Hi.

Yes you can.

You can simply use the usb-creator application in the Desktop version of Ubuntu to write the iso image to a usb drive. There is also a windows version of this application, too. The USB creator asks you how big you want the persistent data to be. It will create the persisten data file and alter the boot configuration so that the space is used.

If you want to do it by hand from the command line, here's how I *think* it's done.

Create a loop filesystem formatted to ext3 and name it casper-rw. Place that in the root of the usb drive.

$touch casper-rw
$dd if=/dev/zero of=casper-rw bs=512 count=2000000
#that will make it 1 gig

$ mkfs.ext3 casper-rw
mke2fs 1.41.4 (27-Jan-2009)
casper-rw is not a block special device.
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y

Then, make sure that the word "persistent" appears in the isolinux configuration file for the default live option. This will make the live system look for persistent data at boot time.

Example:
LABEL live
menu label Start or install Ubuntu
kernel /casper/vmlinuz
append file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed persistent boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.lz quiet splash --

And you should be good to go....

Hi Andrew, thanks for the fast response.
OK, that's what i did (windows' creator with 3Gigs persistence) but how do i make the changes persistent?
every time i boot all the stuff is gone again ... ;(

no, the drive had a kind of rescue system consisting of a bunch of exe files drawn together with a menu - i thought the "USB Installer v0.2for Ubuntu Rescue Remix Setup" would flatten the drive before using it, which is not the case: there's still all the exes on there - do you think this builds the issue?
193 MB are used, 3.53 GB unused ... max. persistence level i could do was for 3 GB.
Thank you so much, m@

/cdrom:
total 460K
268K DCoTMenu.exe
4.0K DCoTMenu.ini
8.0K AppList.ini
4.0K install
0 ubuntu
4.0K README.diskdefines
4.0K syslinux
4.0K casper
4.0K md5sum.txt
4.0K HDDScan
4.0K Hash
4.0K Filemon
4.0K LSASecretsView
4.0K LCISOCreator
4.0K Iso-burner
4.0K iceecc
4.0K ProduKey
4.0K ProcessExplorer
4.0K PMMon
4.0K Patcher
4.0K Sequoia
4.0K Rootkit Revealer
4.0K Restoration
4.0K Regmon
4.0K siw
4.0K UniExtract
4.0K TweakUI
4.0K WirelessKeyView
4.0K WhyReboot
4.0K WhatChanged
4.0K virtualcd
4.0K CCleaner
4.0K BruteBenchmark
4.0K AutoCompress
4.0K DriveImage XML
4.0K DoubleKiller
4.0K DiskImg
4.0K CommTest
4.0K CDmage
4.0K Eraser
4.0K encopy
4.0K dtaskmanager
4.0K erunt
4.0K FileAssassin
4.0K explore2fsPE
0 Autorun.inf
16K ldlinux.sys

/cdrom/install:
total 488K
128K memtest
360K sbm.img

/cdrom/syslinux:
total 44K
12K splash.rle
4.0K isolinux.cfg
16K isolinux.bin
4.0K boot.cat
4.0K syslinux.cfg
4.0K isolinux.txt

/cdrom/casper:
total 166M
3.8M vmlinuz
8.1M initrd.gz
155M filesystem.squashfs

/cdrom/HDDScan:
total 424K
408K HDDScan.exe
4.0K what`s new.txt
4.0K usb.txt
8.0K faq.txt

/cdrom/Hash:
total 32K
32K Hash.exe

/cdrom/Filemon:
total 756K
16K filemon.hlp
8.0K Eula.txt
732K Filemon.exe

/cdrom/LSASecretsView:
total 56K
36K LSASecretsView.exe
4.0K readme.txt
16K LSASecretsView.chm

/cdrom/LCISOCreator:
total 56K
52K LCISOCreator.exe
4.0K readme.txt

/cdrom/Iso-burner:
total 344K
8.0K license.txt
40K Iso-Burner.chm
296K Iso-Burner.exe

/cdrom/iceecc:
total 644K
612K ICE ECC.exe
32K iceecc.chm
0 Options.cfg

/cdrom/ProduKey:
total 56K
32K ProduKey.exe
8.0K readme.txt
16K ProduKey.chm

/cdrom/ProcessExplorer:
total 3.6M
8.0K Eula.txt
72K procexp.chm
3.5M procexp.exe

/cdrom/PMMon:
total 132K
116K PMMon.exe
8.0K Relnotes.html
8.0K License.html

/cdrom/Patcher:
total 52K
48K Patcher.exe
4.0K readme.txt

/cdrom/Sequoia:
total 2.0M
4.0K Images.col
4.0K Movies.col
4.0K Sound.col
4.0K Archives.col
4.0K default.col
4.0K DeIsL1.isu
8.0K License.txt
4.0K Sequoia.cnt
608K sequoia.hlp
1.3M Sequoia.exe
4.0K ReleaseNotes.txt

/cdrom/Rootkit Revealer:
total 436K
100K RootkitRevealer.chm
8.0K Eula.txt
328K RootkitRevealer.exe

/cdrom/Restoration:
total 420K
204K dll32.dll
8.0K dll16.dll
8.0K readme.txt
200K Restoration.exe

/cdrom/Regmon:
total 716K
16K regmon.hlp
8.0K Eula.txt
692K Regmon.exe

/cdrom/siw:
total 1.3M
1.3M siw.exe

/cdrom/UniExtract:
total 280K
20K uniextract_license.txt
8.0K uniextract_changelog.txt
4.0K UniExtract.ini
240K UniExtract.exe
4.0K lang
4.0K bin

/cdrom/UniExtract/lang:
total 12K
12K English.ini

/cdrom/UniExtract/bin:
total 4.6M
24K winset.exe
56K zd51145.dll
360K xace.exe
48K wun.exe
252K userdb.txt
196K upx.exe
164K unzip.exe
76K UNUHARC06.EXE
196K UnRAR.exe
100K uharc04.exe
100K uharc02.exe
20K tee.exe
160K PEiD.exe
288K msi2xml.exe
56K lzop.exe
852K kgb_arch_decompress.exe
60K IsXunpack.exe
60K i6comp.exe
120K i3comp.exe
232K helpdeco.exe
16K ForceLibrary.dll
224K extractMHT.exe
52K extract.exe
40K e_wise_w.exe
4.0K e_wise.ini
48K clit.exe
48K bin2iso.exe
16K AspackDie.exe
268K arj.exe
84K arc.exe
120K 7z.exe
316K innounp.exe
4.0K Formats
4.0K Codecs

/cdrom/UniExtract/bin/Formats:
total 556K
68K zip.dll
16K z.dll
28K tar.dll
24K split.dll
12K rpm.dll
40K nsis.dll
28K lzh.dll
24K iso.dll
28K gz.dll
20K deb.dll
20K cpio.dll
40K chm.dll
44K cab.dll
24K bz2.dll
140K 7z.dll

/cdrom/UniExtract/bin/Codecs:
total 216K
8.0K Swap.dll
28K PPMd.dll
48K lzma.dll
28K Deflate.dll
8.0K Copy.dll
32K BZip2.dll
20K Branch.dll
32K aes.dll
12K 7zAES.dll

/cdrom/TweakUI:
total 424K
160K PowerToysLicense.rtf
264K TweakUI.exe

/cdrom/WirelessKeyView:
total 56K
36K WirelessKeyView.exe
16K WirelessKeyView.chm
4.0K readme.txt

/cdrom/WhyReboot:
total 112K
4.0K Relnotes.html
8.0K License.html
100K WhyReboot.exe

/cdrom/WhatChanged:
total 128K
128K whatchanged.exe

/cdrom/virtualcd:
total 40K
12K VCdRom.sys
24K VCdControlTool.exe
4.0K readme.txt

/cdrom/CCleaner:
total 1.5M
48K ccleaner.dll
156K CCListView.ocx
60K CCTab.ocx
144K CCTreeView.ocx
40K CCSubTimer.dll
56K CCSystem.dll
64K CCHelper.ocx
4.0K winreg.ini
76K CCListBar.ocx
8.0K winsys.ini
4.0K CCPortable.ini
4.0K CCleanerLicense.txt
4.0K readme.txt
12K lang-2052.dll
20K lang-1033.dll
40K winapp2.ini
44K portable.exe
56K BeginnersGuide.chm
4.0K history.txt
40K winapp.ini
580K ccleaner.exe
4.0K portable.ini

/cdrom/BruteBenchmark:
total 112K
4.0K Brute.cnt
8.0K brute.hlp
4.0K 2DCardDatabase.bbr
4.0K FPUDatabase.bbr
80K Brute.exe
4.0K HDDDatabase.bbr
4.0K CPUDatabase.bbr
4.0K ReadMe.txt

/cdrom/AutoCompress:
total 20K
4.0K ReadMe_ENG.txt
16K AutoCompress.exe

/cdrom/DriveImage XML:
total 1.7M
292K vssxp.dll
344K vssserv.dll
40K dixml.chm
1.1M dixml.exe

/cdrom/DoubleKiller:
total 792K
792K DoubleKiller.exe

/cdrom/DiskImg:
total 76K
76K DiskImg.exe

/cdrom/CommTest:
total 72K
72K CommTest.exe

/cdrom/CDmage:
total 1.3M
1.3M CDmage.exe

/cdrom/Eraser:
total 1.8M
20K copying.txt
4.0K eraser.cnt
40K eraserd.exe
8.0K eraser.xml
8.0K readme.txt
8.0K history.txt
236K eraserl.exe
264K verify.exe
280K Erasext.dll
296K eraser.hlp
628K eraser.exe
4.0K file_id.diz
4.0K schedlog.txt
4.0K default.ers

/cdrom/encopy:
total 60K
56K encopy3.exe
4.0K Read.htm

/cdrom/dtaskmanager:
total 164K
4.0K License (ENG).txt
8.0K DTaskManager (ENG).txt
4.0K DTaskManager.ini
148K DTaskManager.exe

/cdrom/erunt:
total 592K
4.0K erunt.loc
4.0K ntregopt.loc
4.0K erdntwin.loc
8.0K loc_ger.zip
4.0K erdntdos.loc
156K erunt.exe
160K erdnt.e_e
140K ntregopt.exe
40K liesmich.txt
40K autoback.exe
32K readme.txt

/cdrom/FileAssassin:
total 140K
36K FileASSASSIN.dll
104K FileASSASSIN.exe

/cdrom/explore2fsPE:
total 108K
4.0K explore2fsPE.ini
92K explore2fsPE.exe
4.0K Other
4.0K Data
4.0K App

/cdrom/explore2fsPE/Other:
total 4.0K
4.0K explore2fsPECode

/cdrom/explore2fsPE/Other/explore2fsPECode:
total 108K
20K License.txt
8.0K Readme.txt
8.0K explore2fs.ico
60K explore2fsPE.jpg
12K explore2fsPE.nsi

/cdrom/explore2fsPE/Data:
total 4.0K
4.0K settings

/cdrom/explore2fsPE/Data/settings:
total 4.0K
4.0K settings.reg

/cdrom/explore2fsPE/App:
total 4.0K
4.0K explore2fs

/cdrom/explore2fsPE/App/explore2fs:
total 888K
20K copying.txt
28K diskio2.dll
8.0K changes.txt
8.0K readme.txt
820K explore2fs.exe
4.0K explore2fs debug log.txt

I hope it's O.K. to post it like this? I didn't find a possibility to attach a file ... sorry
Should I format the USB flash and reinstall or would you want to examine it more closely?
Thanks for your help.
Cheers, m@

What I would be interested in knowing is what happens if you delete everything on it (not format) and then try again using the Ubuntu desktop usb creator. You would need to boot the full ubuntu desktop cd and use it to write the rescue-remix iso to that USB drive with persistence.

If that works, then the problem is with the Windows version and we can then track down that bug. If it doesn't work, then maybe there is an issue with the drive itself.

Are you able to do that?

This works - my changes stay available for the next boot now after using the "USB Startup Disk Creator" from Ubuntu. Thanks a lot for your very appreciated help. Should I try to install from windows again to confirm a problem?
Ciao, m@