How Can I Access a 2nd C Drive Linking 2 PCs With USB Data Transfer Cable

[Bondppq]

Hello, I am using a special data transfer cable with particular softwares: Bravura & PCLinq5 to link 2 mini-PC sticks together to recognize each other’s C Drives to wipe them clean and reformat to them, but I’m not able to see the C Drives of each no matter what I do. Both use Win 10. Is there any software that I can download that can see both C Drives? Any suggestions please is appreciated. thank you

 

[Bighorn]

How Can I Access a 2nd C Drive Linking 2 PCs With USB Data Transfer Cable

Hello, I am using a special data transfer cable with particular softwares: Bravura & PCLinq5 to link 2 mini-PC sticks together to recognize each other’s C Drives to wipe them clean and reformat to them, but I’m not able to see the C Drives of each no matter what I do. Both use Win 11. Is there...

www.windows11forums.com

Are these what you are using?

Amazon.com : mini pc stick

 

[Bondppq]

Hello thank you for your quick reply, I have 3 Asus TS10 VivoSticks with Win 10 on them and 1 AceMacigian Pro mini-PC box with Win 11 on it. On the Asus stix (Win 10) I find it impossible to "fully" turn off automatic updates, and it floods the 32gb drive to a mere 100's mb size. On the Ace box (Win 11) I see the option of turning off automatic updates so far.

I can’t do a reinstall of Win 10 on the stix nor install any 3rd-party softwares to convert them to a Linux system because of the lack of disk space. So I’m giving up on MSFT and trying to wipe all drives and re-format the file system to EXT4 and install Debian with a Deepin distro. But I still can’t get Linux on the drives because there is no space on any 32 gb stix.

I tried this using Rufus and BalenaEtcher but to no avail, so I bought a USB data transfer cable with Bravura and PCLinq5 to try and link 2 stix and remotely wipe one drive through the cable but the target C Drive does not show up under File Explorer - This PC so I can’t reformat it to install Linux Debian / Deepin. I also tried Eassos DiskGenius to remotely access the 2nd stix target C Drive but its not being recognized.

I want to do the same for the Ace box and wipe Win 11 off and go Linux but that is not crucial right now since I have 256 gb size on that drive and auto updates is turned off so the stix is the first hurdle with the box being done right afterwards if I’m successful at this. But I’m not sure what else I can do here, is all of this possible? Thank you in advance for any help.

 

[Bighorn]

If not needing/wanting Windows on a computer but do want Linux I have downloaded the .iso file for Linux Mint [there's a number of 'flavors' of Debian-based Linux on www.distrowatch.org] I use the file to create the bootable DVD disc, boot to it and use the USB Image Writer to create the bootable USB Thumb drive using that same .iso file as the Source. Then I can boot the USB and use the GPARTED [GNU Partition Editor] to completely wipe a drive to give as-shipped condition. On a 32GB SSD there would be about 1/3rd used so with Linux there is no space issue.

For installing Windows I use the MCT/Media Creation Tool provided by Microsoft to create either a DVD or USB drive.

 

[Bondppq]

When I use Rufus the device it recognizes is both the external D Drive and the E Drive for the mouse driver, it locks onto both of these drives on the same line and I can’t separate them as I fear it may overwrite some USB drivers for the mouse and make it inoperable. But I still get a failure with Rufus anyways when I tried it.

And then when going on the GParted website it says for me to first download Linux ISO the Linux Live Usb Creator then it says -“This Linux is not in the compatibility list” despite it being the latest Deepen stable version that i just downloaded off the Deepin website today, and their own Deepin Boot Installer also did not work which leads me to believe that something is wrong with my USB stick itself although it seems to be working fine when I use it.

I think I’m going to buy a new USB stick this weekend and try using that and if that still doesn’t work then I give up and bringing it to a PC store and just paying them to install Linux on these PC stix.

 

[Bighorn]

I've not had any issue over the years with the Bootable GPARTED LiveCD discs I've created from the downloaded .iso file. I use Roxio Easy CD/DVD Creator for burning the DVD+R or DVD-R Discs, never the RW. It does run a 'lite' version of Linux. What I keep stored:

The only real difference I've found with Win11 versus Win10 is that 11 is not available for an install of 32-bit/x86 version although it will still run most of the same programs as 10, folder structure is the same with Program Files and Program Files (x86).

 

[Bondppq]

So getting back to this problem after I had to shelf it for a holiday week, I decided not to get back into solving the problem myself because I can't stand the time kill torture any longer.

So I'm just going to bring the mini-PC's to a computer shop and tell them to do it for me instead. But I have one last question for this forum -

Can I have 3 different bootable Linux distro each on their own partitions on 1 USB thumbdrive, but what would happen when you insert the thumbdrive?

Would a boot menu load first asking the user which partition you would like to start from? I would like to eliminate any extra steps so that I can just plug in the thumbdrive and it goes into an autoloader mode to install the Linux distro, but a simple boot menu as described above is fine besides anything else further. Will this be possible and how much space would I need for this per partition, per Linux distro? thank you.

 

[Bighorn]

I've found that using USB Image Writer on my Linux will wipe the drive first so the answer for me is No. If I want to try different 'flavors' of Linux I use separate 8GB Thumb drives.

 

[Bondppq]

I just a bought a new 32 gb thumbdrive so I was thinking of splitting it up into 3 partitions of 10 gb's each with 3 different Linux distro autoloaders on it - 1) Debian-Deepin 2) Ubuntu-Trenta 3) Ubuntu-Elementary so I can try them all out to see which one I like the most. But you are saying that this isn't possible? Or is it that the boot menu won't show up once the thumb is plugged in to click on which autoloader to load?

 

[Bighorn]

I was just saying that using the downloaded .iso file for any version of Debian Linux such Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Lubuntu or Mint and creating the bootable USB drive has always wiped it clean at the beginning of the USB Image Writer process. It's the same when using the MCT/Media Creation Tool provided by Microsoft which clean formats the USB drive as FAT32 and no larger than 32GB as that's a Windows limit. A Linux LiveUSB can't be read by Windows, uses a format not included with Windows.

When I see a new offering/mention of a version of Linux I go to DistroWatch to start my reading and usually will find screen shots to get a preliminary idea of whether to read further.

 

[Bondppq]

And with a new USB - (SanDisk Ultra Luxe 32GB USB 3.1 SDCZ74-032G-G46) after reformatting to EXT4 for these partitions will I be wiping away any vital Linux drivers or kernels that would prevent me from doing the set up what I’ve described above?

 

[Bighorn]

And with a new USB - (SanDisk Ultra Luxe 32GB USB 3.1 SDCZ74-032G-G46) after reformatting to EXT4 for these partitions will I be wiping away any vital Linux drivers or kernels that would prevent me from doing the set up what I’ve described above?

Can't say for sure but there's always a risk when writing files to the root/boot level of a drive. But each version of Linux I've created a live USB from has included necessary drivers to at least check that the computer hardware works.

 

[Pradip Shah]

I came across one such cable + software that allowed USB to USB connection of 2 PCs for sharing resources. I doubt if they are still in business. That was almost 20+ years ago.