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Can I make an bootable USB with a live OS while still keeping other data functional on my USB? I want to make an USB bootable Slax OS (Linux), but to be able to access other data while running the OS from my USB.

Will I be able to for example to manipulate documents or play games while at the same time I am running the Live OS from the same USB?

Thank you in advance

Kwang
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2 Answers2

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Yes, you can do it(your O.S. files will be loaded into the system memory, USB is only used to read this files on boot timing, after that you can use your flash drive anyway you want....). However, I would recommend you to create a second(extended) partition on your bootable USB Flash drive. This way you can "isolate" the O.S. from another files.

According to this website you can use the following partitioners to extend your partition on Linux:

  1. Diskdrake ( The default Mandrake tool, by far superior and easy to use even for people that never came close to a partition before )
  2. fdisk ( commandline tool for the more advanced, but still very intuitive )
  3. Diskdruid ( The RedHat partition tool )
  4. QTParted ( GNU clone of Partition Magic, the tools from SUSE, RedHat and PCLos are based on this )
  5. Yast ( the SUSE partition tool )
  6. Qparted ( the non-GUI brother of QTParted, I would go for fdisk myself )
Diogo
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As i understand your question... You will be able to play games and manipulate documents as long as said games, and document software runs on linux.

There's a few options, actually for the rest of the question

If you will be switching between systems, select a USB install with a persistant data option - most ubuntu varients will let you do this with unetbootin. You can use the rest of the drive as well, i believe.

Alternately you can often simply install the OS to the thumb drive, as you would a regular OS, with the install cd and partitioner. This is only a good idea if you are unlikely to switch systems (there can be wierdness due to fstab and driver related things), and needed to use a larger thumbdrive or USB hard drive, and wanted all the space accessible to linux

Journeyman Geek
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