openSUSE Live USB with windows-accessible FAT32 partition

Question

I have a 64gb flash drive. I want to set it up so I can use it for windows-accessible Fat32 data storage while also being able to boot to it using a large (20-30gb) persistent openSUSE live USB installation. Does anybody know how I can go about creating this sort of setup?

I know about live-fat-stick, the problem is that this only allows installations that are up to 4gb in size, which is about a factor of 5 too small. suse studio image writer formats the entire drive, and although it has a partition that would normally be readable on windows, that partition is at the end and windows can only read the first partition in a removable device.

Edit: To be a bit more specific, I want to divide my 64 gb drive into two sections of roughly 32 gb each. The first is for file storage and should be accessible by both Windows and Linux (including android). The second is a bootable, persistent 64 bit openSUSE 13.2 installation. Whether these are separate partitions or not, and what the partition format(s) are isn't really that important. The USB drive is is /dev/sdb on my computer, but I can't guarantee it will be seen as /dev/sdb on all computers I might use it on.

Edit 2: I want to be able to use the file storage part on any Windows or Linux computer. On my own computers, there are other solutions I can use for moving files around (like network storage). So a solution that requires me to install additional software on any computer I want to use the flash drive with won't work. I can install whatever software I need on the computer I will use to set up the flash drive, but on other computers the solution should work natively. Neither will a solution that requires administrator access on any computer I want to use the flash drive with.

Answer 1

Take a look at this: Create a Larger than 4GB Casper Partition, and How to resize casper-rw Images in Windows. The tutorials are old for ubuntu, but I think it can be used for any Linux distros.

The reason why a separate partition must be created is because the USB creator only makes one partition by default (FAT32 filesystem). Onto that partition it copies the CD or ISO contents and creates a persistence file called casper-rw. Since FAT32 can't hold larger then 4GB files the persistence file can't be any larger then 4GB.

Source: AskUbuntu

Answer 2

The simple way is to do it by hand. Lets start with the assumption that you have at your disposal a linux machine with an available usb port and that you have a blank usb thumb drive (or one that you don't mind wiping). You can use an existing thumb drive distro for your setup distro. Insert but do not mount the thumb drive. Partition it placing the fat partition first and any other later (I am assuming that you are using fat partitioning, if you are using gpt you need two fat partitions, the main one and the boot one, but I am unfamiliar with efi usb boot restrictions). format both partitions (windows format assumes windows fdisk so do both format and fdisk on the same operating system). Install linux to the thumb drive Using a regular installer (not a cd converter). I would either use debootstrap or the debian installer because I am familiar with them and they are versatile. Do not touch the shared partition. After installing the operating system (and bootloader) boot from the thumb drive and add the fat partition to the fstab. There you go. (some details omitted for brevity)

Answer 3

The key to the issue is that Windows will only read the first partition on a removable drive, and a bootable FAT32 can only use (addressable space) 4G. So the solution given here: Multiple Partitions on 64GB USB drive (Windows) was to change the USB registration to tell Windows that it is a fixed drive, and then it would access the other partition as well.

That article links to this one: How to Partition a Thumb Drive and then you can use Yumi or Bootit or Unet or PenDrive or any of the other distro-to-usb installers on the first partition.