The changes I make to my live session don't get saved upon reboot

[Aaron E-J]

So in February my computer crashed and after a bit of hassle, I
installed 8.10 to a flash drive in early April. Then, this week I had
access to a good enough network to upgrade to 9.04, thinking it would
be much better and it is, with one huge problem – the changes I make
don't get saved upon reboot. (I wish I had tested this sooner) I have
heard that there is some work around involving partitioning the drive
in ext2 format with a specific name. The only problem is this is
probably for the full install, not for the live session. I don't want
to do a full install to my flash if I don't absolutely need to as it
takes up too much space and I want to use the space to install more
programs/features. Anyone have any idea why my settings are not saved?
I guess the first thing I'll try is reinstalling the live OS, but
failing that, anyone have any suggestions?

-- 
Aaron E-J
http://otherrealm.org
http://aaronej.blogspot.com