Possible to boot from SD-card?

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hashi · #1 Post by **hashi** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 3:42 am

Can the x6x series with built-in sd-card reader boot from it? for example a Win XP installation disc or Ubuntu?

Ideasmiths · #2 Post by **Ideasmiths** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 7:25 am

hashi wrote:Can the x6x series with built-in sd-card reader boot from it? for example a Win XP installation disc or Ubuntu?

Theorethically can, possible can. Do google search on "SSD Nand" which will replace the harddisk. However, SS cards survival rate is low, as reported because they cannot take high amount of read/write. It will soon fail.

hashi · #3 Post by **hashi** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 7:53 am

was more thinking about installation so 1 or 2 boots then its done .... incase u dont have an external optical drive available.

#4 Post by **ryengineer** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:53 am

It can be done, however I advise against it as if these cards don't get adequate power or somehow gets overpowered, they usually get corrupted very easily and since your system relies on it to boot the OS, there is every possible chance of experiencing that.

pxa270 · #5 Post by **pxa270** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:23 pm

Really? AFAIK, none of the previous X series supported the built-in SD (nor CF) reader as a boot device. Did they add boot support for the X60?

patch · #6 Post by **patch** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:24 pm

I am extremley curious about this as well. Can anyone confirm this for sure, instead of just speculation?

Also, in the little side argument that started: from the sandisk sd cards spec, "SanDisk SD Cards have an endurance specification for each sector of 100,000 writes typical (reading a logical sector is unlimited).". So you guys are giving sd cards a lot less credit then they really deserve. As long as you don't use an sd card as a swap drive (ie ReadyBoost style stuff) there should be no issue with lifespan from running an operating system off of it.

The biggest issue I can see with using an sd card would be the speed. Though it is comparable with a cd so for your needs is not an issue. But seriously, if anyone can definitly confirm booting from sd for me I would be very thankful. (I heard that you can boot from a USB device, but from what i've read the sd reader on the x6X is on the pci bridge)

timendres · #7 Post by **timendres** » Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:09 pm

Hashi's point is an excellent one.

If I could place an installation application and the respective recovery data on an SD card, or a USB drive for that matter, then boot and re-install my system, it would be an excellent option for recovery on the road. It would also be nice for booting recovery platforms. These would be used rarely, hopefully, so the rewrites are not such an issue.

I would also appreciate confirmation of various boot successes using USB drives or SD cards and which will boot. For instance, on my X31, I was never able to boot a DOS-based USB drive, but I was able to boot linux from a USB drive. Nothing would boot from the CF slot.

pxa270 · #8 Post by **pxa270** » Tue Jun 19, 2007 6:19 pm

timendres wrote:Hashi's point is an excellent one.

If I could place an installation application and the respective recovery data on an SD card, or a USB drive for that matter, then boot and re-install my system, it would be an excellent option for recovery on the road.

You can most certainly do that with a USB drive. The internal SD slot is not bootable on the X40 series. I don't think the Lenovo guys found it worthwhile to add it to the X60 BIOS, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

I would also appreciate confirmation of various boot successes using USB drives or SD cards and which will boot. For instance, on my X31, I was never able to boot a DOS-based USB drive, but I was able to boot linux from a USB drive. Nothing would boot from the CF slot.

My X40 boots from lots of USB Mass Storage devices, ranging from hard disks, to various brand name and white label USB flash drives, through SD, Memory Sticks and CF cards using USB readers. If it shows up on the F12 boot menu, chances are pretty good that you can make it work.

If you can boot Linux from the USB drive, it can most likely also boot DOS. My guess is that you made it DOS bootable on another machine, that has a different interpretations of the drive geometry. In that case it will probably fail to boot on the Thinkpad.

timendres · #9 Post by **timendres** » Sat Sep 01, 2007 11:12 pm

I finally got the X61 tablet. I can say that I do not see the SD Slot as one of the boot devices when I hit F12 at boot time. I loaded the SD card with the same tool I used to load the USB flashdrive. The USB flashdrive is listed as a possible boot device, but the SD slot is not in the list. So it appears that booting from an SD card is not an option.

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