Multipass/USB forcing

[Dante]

Right. I was thinking that alot of people who have made a multipass

are probably not going to use applications such as Ophcrack on their

own machine. On the let's go with 'Victim's' machine USB may not

have been selected to boot first. So, I was looking into forcing the PC

to boot from USB using code on the USB drive so that it would be easier

because you need not need to change settings in the BIOS and it could

lead to questions from the 'client' (that's a better word).

I did some 'researching' and stumbled uponthis page.

it shows five methods to achieve this.

Hope this helps, maybe A future episode?

Thanks,

/Dante

[pritchard9]

From what I've gathered from that link, you'd still need to set USB as first boot device in the BIOS. I'm not sure whether your USB is even touched during boot unless specified in the BIOS, though someone could probably clear this up a little. AFAIK, forcing a computer to boot to USB without specifying USB in the BIOS is impossible. However, many computers are enabled to boot a CD first, if there is one present. Maybe using a boot manager that can be burnt to CD (I know I have a few kicking about) and some lovely-jubbly custom scripts, you could script it to redirect booting to a USB device without user input. But again, off the top of my head, could be wrong on both fronts.

But I get what you mean. Id find it much easier to have some fun on a "clients" PC if I didn't have to change boot priorety in the BIOS before hand. It sure is a bit of a hassle.

[H@L0_F00]

The link only has a few suggestions on how to make a flash drive bootable. What you're talking about doesn't sound possible because, like pritchardo92 said, I'm quite positive that the BIOS does little more than recognize the device is there and some info (manufacture, etc.) if it's not booting from it. If you have a PC that can't boot from USB or if the BIOS setup is password protected but can already boot from CD or Floppy you can force USB boot with the PLoP Bootmanager which is configurable to silently auto-boot what you want it too. USB 2.0 speed can also be forced if the MoBo can only boot 1.1.

[Netshroud]

Most BIOS'es have a key to do a one-time change of the boot order. On my system, an Aspire One, my brother's Dell Inspiron 530s and my school's Lenovo systems, it's F12; on my school's ASI systems, it's F8.

[w1ldf1re]

I've been looking into the PloP boot manager, and it does allow USB booting, but from what i can see, it has to be installed, so if there's a way to do it without installing the bootmanager, but rather using it off say, a cd, then that would be great... there have also been mentions of using a linux distro or something, to put on a cd, so when cd is selected, it automatically boots the usb.. i think this (http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=33094) is maybe along the right lines... correct me if i'm wrong on both sides, as i'm not sure about either...

[H@L0_F00]

PLoP is ran from a CD or even a floppy, although it can be installed.

The linux CD sounds like it should work. I would rather chainload the complete flash drive instead of specifying each entry on a CD which isn't rw, but this could be done from the same CD.