creating a bootable USB drive - Grub

[JavaWannabe]

Hi all,

I am trying to create a bootable usb drive with any linux OS preferably fedora and maybe a backtrack manually and not with 3rd party software but I am having difficulty.

I have a 4gig usb drive.

I laid down a ext3 partition
~ mke2fs --> which was successful
~ I also copied my boot directory from a previous fedora install

Now on my usb drive I have a boot dir and w/in that boot directory I have all the grub stuff.

When I boot to the usb drive only a grub command line show and I can't do anything on it.

In my grub directory I do have an Image and initrd file.

Any help for a simple process would be much appreciated as I have been reading grub material all week and still not getting too far.

Thank you!

[yancek]

Did you install Fedora to the usb?
If so, how?
What operating system is installed on the computer?

I also copied my boot directory from a previous fedora install

That won't make it bootable. If you could answer the above questions and with your usb drive attached run the command:

fdisk -l(lower case letter L in the command)

post the output here and post the contents of the /boot/grub/grub.conf file on your flash drive.

In my grub directory I do have an Image and initrd file.

Image?? You mean the fedora iso image?

[JavaWannabe]

I do not have an .iso copy on the usb drive. I suppose one should be included within the drive?? -> Is this correct?

Please let me know ifmore info is needed.

Below is my single partition on the usb drive

Disk /dev/sdb: 4012 MB, 4012900352 bytes
59 heads, 28 sectors/track, 4744 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1652 * 512 = 845824 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 2 4745 3917824 83 Linux

Below is the contents of the Boot directory -> the only directory on the usb drive

config-2.6.18-238.el5 lost+found System.map-2.6.18-238.el5
grub message vmlinuz-2.6.18-238.el5
initrd-2.6.18-238.el5.img symvers-2.6.18-238.el5.gz