, 10:05 PM
So I just built a new machine with a Asus P5QL-E Motherboard. I was interested in the ExpressGate feature they were advertising (not the main reason for buying the board - but a bonus I thought)
All the hype I had seen before the purchase implied that it was built into flash memory on the motherboard. It turns out that it is - but you also have to install about 400 meg of files to enable it and it's a Windows based install.
Also buried in the motherboard manual is this little tidbit:
"ASUS Express Gate supports installation on SATA HDDs in IDE mode only"
This presented a problem as I intended to set my bios to AHCI mode.
Then a little further in the manual a ray of hope:
"ASUS Express Gate supports installation on USB HDDs and Flash drives"
I was planning on installing Hardy as my only OS on this machine - using VirtualBox for any Windows stuff I couldn't get along without so I thought I might be able to install ExpressGate from within my Win2K VM.
I have tested VBox out on a couple of my other machines with Fiesty, Gutsy and Hardy installs and was pretty sure it would serve my needs.
It's ironic that what is a custom Linux distro can only be installed from Windows!
So now I have my machine put together and running with Gutsy installed and VBox with USB enabled and a USB flash drive read/writable from within my Win2K VM.
But when I run the install CD it only gives me C: as a choice for install location. (also reporting there isn't enough space)
I can browse to the flash drive F: in the "change location" portion of the installer but the installer won't let me choose it as a destination. I have tried formating it as Fat, Fat32 & NTFS with the same result.
I realize I'm pushing it and this isn't what ASUS had in mind but the idea of an "instant on PC" is interesting and I would love to try it out.
I have searched quite a bit but there really isn't much info beyond press releases and a few reviews that don't mention installation.
I checked out the ASUS forums but didn't find anything about installing on a flash drive. I was going to ask a question there but decided they required too much personal information to register for the forum.
Anybody installed on a flash drive ? Anybody know anything about Express Gate ? Anybody got any ideas about what I might be doing wrong ? (other than trying to do something that was probably never intended to be done)
All the hype I had seen before the purchase implied that it was built into flash memory on the motherboard. It turns out that it is - but you also have to install about 400 meg of files to enable it and it's a Windows based install.
Also buried in the motherboard manual is this little tidbit:
"ASUS Express Gate supports installation on SATA HDDs in IDE mode only"
This presented a problem as I intended to set my bios to AHCI mode.
Then a little further in the manual a ray of hope:
"ASUS Express Gate supports installation on USB HDDs and Flash drives"
I was planning on installing Hardy as my only OS on this machine - using VirtualBox for any Windows stuff I couldn't get along without so I thought I might be able to install ExpressGate from within my Win2K VM.
I have tested VBox out on a couple of my other machines with Fiesty, Gutsy and Hardy installs and was pretty sure it would serve my needs.
It's ironic that what is a custom Linux distro can only be installed from Windows!
So now I have my machine put together and running with Gutsy installed and VBox with USB enabled and a USB flash drive read/writable from within my Win2K VM.
But when I run the install CD it only gives me C: as a choice for install location. (also reporting there isn't enough space)
I can browse to the flash drive F: in the "change location" portion of the installer but the installer won't let me choose it as a destination. I have tried formating it as Fat, Fat32 & NTFS with the same result.
I realize I'm pushing it and this isn't what ASUS had in mind but the idea of an "instant on PC" is interesting and I would love to try it out.
I have searched quite a bit but there really isn't much info beyond press releases and a few reviews that don't mention installation.
I checked out the ASUS forums but didn't find anything about installing on a flash drive. I was going to ask a question there but decided they required too much personal information to register for the forum.
Anybody installed on a flash drive ? Anybody know anything about Express Gate ? Anybody got any ideas about what I might be doing wrong ? (other than trying to do something that was probably never intended to be done)