Lenovo T61 booting to USB BT3

[spyder]

Ok so I must be a complete idiot but I can't seem to get my laptop (Lenovo T61) to boot to a usb stick with BT3.

What I'm doing:

1) Under windows vista I format my 2GB stick with fat 32.
2) Unrar the usb download and move the boot/bt3 folders onto the stick
3) Run cmd as administrator and run the "bootinst.bat" script, says it complete's successfully
4) Reboot the machine (made sure that usb hdd was selected as the first bootable drive in the bios) and keep getting the error "boot error"

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks - Spyder

[c0dak]

This probably isn't the answer but have you ever used the stick to boot any other type of Linux? I have found some sticks don't boot so well and its not Backtrack thats the problem. It's just the stick itself, while others boot with no problems whatsoever. I would probably try to boot another system from it and see if I have problems with that as well. RIP Linux is another Slackware based live distro used for recovery. It's like 156mgs or something ridiculous. Point I am trying to make is I have a couple of old generic USB sticks that simply won't boot.

[spyder]

You might be right about the key, I downloaded the usb test from pendrivelinux.com and had the same issue with that. "Boot Error"

It's picking up the usb drive but apparently doesnt want to boot with it, I'll have to pick up another one I guess.

Thanks.

[spyder]

Ugh, now I just get a black screen with the cd. Guess I'll have to wait until the final version comes out.

[archangel.amael]

In regards to your usb issue you might wanna have a look at this link and see if it can be of some help.
http://communities.intel.com/docs/DOC-1247#USB6
I am not sure if it even applies, but it might.

The next link is from google.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=lenovo+t61+usb+boot+&btnG=Google+Search

good luck and don't give up, others have installed linux so all may not be lost.

[armedpilot]

For what it's worth, I have a T61 (amongst other laptops), and have no problem booting BT3 or anything else from a USB thumbdrive. In fact I don't remember having problems booting any of the laptops from USB. A couple things to ensure. If it's a U3 drive, make sure you download, and run the U3 uninstall before you install any distribution on the thumbdrive. In some cases, and I think BT3 was one of them, I had to manually install the boot sector on the drive to make it bootable. I used dd to install it.

[fxjay]

My T61 boots fine in VESA mode from USB. I have not been able to boot in KDE mode though.

[punkrokk]

I am booting BT3 beta fine w/ a t-61 w/ a SanDisk Cruzer 4GB stick... I've had almost no problems with these Cruzer USB drives... booting from them and also going between linux and windows, (other keys have given me issues)