[NuttyBar]

Hi, I want to know how I can use my Kodak Playtouch camera's storage drive to both host an operating system and act as the primary hard drive for the host data.

I have searched around and have yet to find any operating systems, or software of any kind, that can both be booted from BIOS directly to the removable drive without any primary functioning hard disk and pre-installed OS, like Windows, etc.

My hard disk is not working, so I need to find an operating system under 2GB that can be installed directly off the camera's drive by booting directly from BIOS, and then run directly on the camera, and use its storage device, while hosting the whole OS without any use of the hard disk(it is useless).

I want to know how this works? Are all hard disks/flash drives capable of hosting an operating system?

The file system is FAT32. Can I host an operating system on it? Again, it's a Kodak Playtouch, and has 8GB of total space.

If a host the OS on the camera from the USB while active as the primary "hard disk", will it access RAM as well as the hard disk itself would? I'm not clear on this, and would like the full scoop.

Thanks for any help that can answer my questions, and big thanks to those who entirely understand!

PS: You can email me too.

[Triple6]

SD cards has limited read/write cycles and are slow. You'd also lose the ability to use the storage with the camera.

Also, the PlayTouch seems to have 128MB of internal storage, that means if you have 8GB then you actually have an 8GB SD card that is being used in the camera, you can remove that and use that without the camera at all, much better if the computer has a card reader.

While what you want is doable, and yes you can have the OS and data storage on the same media, just like you had on the internal hard drive, and yes it can access the RAM, it has too to run just like every OS, and it absolutely does not need an internal hard drive, this is probably not the best method or approach. And you'd have to use a version of Linux that supports it, there are several. And you computer would have to support booting from a USB device, the eMachines in your description if its old may not.

Nothing will give you the performance, storage capacity, reliability, or functionality of using an actual hard drive.

An alternate method would be to use a bootable CD or DVD of Linux to boot/run the OS and the SD card to store the data. You could also use a USB stick to run Linux and store data on it, it'd be faster and more reliable in the long term than an SD Card.

If you want Windows then you must buy a hard drive.

[managed]

You can get SDtoIDE and SDtoSata converter cards that make an SD card look like a HDD and you can install an OS onto it.

I have an SDtoIDE card that was less than £5 from Hong Kong via Ebay and it works well.

It would be much easier if you bought a new HDD though.

[NuttyBar]

But I actually tried it, set the primary boot device from BIOS to read from the Kodak camera, and it won't do anything. It's not possible to get a hard drive without money, and I know nobody who has a matching one.

BIOS won't load the camera, and it always tries to set the SATA disk drive(hard drive)to primary.

Is there any way to get Windows 7 out of the partition on the hard disk manually, or without getting past BIOS and actually being on Windows?

And if I'm getting this correctly, you're saying an SD card will fail as a hard drive? It would be the only option because the Kodak's 128MB of memory itself is not enough for basically any functioning OS anyways(DOS will fit, but even so, DOS OS is crap).

So my last bet is if anyone here can help troubleshoot, or has previous experience doing a similar thing and knows why it wouldn't work.

BIOS is set to USB: Kodak(no other options given), primary boot device: USB Mass Storage, Slax OS is located in a folder outside of the camera's default "DCIM" directory in its own directory, and it just shows a black screen.

In fact, after trying it, now I am unable to change BIOS primary boot device. It just says "Insert boot device and press enter."

And I'm using a 2011 bought eMachines with American Megatrends BIOS. I am nearly 100% sure it's not "too old" to boot from USB.

PS: And I'm stuck using the old Win98 OS on another computer, and it has already depressed me enough with its unanimated WinLoad.exe file.

[Triple6]

Windows will not run from a USB connected drive, however Linux can. I don't understand what you are asking when you say "Is there any way to get Windows 7 out of the partition on the hard disk manually, or without getting past BIOS and actually being on Windows?" You are getting past the BIOS if you are getting "Insert boot device and press enter", but then you need to install an OS or run an OS from a supported device. If you want to recover the data off the hard drive then you first need to get a working OS and the hard drive must not be dead or severely damaged.

In fact, what is wrong with the internal hard drive? Are you 100% sure its failed beyond usability? What exactly is wrong with it and has it been tested properly?

If you are wanting to run Linux off the 8GB card you will likely need to remove the SD card from the camera, the camera may not allow proper access or booting, and insert it into the media card reader on the PC itself, most eMachines have a card reader in the front.

BUT really, why not just run Ubuntu from a USB stick or CD? Way easier: http://www.ubuntu.com/download

As for Slax, are you installing it correctly to the SD Card? It cannot just be copied to it, it must make the card/device bootable first.

If your eMachine is from 2011, does it still have warranty?

You can buy used hard drives from eBay or Craig's or local computer stores for under $20.

[NuttyBar]

No, there's no warranty anymore.

If you read, there's no money either.

Thanks a bunch anyways.

[managed]

Ubuntu is free.

[NuttyBar]

I wasn't referring to Ubuntu when I said I have no money I was referring to the hard disk.

The other user neglected to read that there's no money, but insisted that I buy a "cheap" hard drive on Ebay.

I guess some people don't realize the difference between buying something cheap and expensive when, unfortunately, no mula = no buying anything, cheap or high priced.

But yeah, Ubuntu is going to be my only option then, hopefully.

[Triple6]

So out of all the things I wrote and all the suggestions I gave you have decided to fixate on one single thing I said and ignore the rest?

[NuttyBar]

I'm not "fixating" nor "ignoring" the rest, I just chose not to talk about it because it's not helping me out specifically.

I know when a paragraph helps me or not.

By the way, computer manufacturers need to increase available boot options from just: USB, disk drive, CD/DVD ROM, etc.

They need SD card readers, cell phone readers, and many more.

Nowadays technology doesn't just limit itself to bootable disk drives and USB, but extended data devices, such as iPhones, SD cards, Blu-Rays, etc.

I await the day when a computer system can boot from Blu-Ray, SD cards, and the like, especially mobile devices like iPhones.

Big thumbs down to computer manufacturers, especially the BIOS developers.

PS: I'm not saying you can't use SD cards and boot from them, I am saying most BIOS systems will not directly boot from them without additional devices/peripherals. I am referring to "direct boots."