One Rescue USB does it all, well that's the plan at any rate ...

[Java Jive]

This is a deliberate X-post between Linux & Windows groups because, as
per subject, I wish to create one USB stick that can act as a rescue
system for both Linux & Windows 7 & 10

As a half-way house test-bench, I have partitioned an external HD in a
USB drive-bay as follows:

P1 Ubuntu 22 | P2 Clonezilla | P3 Win 10 Install | P4 Ghost & ISO images

The PCs involved are:
1 Dell Precision M6700 x 2
2 Dell Inspiron 15RSE 7520
3 Dell Precision M6300


PROBLEM #1:

I can boot from the external HD on PC3, & I think PC2 but cannot check
just now as I'm using it to write this, but certainly not on either of
PC1, which both give the message "Invalid Partition Table!". AFAICT,
their BIOS settings are set to support fully legacy booting, which is
what this disk is partitioned as, and they boot happily from their own
internal legacy partitioned disks, but not this external one. They also
boot happily from a number of USB sticks. The most obvious difference
between these two PCs and the others is that they both have two internal
HDs:
Disk 0, /dev/sda, contains just two data partitions.
Disk 1, /dev/sdb, contains four OS partitions:
Win 7
Win 10
Win 7 32-Bit
Ubuntu 22

Can anyone suggest how I can arrange things so that all the PCs can boot
from this external HD?


PROBLEM #2

I can boot into Clonezilla 3.1.2, but not into its syslinux.cfg menu as
happens when I boot from the USB directly; the method I found online
seems designed to boot directly into the first option of the syslinux
menu, not to invoke the menu itself. How can I boot via grub into the
same menu that you get when booting it as a USB?

The method that I found online suggests placing the following grub
fragment in either ...
/boot/grub/grub.cfg
... but that won't survive updates to grub, or to ...
/etc/grub.d/40_custom
... which will:

menuentry "Clonezilla" {
savedefault
set root=(hd0,2)
linux /live/vmlinuz boot=live union=overlay username=user config
components quiet noswap nolocales edd=on nomodeset
ocs_live_run=\"ocs-live-general\" ocs_live_extra_param=\"\"
keyboard-layouts= ocs_live_batch=\"no\" locales= vga=788 ip=frommedia
nosplash live-media-path=/live bootfrom=/dev/sda2 toram=live,syslinux,EFI
initrd /live/initrd.img
}


PROBLEM #3

I have added to Clonezilla's syslinux.cfg menu an option of my own to
boot into an ISO of an old W98 console for running Dell Diagnostics, a
legacy version of Ghost, etc. When booting from the original USB stick,
I see the new option, and it seems to find the ISO and gets some way
into booting it, but then stalls with the message:
Loading boot sector... booting...

I can't seems to find a way of chaining to IO.SYS. Can anyone suggest
how I might do this? This is what I put in the syslinux.cfg menu:

label EmerDellGhost
# MENU DEFAULT
# MENU HIDE
MENU LABEL Emergency W98 Boot - Legacy Ghost & Dell Diagnostics
# MENU PASSWD
kernel memdisk
append initrd=/live/EmerDellGhost.iso
TEXT HELP
Run Windows 98 boot with legacy Ghost (2003) and
Dell Diagnostics for Latitude D610 & Precision M6300
ENDTEXT


SUCCESSES

In case it's of interest or help to others, I've managed to boot into a
variety of ISOs of Windows installation media. This is how I managed it:

For the unzipped ISO in Partition 3 above, Grub's os-probe finds the PE
environment for itself and correctly sets up to boot into it.

For booting directly from ISOs which have not been unzipped, WimBoot is
needed ...

https://github.com/ipxe/wimboot/releases

... which I placed by itself in a directory WimBoot in Partition 4.
Then as described above and as found online I added the following
fragment to ...
/etc/grub.d/40_custom
... and it and others like it all work:

menuentry "Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit Install" --unrestricted --class
Windows {
savedefault
set iso_path="(hd0,msdos4)/Windows_7_Home_Premium_64Bit_x17-58997.iso"
loopback loop "$iso_path"
linux16 (hd0,msdos4)/WimBoot/wimboot
initrd16 \
newc:bootmgr:(loop)/bootmgr \
newc:BCD:(loop)/boot/bcd \
newc:boot.sdi:(loop)/boot/boot.sdi \
newc:boot.wim:(loop)/sources/boot.wim
}

[Mike Easter]

I wish to create one USB stick that can act as a rescue system for both
Linux & Windows 7 & 10

I think I would choose a linux rescue type distro of my choice plus a
Hirens such as the PE one so it would cover 10 and put both .iso/s on a
Ventoy stick. There are also a lot of things on the old Hirens 15
(which is XP and a lot of MSDOS & linux) that aren't on the PE that
might be useful for Win related stuff and would cover that angle.

The nice thing about the Ventoy 'idea' is that you could have a wide
selection of linux rescue distro/s and the hirens pe & 15.

You would do your rescue work from a live boot.

Hiren's PE 3G .iso
Hiren's 15.2 0.6G .iso
clonezilla-live-3.1.2-22-i686 0.36G .iso

Also consider such as Rescatux, Sparky Rescue, SystemRescue, etc.

Sparky's is 1.8G.

[Mike Easter]

Post by Mike Easter
The nice thing about the Ventoy 'idea' is that you could have a wide
selection of linux rescue distro/s and the hirens pe & 15.
You would do your rescue work from a live boot.
Also consider such as Rescatux, Sparky Rescue, SystemRescue, etc.
Sparky's is 1.8G.

More on Sparky's

https://wiki.sparkylinux.org/doku.php/sparky_rescue

[Java Jive]

Post by Mike Easter

Post by Mike Easter
The nice thing about the Ventoy 'idea' is that you could have a wide
selection of linux rescue distro/s and the hirens pe & 15.
You would do your rescue work from a live boot.
Also consider such as Rescatux, Sparky Rescue, SystemRescue, etc.
Sparky's is 1.8G.

More on Sparky's
https://wiki.sparkylinux.org/doku.php/sparky_rescue

Thanks to both yourself & Jeff Gaines for your replies, I've downloaded
Ventoy & Sparky and will investigate them. However, in the meantime can
anyone help with the specific problems listed?

[Java Jive]

Post by Java Jive

Post by Mike Easter

Post by Mike Easter
The nice thing about the Ventoy 'idea' is that you could have a wide
selection of linux rescue distro/s and the hirens pe & 15.
You would do your rescue work from a live boot.
Also consider such as Rescatux, Sparky Rescue, SystemRescue, etc.
Sparky's is 1.8G.

More on Sparky's
https://wiki.sparkylinux.org/doku.php/sparky_rescue

Thanks to both yourself & Jeff Gaines for your replies, I've downloaded
Ventoy & Sparky and will investigate them.  However, in the meantime can
anyone help with the specific problems listed?

Well, I *thought* I'd downloaded Ventoy, but now I see that the download
failed. Of the three formats here tried in two browsers ...
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ventoy/files/v1.0.99/
... only the zip seems to download. I get about 175-185 of 196MB of the
live CD iso, and about 10-14 of 20MB of the tar.gz, but never a complete
download of either. Due to the sodding Javascript obfuscation, WayBack
doesn't work on these pages.

Anyone able to download all three?

[Andy Burns]

Post by Java Jive
Anyone able to download all three?

sourceforge doesn't allow me to press the "don't accept cookies" button.

firefox+ghostery

[Java Jive]

Post by Andy Burns

Post by Java Jive
Well, I *thought* I'd downloaded Ventoy, but now I see that the download
failed. Of the three formats here tried in two browsers ...
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ventoy/files/v1.0.99/
... only the zip seems to download. I get about 175-185 of 196MB of the
live CD iso, and about 10-14 of 20MB of the tar.gz, but never a complete
download of either. Due to the sodding Javascript obfuscation, WayBack
doesn't work on these pages.
Anyone able to download all three?

sourceforge doesn't allow me to press the "don't accept cookies" button.
firefox+ghostery

Yes, it seems to be some sort of silly-buggers protectionism, for FREE
OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE, for chrissake! What I think may have been
happening in my case was that a certain amount of time was allowed for
the size of the download, and because I have moderately slow rurual
mobile connection, the portcullis was coming down just before the
downloads could complete.

However, I've found a way around it ...

<Right-Click> the failed item in your browser's downloads page, and
paste it into a new tab, remove the part after the '?', which from
memory was ?viasf=1. This takes you to a mirror without all the silly
buggers, and it just works, or at least did for me.

[Java Jive]

Oops ... As hopefully anyone interested would have realised ...

Post by Java Jive
Yes, it seems to be some sort of silly-buggers protectionism, for FREE
OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE, for chrissake!  What I think may have been
happening in my case was that a certain amount of time was allowed for
the size of the download, and because I have a moderately slow rural
mobile connection, the portcullis was coming down just before the
downloads could complete.
However, I've found a way around it ...
<Right-Click> the failed item in your browser's downloads page, and
paste it into a new tab, remove the part

... including and ...

Post by Java Jive
after the '?', which from
memory was ?viasf=1.  This takes you to a mirror without all the silly
buggers, and it just works, or at least did for me.

[Mike Easter]

Post by Java Jive
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ventoy/files/v1.0.99/

The way I use Ventoy on a USB stick is to dl the linux tar.gz and do the
browser install as per https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_linux_webui.html

1. run sudo bash VentoyWeb.sh in the terminal
2. open browser and visit http://127.0.0.1:24680

I've never had any problem dl/ing any of the versions of Ventoy I've used.

[croy]

Post by Java Jive
Well, I *thought* I'd downloaded Ventoy, but now I see that the download
failed. Of the three formats here tried in two browsers ...
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ventoy/files/v1.0.99/
... only the zip seems to download. I get about 175-185 of 196MB of the
live CD iso, and about 10-14 of 20MB of the tar.gz, but never a complete
download of either. Due to the sodding Javascript obfuscation, WayBack
doesn't work on these pages.
Anyone able to download all three?

All three came down the pipe just fine here.

[Java Jive]

Post by croy

Post by Java Jive
Well, I *thought* I'd downloaded Ventoy, but now I see that the download
failed. Of the three formats here tried in two browsers ...
https://sourceforge.net/projects/ventoy/files/v1.0.99/
... only the zip seems to download. I get about 175-185 of 196MB of the
live CD iso, and about 10-14 of 20MB of the tar.gz, but never a complete
download of either. Due to the sodding Javascript obfuscation, WayBack
doesn't work on these pages.
Anyone able to download all three?

All three came down the pipe just fine here.

Thanks for the info, OOI (see my reply to Andy), what sort of download
speeds do you have?

[croy]

Post by Java Jive
Thanks for the info, OOI (see my reply to Andy), what sort of download
speeds do you have?

Pretty fast--direct fiber.

[Java Jive]

Post by croy

Post by Java Jive
Thanks for the info, OOI (see my reply to Andy), what sort of download
speeds do you have?

Pretty fast--direct fiber.

So that would fit my theory then. Thanks for bothering to investigate
and supplying the information.

[Mike Easter]

Post by Mike Easter
More on Sparky's
https://wiki.sparkylinux.org/doku.php/sparky_rescue

Now I've used Ventoy w/ Clonezilla, SystemRescue, & Sparky Rescue.

I don't like the clonezilla boot, too much TUI; I like the tools in
Sparky's but I want a more graphical UI than OB WM so I can do things
like change the tz or use stickykeys w/o using commandline. I also like
Sparky's tools a LOT better than SystResc.

Sparky's UI is OpenBox w/ a lot of rescue stuff. I rigged it w/ xfce by
using

sudo apt install task-xfce-desktop

and then after it was installed logged out and back in choosing xfce.

JJ - if you don't like what I post, ignore it or filter me; I don't
follow your wishes for what I say; and' I don't like x-posting to all of
these disparate groups like you started this thread. It has pretty much
become a aol thread for me now, so I'll change my f/ups.

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On Sat, 22 Jun 2024 14:09:26 -0700

Post by Mike Easter

I wish to create one USB stick that can act as a rescue system for both
Linux & Windows 7 & 10

I think I would choose a linux rescue type distro of my choice plus a
Hirens such as the PE one so it would cover 10 and put both .iso/s on a
Ventoy stick. There are also a lot of things on the old Hirens 15
(which is XP and a lot of MSDOS & linux) that aren't on the PE that
might be useful for Win related stuff and would cover that angle.
The nice thing about the Ventoy 'idea' is that you could have a wide
selection of linux rescue distro/s and the hirens pe & 15.
You would do your rescue work from a live boot.
Hiren's PE 3G .iso
Hiren's 15.2 0.6G .iso
clonezilla-live-3.1.2-22-i686 0.36G .iso
Also consider such as Rescatux, Sparky Rescue, SystemRescue, etc.
Sparky's is 1.8G.

When I was a boy, a rescue disk was just that, 1.44M max (OK just for
DOS)

[Mike Easter]

Post by Kerr-Mudd, John
When I was a boy, a rescue disk was just that, 1.44M max (OK just for
DOS)

I wasn't a boy at the time, but my first computer ONLY had a floppy for
'storage'; the Atari ST held its OS in an on-board EPROM that it booted
from. If you need to store something on the floppy, like a doc, and it
only held 720 KB.

Post by Kerr-Mudd, John
The Atari 1040ST, released in 1986 with 1 MB of memory, was the first home computer with a cost per kilobyte of RAM under US$1/KB.

All of that worked 'just fine' for what I was doing at the time, logging
onto a commercial BBS by dialup & commiserating w/ other AtariSTers or
using a graphical word processing program to print on a 9 pin dot
matrix. I didn't up to a 4 meg memory and a 20 meg hd, and networked
machines by their cartridge ports for years, and 24 pin dot matrix.
Those were 16/32 bit Motorola 68000s.

I was recently reading a backstory about Steve Jobs working a while at
Atari (the 8 bits) as a step in his dropping out days.

[Jeff Gaines]

This is a deliberate X-post between Linux & Windows groups because, as per
subject, I wish to create one USB stick that can act as a rescue system
for both Linux & Windows 7 & 10
As a half-way house test-bench, I have partitioned an external HD in a USB
P1 Ubuntu 22 | P2 Clonezilla | P3 Win 10 Install | P4 Ghost & ISO images
1 Dell Precision M6700 x 2
2 Dell Inspiron 15RSE 7520
3 Dell Precision M6300
I can boot from the external HD on PC3, & I think PC2 but cannot check
just now as I'm using it to write this, but certainly not on either of
PC1, which both give the message "Invalid Partition Table!". AFAICT,
their BIOS settings are set to support fully legacy booting, which is what
this disk is partitioned as, and they boot happily from their own internal
legacy partitioned disks, but not this external one. They also boot
happily from a number of USB sticks. The most obvious difference between
Disk 0, /dev/sda, contains just two data partitions.
Win 7
Win 10
Win 7 32-Bit
Ubuntu 22
Can anyone suggest how I can arrange things so that all the PCs can boot
from this external HD?

I use Ventoy which allows me to boot an external USB drive to any OS that
has a bootable iso on the Ventoy drive.

A question - are you using whatever key is appropriate to start your
BIOS's boot manager or expecting that whatever is on your Wimboot drive to
give you a choice of what drive to boot?

[Anssi Saari]

Post by Java Jive
PROBLEM #2
I can boot into Clonezilla 3.1.2, but not into its syslinux.cfg menu
as happens when I boot from the USB directly; the method I found
online seems designed to boot directly into the first option of the
syslinux menu, not to invoke the menu itself.

https://serverfault.com/questions/98950/how-do-i-chain-boot-from-grub-to-syslinux
proposes this:

set root='hd1,msdos1'
chainloader +1
boot

Does that work with root= adjusted to your system?

[Java Jive]

Post by Anssi Saari

Post by Java Jive
PROBLEM #2
I can boot into Clonezilla 3.1.2, but not into its syslinux.cfg menu
as happens when I boot from the USB directly; the method I found
online seems designed to boot directly into the first option of the
syslinux menu, not to invoke the menu itself.

https://serverfault.com/questions/98950/how-do-i-chain-boot-from-grub-to-syslinux
set root='hd1,msdos1'
chainloader +1
boot
Does that work with root= adjusted to your system?

I think I saw and tried that before writing my OP, but at any rate have
just tried it again. Adjusting root would give ...

set root='hd0,msdos2'
... or as Grub writes it ...
set root=(hd0,msdos2)
... then ...
chainloader +1
boot

... but both versions result simply in ...

Boot error

... with no further information supplied. Thanks anyway.

[Java Jive]

Although the Ventoy CD iso wouldn't boot after being copied to a USB by
Rufus, I was able to use Ventoy2Disk.exe in the zip to create a bootable
USB to try out. It's pretty neat, and both the problem PCs boot from it.

So to summarise the situation now, and include a problem I forgot to
mention before ...

Post by Java Jive
This is a deliberate X-post between Linux & Windows groups because, as
per subject, I wish to create one USB stick that can act as a rescue
system for both Linux & Windows 7 & 10
As a half-way house test-bench, I have partitioned an external HD in a
P1 Ubuntu 22 | P2 Clonezilla | P3 Win 10 Install | P4 Ghost & ISO images
    1  Dell Precision M6700 x 2
    2  Dell Inspiron 15RSE 7520
    3  Dell Precision M6300
I can boot from the external HD on PC3, & I think PC2 but cannot check
just now as I'm using it to write this, but certainly not on either of
PC1, which both give the message "Invalid Partition Table!".  AFAICT,
their BIOS settings are set to support fully legacy booting, which is
what this disk is partitioned as, and they boot happily from their own
internal legacy partitioned disks, but not this external one.  They also
boot happily from a number of USB sticks.  The most obvious difference
between these two PCs and the others is that they both have two internal
    Disk 0, /dev/sda, contains just two data partitions.
        Win 7
        Win 10
        Win 7 32-Bit
        Ubuntu 22
Can anyone suggest how I can arrange things so that all the PCs can boot
from this external HD?

As I could include one or more Live Linux USB *.ISOs, I think that most
probably this problem has been solved. However, I'd like to be able to
adapt the ISO to use a UK keyboard layout, see next section.

Post by Java Jive
PROBLEM #2
I can boot into Clonezilla 3.1.2, but not into its syslinux.cfg menu as
happens when I boot from the USB directly; the method I found online
seems designed to boot directly into the first option of the syslinux
menu, not to invoke the menu itself.  How can I boot via grub into the
same menu that you get when booting it as a USB?
The method that I found online suggests placing the following grub
fragment in either ...
    /boot/grub/grub.cfg
.... but that won't survive updates to grub, or to ...
    /etc/grub.d/40_custom
menuentry "Clonezilla" {
    savedefault
    set root=(hd0,2)
    linux /live/vmlinuz boot=live union=overlay username=user config
components quiet noswap nolocales edd=on nomodeset
ocs_live_run=\"ocs-live-general\" ocs_live_extra_param=\"\"
keyboard-layouts= ocs_live_batch=\"no\" locales= vga=788 ip=frommedia
nosplash live-media-path=/live bootfrom=/dev/sda2 toram=live,syslinux,EFI
    initrd /live/initrd.img
}

Solved as stated.

However, I forgot to mention before that I want to adapt both it and any
Live Linux ISOs to boot with a UK keyboard layout, as, particularly in
Clonezilla, the process of choosing one manually is tedious in the
extreme. Can anyone help with how to do that?

Post by Java Jive
PROBLEM #3
I have added to Clonezilla's syslinux.cfg menu an option of my own to
boot into an ISO of an old W98 console for running Dell Diagnostics, a
legacy version of Ghost, etc.  When booting from the original USB stick,
I see the new option, and it seems to find the ISO and gets some way
    Loading boot sector... booting...
I can't seems to find a way of chaining to IO.SYS.  Can anyone suggest
label EmerDellGhost
    # MENU DEFAULT
    # MENU HIDE
    MENU LABEL Emergency W98 Boot - Legacy Ghost & Dell Diagnostics
    # MENU PASSWD
    kernel memdisk
    append initrd=/live/EmerDellGhost.iso
    TEXT HELP
    Run Windows 98 boot with legacy Ghost (2003) and
    Dell Diagnostics for Latitude D610 & Precision M6300
    ENDTEXT

Still a problem, I suspect still with the role of the Boot Sector in
chaining to IO.SYS. I've tried to use Ventoy to boot RawWriteWin *.img
files of Emergency W98 boot floppies ...

error: no such partition

Disk I/O error
Replace the disk, and then press any key

... and ISOs made with ImgBurn ...

[goes straight through to the PC's normal grub menu
without any visible message being given]

... but I still can't get a bootable result. Any further help with this
would be welcome.

[Mike Easter]

Post by Java Jive
Although the Ventoy CD iso wouldn't boot after being copied to a USB by
Rufus,

If you go the Rufus route, you need to use its dd function to write the
Ventoy.

See graphic Loading Image...

Also, current v/s Rufus don't run on W7. I'm a Rufus 'fan' and use the
old on W7.

[Java Jive]

Putting the keyboard layout problem aside for now, I'm still open for
help on Problem #3, booting an iso of an MSDOS/W98-Console-Mode
emergency USB, which I have been endeavouring to investigate
systematically, as follows ...

Post by Java Jive

Post by Java Jive
PROBLEM #3
I have added to Clonezilla's syslinux.cfg menu an option of my own to
boot into an ISO of an old W98 console for running Dell Diagnostics, a
legacy version of Ghost, etc.  When booting from the original USB
stick, I see the new option, and it seems to find the ISO and gets
     Loading boot sector... booting...
I can't seems to find a way of chaining to IO.SYS.  Can anyone suggest
label EmerDellGhost
     # MENU DEFAULT
     # MENU HIDE
     MENU LABEL Emergency W98 Boot - Legacy Ghost & Dell Diagnostics
     # MENU PASSWD
     kernel memdisk
     append initrd=/live/EmerDellGhost.iso
     TEXT HELP
     Run Windows 98 boot with legacy Ghost (2003) and
     Dell Diagnostics for Latitude D610 & Precision M6300
     ENDTEXT

Still a problem, I suspect still with the role of the Boot Sector in
chaining to IO.SYS.  I've tried to use Ventoy to boot RawWriteWin *.img
files of Emergency W98 boot floppies ...
    error: no such partition
    Disk I/O error
    Replace the disk, and then press any key
.... and ISOs made with ImgBurn ...
    [goes straight through to the PC's normal grub menu
    without any visible message being given]
.... but I still can't get a bootable result.  Any further help with
this would be welcome.

Given sector-by-sector images of ...

W98 console mode emergency boot floppy (RawWriteWin)
W98 console mode emergency boot USB - entire disk (dd if=/dev/sdx)
W98 console mode emergency boot USB - partition (dd if=/dev/sdx1)

... I've now obtained the results of tests in the following table -
which probably need a fixed font to display properly - details notes
are appended ...

Floppy Disk Partition
Ubuntu 22 mount: Y N Y (USB reversed compared to rest)
Ubuntu 22 qemu: Y Y N
Ventoy: N N N
Clonezilla: Y Y N
Grub2 - loop: N N N
Grub2 - memdisk: Y N* N

* This was particularly disappointing, because this, or the partition
equivalent, is what I'd most like to achieve as the alternatives that do
work are more convoluted, and given the previous patterns of results,
once the floppy image worked in this arrangement, I expected the hard
disk image to work as well, but sadly it didn't :-(

If anyone can suggest a way of getting either the disk or partition
image to boot directly with Grub2, I'd be very grateful.


Notes
=====

Ubuntu 22: mount -o loop <filename> /mnt/temp

Floppy.img - Succeeds

USB-Disk.img - Fails
mount: /mnt/temp: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock
on /dev/loop8, missing codepage or helper program, or other
error.

USB-Part.img - Succeeds

So I can mount as a loop device a sector-by-sector image of a W98 boot
floppy, and a sector-by-sector image of the W98 fat32 partition
(partition not disk) which is the only partition on a bootable emergency
USB stick, but I can NOT mount a sector-by-sector image of the entire
emergency USB stick.

However, mostly things are the other way about. For example, when I run
qemu ...

qemu-system-i386 -fda Floppy.img

Boots!

qemu-system-i386 -hda USB-Disk.img

Boots!

qemu-system-i386 -hda USB-Part.img

Fails with ...

SeaBIOS (version 1.15.0-1~)

iPXE (https://ipxe.org) 00:03.0 CA00 PCI2.10 PnP
PMM+07BF8B590+07ECB590 CA00 (all on one line)

Booting from Hard Disk ...

Disk I/O error
Replace the disk, then press any key

So, as far as the USB images are concerned, qemu behaves opposite to
mount. Next we come to a Ventoy USB with the same images on board.
Trying to boot from all of them failed ...

Floppy.img
error: no such partition.

Disk I/O error
Replace the disk, and then press any key

USB-Disk.img
[messages are incomplete and too fast to read except by video]
disk

Disk I/O error
Replace the disk, and then press any key
sk I/O error
Replace the disk, and then press any key

USB-Part.img
error: File (hd0,1)/USB-Part.img is not bootable
chain empty failed
press Enter to continue ......

Next, CloneZilla USB stick, with SysLinux.cfg entries as follows:

Floppy.img

label EmergencyW98
# MENU DEFAULT
# MENU HIDE
MENU LABEL Emergency W98 Boot Disk (Floppy)
# MENU PASSWD
kernel memdisk
append initrd=/live/Floppy.img
TEXT HELP
Boot Windows '98 emergency console
ENDTEXT

Boots!


USB-Disk.img

label EmerDellGhostImg
# MENU DEFAULT
# MENU HIDE
MENU LABEL Emergency W98 Boot - Dell Diags & Legacy Ghost (disk)
# MENU PASSWD
kernel memdisk
append initrd=/live/USB-Disk.img
TEXT HELP
Boot Windows '98 console with Dell Diagnostics
for Latitude D610 & Precision M6300 & Ghost (2003)
ENDTEXT

Boots!


USB-Part.img

label EmerDellGhostIso
# MENU DEFAULT
# MENU HIDE
MENU LABEL Emergency W98 Boot - Dell Diags & Legacy Ghost (part)
# MENU PASSWD
kernel memdisk
append initrd=/live/USB-Part.img
TEXT HELP
Boot Windows '98 console with Dell Diagnostics
for Latitude D610 & Precision M6300 & Ghost (2003)
ENDTEXT

Fails with endless messages scrolling too fast to read and too many to
be worth trying to video, but seem to be hex dumping sectors from the
partition interspersed with other messages.

Finally Grub2 with the following grub.cfg menu entries ...

Floppy.img

menuentry "Windows 98 Emergency Console" --unrestricted --class
Windows {
savedefault
set iso_path="(hd0,msdos4)/Floppy.img"
loopback loop "$iso_path"
set root=(loop)
chainloader +1
boot
}

... fails with ...

Disk I/O error
Replace the disk, and then press any key

... but [memdisk borrowed from Clonezilla USB] ...

menuentry "Windows 98 Emergency Console" --unrestricted --class
Windows {
savedefault
linux16 (hd0,msdos4)/WimBoot/memdisk
initrd16 (hd0,msdos4)/Floppy.img
}

... boots!


USB-Disk.img

menuentry "Windows 98 Emergency Console With Dell Diagnostics &
Ghost 2003 (disk)" --unrestricted --class Windows {
savedefault
set iso_path="(hd0,msdos4)/USB-Disk.img"
loopback loop "$iso_path"
set root=(loop)
chainloader +1
boot
}

... fails with ...

Missing operating system

... and unfortunately ...

menuentry "Windows 98 Emergency Console With Dell Diagnostics &
Ghost 2003 (disk)" --unrestricted --class Windows {
savedefault
linux16 (hd0,msdos4)/WimBoot/memdisk
initrd16 (hd0,msdos4)/USB-Disk.img
}

... fails with ...

MEMDISK 6.03 20171018 Copyright 2001-2014 H. Peter Anvin et al
MEMDISK: No ramdisk image specified!

... which is a particular bummer as described above.


USB-Part.img

menuentry "Windows 98 Emergency Console With Dell Diagnostics &
Ghost 2003 (part)" --unrestricted --class Windows {
savedefault
set iso_path="(hd0,msdos4)/USB-Part.img"
loopback loop "$iso_path"
set root=(loop)
chainloader +1
boot
}

... fails with a flashing underline cursor top left of screen but no
messages, and ...

menuentry "Windows 98 Emergency Console With Dell Diagnostics &
Ghost 2003 (part)" --unrestricted --class Windows {
savedefault
linux16 (hd0,msdos4)/WimBoot/memdisk
initrd16 (hd0,msdos4)/USB-Disk.iso
}

... also fails with ...

MEMDISK 6.03 20171018 Copyright 2001-2014 H. Peter Anvin et al
MEMDISK: No ramdisk image specified!

[Java Jive]

Post by Java Jive

.... still can't get a bootable result.  Any further help with
this would be welcome.

Given sector-by-sector images of ...
    W98 console mode emergency boot floppy (RawWriteWin)
    W98 console mode emergency boot USB - entire disk (dd if=/dev/sdx)
    W98 console mode emergency boot USB - partition (dd if=/dev/sdx1)
.... I've now obtained the results of tests in the following table  -
which probably need a fixed font to display properly  -  details notes
are appended ...
                  Floppy  Disk  Partition
Ubuntu 22 mount:    Y      N       Y   (USB reversed compared to rest)
Ubuntu 22 qemu:     Y      Y       N
Ventoy:             N      N       N
Clonezilla:         Y      Y       N
Grub2 - loop:       N      N       N
Grub2 - memdisk:    Y      N*      N
*  This was particularly disappointing, because this, or the partition
equivalent, is what I'd most like to achieve as the alternatives that do
work are more convoluted, and given the previous patterns of results,
once the floppy image worked in this arrangement, I expected the hard
disk image to work as well, but sadly it didn't :-(
If anyone can suggest a way of getting either the disk or partition
image to boot directly with Grub2, I'd be very grateful.

[snip]

Post by Java Jive
Floppy.img
    label EmergencyW98
    # MENU DEFAULT
    # MENU HIDE
    MENU LABEL Emergency W98 Boot Disk (Floppy)
    # MENU PASSWD
    kernel memdisk
    append initrd=/live/Floppy.img
    TEXT HELP
    Boot Windows '98 emergency console
    ENDTEXT
Boots!
USB-Disk.img
    label EmerDellGhostImg
    # MENU DEFAULT
    # MENU HIDE
    MENU LABEL Emergency W98 Boot - Dell Diags & Legacy Ghost (disk)
    # MENU PASSWD
    kernel memdisk
    append initrd=/live/USB-Disk.img
    TEXT HELP
    Boot Windows '98 console with Dell Diagnostics
    for Latitude D610 & Precision M6300 & Ghost (2003)
    ENDTEXT
Boots!

I confess I'm struggling somewhat with all this ...

For one thing, I'm finding it difficult to know if my image of the W98
Emergency USB is valid or not. I have an old one, and a new one, as
follows ...

The original USB made several years ago booted fine. As still quoted
above, the old image made from it boots from a Clonezilla USB by adding
it to its SysLinux menu, which suggests that there's nothing wrong with
it, but it won't boot anywhere else that I've tried.

However, when I launched GPartEd with the USB still plugged in
accidentally, I noticed messages concerning the partition being 'bigger'
than the actual disk, and thought: "That's why the [expletive deleted]
image won't boot, there's something wrong with its layout!"

So I remade the entire USB. I copied off the files, and using GPartEd
itself deleted the single partition, made a new single FAT32 partition
occupying the available space, copied the files back in the mandatory
(at one time, but perhaps not now) order - IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, the rest
- booted from my one remaining working W98 floppy and did a SYS to
copy the PBR and ensure the system files were present in the correct
order in the directory, and ensured that the remade disk could boot,
which it could. I then remade the image from the remade USB, the image
referred to above as 'new'.

However, this new image NO LONGER boots from the same Clonezilla USB as
did the old! Copy the old, supposedly flawed (according to GPartEd),
image back overwriting it, and that one boots! WTF???!!!

But neither image will boot anyhow or anywhere else. The source USB
boots fine, has done for years and still does after being remade, and
the old supposedly flawed image boots via Clonezilla, but neither will
boot by any other method I've tried. By contrast, now that I've
discovered how to do it, a RawWriteWin image of an Emergency W98 boot
floppy boots absolutely everywhere that I've tried it, no trouble at all.

So, putting aside for the moment the problem of trying to directly load
the emergency W98 USB image from Grub2, given that the only practical
way I've found so far of booting it successfully was adding it as an
option to the SysLinux menu of a Clonezilla USB, I've been investigating
trying to boot Clonezilla directly off a hard disk partition, and I'm
baffled, because I can't work out how the devil Clonezilla is booting
itself off a USB, so that I can reproduce it on a HD.

My knowledge of traditional booting methods is pretty good, or at least
was but perhaps is now getting rusty. Some years ago, I published a
page on my site detailing how PCs booted off a legacy MBR hard disk:

https://www.macfh.co.uk/JavaJive/PCHardware/PCBootProcess.html

Briefly, each sector is 0x200 (512) bytes long, and there's a chain
loading system from sector to sector to load an OS.

A) PC BIOS in RO non-volatile memory ...

B) ... Loads the first sector of the first hard disk, the Master Boot
Record (MBR), and checks for two bytes at offset 0x1FE (510) which must
be 0x55 0xAA identifying it as boot code. If these are found the BIOS
jumps to run the code in this sector. This code reads a partition table
at 0x1C0 (448), looking for the first partition marked active and then
if one is found ...

C) ... Loads the first sector of that partition, the Partition Boot
Record (PBR), again checks for the same two bytes at offset 0x1FE, and
again if found jumps to run the code there. The code in the PBR then
loads the operating system in that sector in an OS-dependent way.

Often the code in PBRs, and perhaps also some MBRs, begins with just two
bytes which form a jump past some data to the beginning of the booting
code proper further on in the same sector. Hence the first byte is
often 0xEB for a relative branch jump, and the second byte determines
the destination of the branch, so if the first two bytes are EB 58 as in
the example I have before me, the Program Counter will be 2 after
reading this code, so the jump is to, and the booting code proper begins
at, offset 0x5A.

Comparatively, I'm not so clear on the modern system, having only vague
anecdotal knowledge, but there seems to be a requirement to find files
of one or more certain standard names in a directory off the root called
Boot. BootMgr seems to be one such possible file.

However, examining a Clonezilla USB which boots successfully yields no
method known to me of booting!

There are at least three possible candidate definitions for the first
menu which is displayed:
Grub2: /boot/grub/grub.cfg
IsoLinux: /syslinux/isolinux.cfg
SysLinux: /syslinux/syslinux.cfg

These three menus are all very similar, so it's not immediately obvious
which is actually being displayed, but they're just text files, so one
can edit them to make them unique in some way to reveal themselves. As
I've already given the answer upthread, it doesn't need a spoiler alert
to reveal that, at least on my systems I have here, it's the SysLinux
menu, however I think some more modern systems may use the Grub2 menu.

But, in either case, *HOW* do we even get that far, that's the mystery!

1) To begin with the legacy options, the obvious first places to look
are the MBR & PBR (beware line wrap in some of what follows) ...

I've examined the MBR of a working Clonezilla USB, but am not going to
reproduce it here, as there appears to be nothing out of the ordinary
about it, at least as far as I can tell without actually disassembling
it. However, it's worth noting that it looks nothing like the MBR of a
HD with Grub2 installed, so it's a reasonable assumption that grub is
not directly loaded from the MBR as normally it would be.

By contrast there *IS* something out of the ordinary, but not in a
helpful way, in the PBR of a working Clonezilla Partition:

00000000 eb 58 90 53 59 53 4c 49 4e 55 58 00 02 08 c2 10
|.X.SYSLINUX.....|
00000010 02 00 00 00 00 f8 00 00 3f 00 ff 00 00 08 00 00
|........?.......|
00000020 00 98 1e 00 9f 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 00 00 00
|................|
00000030 01 00 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
|................|
00000040 80 01 29 b5 6b 34 f2 43 4c 4f 4e 45 5a 5f 33 31
|..).k4.CLONEZ_31|
00000050 32 20 46 41 54 33 32 20 20 20 fa fc 31 c9 8e d1 |2 FAT32 ..1...|
00000060 bc 76 7b 52 06 57 1e 56 8e c1 b1 26 bf 78 7b f3
|.v{R.W.V...&.x{.|
00000070 a5 8e d9 bb 78 00 0f b4 37 0f a0 56 20 d2 78 1b |....x...7..V
.x.|
00000080 31 c0 b1 06 89 3f 89 47 02 f3 64 a5 8a 0e 18 7c
|1....?.G..d....||
00000090 88 4d f8 50 50 50 50 cd 13 eb 62 8b 55 aa 8b 75
|.M.PPPP...b.U..u|
000000a0 a8 c1 ee 04 01 f2 83 fa 4f 76 31 81 fa b2 07 73
|........Ov1....s|
000000b0 2b f6 45 b4 7f 75 25 38 4d b8 74 20 66 3d 21 47 |+.E..u%8M.t
f=!G|
000000c0 50 54 75 10 80 7d b8 ed 75 0a 66 ff 75 ec 66 ff
|PTu..}..u.f.u.f.|
000000d0 75 e8 eb 0f 51 51 66 ff 75 bc eb 07 51 51 66 ff
|u...QQf.u...QQf.|
000000e0 36 1c 7c b4 08 e8 e9 00 72 13 20 e4 75 0f c1 ea |6.|.....r.
.u...|
000000f0 08 42 89 16 1a 7c 83 e1 3f 89 0e 18 7c fb bb aa
|.B...|..?...|...|
00000100 55 b4 41 e8 cb 00 72 10 81 fb 55 aa 75 0a f6 c1
|U.A...r...U.u...|
00000110 01 74 05 c6 06 46 7d 00 66 b8 08 20 00 00 66 ba |.t...F}.f..
..f.|
00000120 00 00 00 00 bb 00 80 e8 0e 00 66 81 3e 1c 80 8e
|..........f.>...|
00000130 c1 80 6a 75 74 e9 f8 02 66 03 06 60 7b 66 13 16
|..jut...f..`{f..|
00000140 64 7b b9 10 00 eb 2b 66 52 66 50 06 53 6a 01 6a
|d{....+fRfP.Sj.j|
00000150 10 89 e6 66 60 b4 42 e8 77 00 66 61 8d 64 10 72
|...f`.B.w.fa.d.r|
00000160 01 c3 66 60 31 c0 e8 68 00 66 61 e2 da c6 06 46
|..f`1..h.fa....F|
00000170 7d 2b 66 60 66 0f b7 36 18 7c 66 0f b7 3e 1a 7c
|}+f`f..6.|f..>.||
00000180 66 f7 f6 31 c9 87 ca 66 f7 f7 66 3d ff 03 00 00
|f..1...f..f=....|
00000190 77 17 c0 e4 06 41 08 e1 88 c5 88 d6 b8 01 02 e8
|w....A..........|
000001a0 2f 00 66 61 72 01 c3 e2 c9 31 f6 8e d6 bc 68 7b
|/.far....1....h{|
000001b0 8e de 66 8f 06 78 00 be da 7d ac 20 c0 74 09 b4 |..f..x...}.
.t..|
000001c0 0e bb 07 00 cd 10 eb f2 31 c0 cd 16 cd 19 f4 eb
|........1.......|
000001d0 fd 8a 16 74 7b 06 cd 13 07 c3 42 6f 6f 74 20 65
|...t{.....Boot e|
000001e0 72 72 6f 72 0d 0a 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
|rror............|
000001f0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 fe 02 b2 3e 18 37 55 aa
|...........>.7U.|

The thing to note is that the only clear text strings are 'SYSLINUX',
'CLONEZ_312', 'FAT32', and 'Boot error'. It's possible that some
further text is encrypted in some way, but I would judge that to be
extremely unlikely for open source material - the only times I've
encountered that previously were attempts to copy protect games that
were supplied on floppies - so, unless someone disassembles the actual
code and finds differently, I think we must assume that the text we can
see is actually all there is.

The second string is the disk label, the third is the name of the
partition format, and the fourth is obviously an error message if
something goes wrong, so the loader can only be looking for a file,
presumably in the root directory, called SYSLINUX. However, there's no
such file, only a directory called syslinux, and although files called
syslinux exist, they are in sub-directories three levels down. Perhaps
unsurprisingly therefore, when trying to boot the trial version of
Clonezilla copied to a HD partition, I use in grub.cfg 'chainloader +1',
which should load and run that PBR, I get that exact message: 'Boot
error'! Further, if I make a binary dump of the original USB PBR into a
file, say, PBR.bin, copy it to the HD trial version root, change that
message to, say, 'B00t error', and then alter the grub.cfg entry to read
'chainloader /PBR.bin, I then get 'B00t error' as expected. This may
seem a waste of time, but it shows that what I think is happening *IS*
actually happening, always valuable when you are uncertain and confused,
as most definitely I am just now!

So it seems certain that, somehow or other, normal Clonezilla on a USB
is *NOT* being booted via its PBR, because there is no file called
SYSLINUX off the root, only a directory and there doesn't seem to be a
way of selecting a particular file in that directory, and anyway, as
described below, the menu looks different than when booted directly from
the USB.

What else might be happening?

2) I can find 9 files likely to be candidates for involvement in
loading Clonezilla to boot into the SysLinux menu ...

/ldlinux.sys
/syslinux/isolinux.bin
/utils/linux/x86/extlinux
/utils/linux/x86/syslinux
/utils/linux/x64/extlinux
/utils/linux/x64/syslinux
/EFI/boot/bootia32.efi
/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi
/EFI/boot/grubx64.efi

... so I tested those:

menuentry "Clonezilla #1 (/ldlinux.sys)" {
savedefault
set root=(hd0,msdos2)
syslinux_source /ldlinux.sys
syslinux_configfile /syslinux/syslinux.cfg
}
...
menuentry "Clonezilla #9 (/EFI/boot/grubx64.efi)" {
savedefault
set root=(hd0,msdos2)
syslinux_source /EFI/boot/grubx64.efi
syslinux_configfile /syslinux/syslinux.cfg
}

They all work identically - they display the SysLinux Menu (but as
console text without any background image or special fonts), and from
there will run Clonezilla and boot the W98 Emergency Floppy Disk image,
but, unlike a Clonezilla USB booted normally, the Emergency W98 USB
image doesn't boot, giving the same MEMDISK error as previously posted:
MEMDISK 6.03 20171018 Copyright 2001-2014 H. Peter Anvin et al
MEMDISK: No ramdisk image specified!

The differences in the menu and subsequent behaviour suggest to me that
none of these are how Clonezilla is booted normally from a USB.

3) Next there are countless files in ...
/boot/grub and subdirs
... but the only one that seems promising is ...
/boot/grub/efi.img
... which has a dummy PBR at its start, containing the message ...
This is not a bootable disk. Please insert a bootable floppy and
press any key to try again.
... which is the exact message I get if I chainload it from grub!

So HTF does Clonezilla boot itself from USB, into that highly
distinctive menu, and how can one reproduce that on a HD?

Notes:

! The grub2 'chainloader' command expects a boot sector or a file
thereof, and if the boot signature 55 AA is not present at offset 1FE,
it aborts with:
error: invalid signature.
Press any key to continue...

! The memdisk pseudo-kernel expects a genuine disk image, and if not
given one variously aborts, crashes out, or hangs, for example at:
Loading boot sector... booting...

https://wiki.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=MEMDISK

[Java Jive]

As some of what I wrote in my last post turned out to be incorrect, I'll
top post the solution here, and those who are sufficiently interested to
want to learn from my mistakes can read the corrections appended below it:

WRT Clonezilla 3.1.2-22 and getting it to boot from a HD exactly as it
does from a USB. As previously described, Clonezilla themselves don't
actually tell you how to do this ...
https://clonezilla.org/livehd.php
... the method they give boots not into the initial menu, but straight
into the first choice from that menu. However, Clonezilla is a syslinux
system, and there are other sources of information about syslinux that
are more helpful, for example this, the relevance of which will become
apparent:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/syslinux

WARNING: The following overwrites both the MBR of the entire disk and
the PBR of Clonezilla's partition, so if you have other bootable
partitions &/or grub installed to choose between them, all this will be
lost, so make any backups necessary for restoration before running the
following command!

As long as you don't mind wrecking your multi-boot system and rebuilding
it afterwards, which may be why Clonezilla don't tell you about this
option, you can run a program to get it to boot off a HD exactly as it
does off a USB. In both USB and HD copies, there is a bash script ...
/utils/linux/makeboot.sh
... which can be run to make the installation bootable in exactly the
same way from either medium. Probably it would be needed for a USB only
rarely, because programs that write the ISO image to the USB seem
generally to take care of things pretty well, but for a HD installation,
it seems to be the easiest way to get everything to work as it should.

However, if your Clonezilla HD partition is formatted FAT32 like a USB,
then you can't just run the file, because FAT32 doesn't support the x
attribute, and by default modern linux systems tend to mount FAT32
partitions translating the attributes of all files as non-executable.
The easiest way around this is to run the script through bash ...
sudo bash <mounted path>/utils/linux/makeboot.sh /dev/sdxy
... where sdxy is the designation of the Clonezilla disk and partition,
in my case ...
sdb2

Now when you boot from that hard disk, it will boot straight into the
normal brightly coloured Clonezilla menu with large fonts, and will
behave seemingly exactly as if it had been booted off USB, even, hooray,
booting my Emergency W98 USB image successfully.

Then you can reinstall grub to get everything else back. For the
Clonezilla option, preserving what has been won, add to the file (in
Ubuntu, other distros may differ) ...
/etc/grub.d/40_custom
... the following ...
menuentry {
savedefault # If you've enabled saving the last grub choice
set root=(hdx,y) # Where x & y are the CZ disk and partition #s
chainloader +1
}

As this form of grub entry was tried before, without success, it is
pertinent to ask why it works now, but not before? From the ArchLinux
source above it seems to be because the PBR needs to know the beginning
sector of the file ldlinux.sys - it seems to ignore the actual file
system, and goes straight wherever it was told, at the time that it was
installed, that that file begins. If the file is moved or the CZ file
system is copied to another place, this direct linkage is lost, and the
boot fails with the message I played around with earlier: "Boot error"

This explains several things:

+ The initial failure of the attempt to use the chainloader command -
the file was no longer to be found at the sector designated in the PBR.

+ The absence of any path names in the PBR, 'SYSLINUX' seems to be just
a generic system name describing the bootloader type for those who
happen to know, which, until I read the above link, I did not.

Corrections to my previous post follow ...

[variously snipped for brevity]
So, putting aside for the moment the problem of trying to directly load
the emergency W98 USB image from Grub2, given that the only practical
way I've found so far of booting it successfully was adding it as an
option to the SysLinux menu of a Clonezilla USB, I've been investigating
trying to boot Clonezilla directly off a hard disk partition, and I'm
baffled, because I can't work out how the devil Clonezilla is booting
itself off a USB, so that I can reproduce it on a HD.
My knowledge of traditional booting methods is pretty good, or at least
was but perhaps is now getting rusty.  Some years ago, I published a
https://www.macfh.co.uk/JavaJive/PCHardware/PCBootProcess.html

I've amended this with the correction below.

Briefly, each sector is 0x200 (512) bytes long, and there's a chain
loading system from sector to sector to load an OS.
A) PC BIOS in RO non-volatile memory ...
B) ... Loads the first sector of the first hard disk, the Master Boot
Record (MBR), and checks for two bytes at offset 0x1FE (510) which must
be 0x55 0xAA identifying it as boot code.  If these are found the BIOS
jumps to run the code in this sector.  This code reads a partition table
at

... actually two bytes earlier at 0x1BE (446), the reason being: each
partition record is 0x10 (16) bytes long and there are 4 of them, and
the boot flag is at 0x1FE (510), and ...
0x1FE (510) - 0x40 (64) = 0x1BE (446)

looking for the first partition marked active and then
if one is found ...
C) ... Loads the first sector of that partition, the Partition Boot
Record (PBR), again checks for the same two bytes at offset 0x1FE, and
again if found jumps to run the code there.  The code in the PBR then
loads the operating system in that sector in an OS-dependent way.
By contrast there *IS* something out of the ordinary, but not in a
00000000  eb 58 90 53 59 53 4c 49  4e 55 58 00 02 08 c2 10
|.X.SYSLINUX.....|

[...]

00000040  80 01 29 b5 6b 34 f2 43  4c 4f 4e 45 5a 5f 33 31
|..).k4.CLONEZ_31|
00000050  32 20 46 41 54 33 32 20  20 20 fa fc 31 c9 8e d1  |2 FAT32
..1...|

[...]

000001d0  fd 8a 16 74 7b 06 cd 13  07 c3 42 6f 6f 74 20 65
|...t{.....Boot e|
000001e0  72 72 6f 72 0d 0a 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
|rror............|
000001f0  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  fe 02 b2 3e 18 37 55 aa
|...........>.7U.|
The thing to note is that the only clear text strings are 'SYSLINUX',
'CLONEZ_312', 'FAT32', and 'Boot error'.

The first string seems only to describe the PBR type ...

The second string is the disk label, the third is the name of the
partition format, and the fourth is obviously an error message if
something goes wrong.

The following is FALSE! See description above.

So it seems certain that, somehow or other, normal Clonezilla on a USB
is *NOT* being booted via its PBR, because there is no file called
SYSLINUX off the root, only a directory and there doesn't seem to be a
way of selecting a particular file in that directory, and anyway, as
described below, the menu looks different than when booted directly from
the USB.

I'll leave the following in even though they're correct because, if when
trying things out you see an error message such as the following, it's

!  The grub2 'chainloader' command expects a boot sector or a file
thereof, and if the boot signature 55 AA is not present at offset 1FE,
        error: invalid signature.
        Press any key to continue...
!  The memdisk pseudo-kernel expects a genuine disk image, and if not
        Loading boot sector... booting...
https://wiki.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php?title=MEMDISK

[Java Jive]

Post by Java Jive
However, I forgot to mention before that I want to adapt both it and any
Live Linux ISOs to boot with a UK keyboard layout, as, particularly in
Clonezilla, the process of choosing one manually is tedious in the
extreme.  Can anyone help with how to do that?

I've solved this for Clonezilla by editing /syslinux/syslinux.cfg,
globally finding & replacing as follows:
locales= => locales=en_GB.UTF-8
keyboard-layouts= => keyboard-layouts=gb

Hopefully something similar will work for the Linux Live ISOs, but I
have yet to investigate those.

[Java Jive]

Post by Java Jive

Post by Java Jive
However, I forgot to mention before that I want to adapt both it and
any Live Linux ISOs to boot with a UK keyboard layout, as,
particularly in Clonezilla, the process of choosing one manually is
tedious in the extreme.  Can anyone help with how to do that?

I've solved this for Clonezilla by editing /syslinux/syslinux.cfg,
    locales=           =>  locales=en_GB.UTF-8
    keyboard-layouts=  =>  keyboard-layouts=gb
Hopefully something similar will work for the Linux Live ISOs, but I
have yet to investigate those.

Perhaps should have mentioned that the allowable values for other parts
of the world can be found in any Debian-based distro as follows ...
Locales: /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED
Keyboard: /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base.lst

[Java Jive]

Post by Java Jive

Post by Java Jive

Post by Java Jive
However, I forgot to mention before that I want to adapt both it and
any Live Linux ISOs to boot with a UK keyboard layout, as,
particularly in Clonezilla, the process of choosing one manually is
tedious in the extreme.  Can anyone help with how to do that?

I've solved this for Clonezilla by editing /syslinux/syslinux.cfg,
     locales=           =>  locales=en_GB.UTF-8
     keyboard-layouts=  =>  keyboard-layouts=gb
Hopefully something similar will work for the Linux Live ISOs, but I
have yet to investigate those.

Perhaps should have mentioned that the allowable values for other parts
of the world can be found in any Debian-based distro as follows ...
    Locales:   /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED
    Keyboard:  /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/base.lst

The hazards of trying to post while doing something else (cooking) ...

Should also have mentioned, further information here:
https://clonezilla.org//fine-print-live-doc.php?path=./clonezilla-live/doc/99_Misc/00_live-boot-parameters.doc#00_live-boot-parameters.doc
https://live-team.pages.debian.net/live-manual/html/live-manual/customizing-run-time-behaviours.en.html#530

[Mike Easter]

Post by Java Jive
However, I forgot to mention before that I want to adapt both it and any
Live Linux ISOs to boot with a UK keyboard layout, as, particularly in
Clonezilla, the process of choosing one manually is tedious in the extreme.

I don't understand yet.

If I were going to /try/ to boot live w/ a locale, I think I would do it
w/ a boot parameter rather than changing the .iso, but the part I
haven't figured out yet is why it should be tedious in the extreme to
change the locale in the live /after/ the boot and then just log out and
back in, but then I haven't actually tested doing that.

[Java Jive]

Post by Mike Easter

Post by Java Jive
However, I forgot to mention before that I want to adapt both it and
any Live Linux ISOs to boot with a UK keyboard layout, as,
particularly in Clonezilla, the process of choosing one manually is
tedious in the extreme.

I don't understand yet.
If I were going to /try/ to boot live w/ a locale, I think I would do it
w/ a boot parameter rather than changing the .iso, but the part I
haven't figured out yet is why it should be tedious in the extreme to
change the locale in the live /after/ the boot and then just log out and
back in, but then I haven't actually tested doing that.

It's because to change the keyboard layout there's a nested series of
menus which, believe me, are tedious to negotiate.

[Mike Easter]

Post by Java Jive

Post by Mike Easter

Post by Java Jive
However, I forgot to mention before that I want to adapt both it and
any Live Linux ISOs to boot with a UK keyboard layout, as,
particularly in Clonezilla, the process of choosing one manually is
tedious in the extreme.

I don't understand yet.
If I were going to /try/ to boot live w/ a locale, I think I would do
it w/ a boot parameter rather than changing the .iso, but the part I
haven't figured out yet is why it should be tedious in the extreme to
change the locale in the live /after/ the boot and then just log out
and back in, but then I haven't actually tested doing that.

It's because to change the keyboard layout there's a nested series of
menus which, believe me, are tedious to negotiate.

Does this Deb page help?

https://live-team.pages.debian.net/live-manual/html/live-manual/customizing-run-time-behaviours.en.html#530

Post by Java Jive
10.2 Customizing locale and language

[Mike Easter]

Post by Java Jive
However, I forgot to mention before that I want to adapt both it and
any Live Linux ISOs to boot with a UK keyboard layout, as,
particularly in Clonezilla, the process of choosing one manually is
tedious in the extreme.

The other strategy which I don't employ w/ Ventoy, is to rig it w/
persistence.

https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html

As the page shows, this includes Clonezilla, see note.

[Java Jive]

Post by Mike Easter

Post by Java Jive
However, I forgot to mention before that I want to adapt both it and
any Live Linux ISOs to boot with a UK keyboard layout, as,
particularly in Clonezilla, the process of choosing one manually is
tedious in the extreme.

The other strategy which I don't employ w/ Ventoy, is to rig it w/
persistence.
https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html
As the page shows, this includes Clonezilla, see note.

Mike, please read my posts, and stop wasting your own and everyone
else's time, including supplying a link that I supplied for myself a few
minutes before you did. As I began this subthread, I've SOLVED this
already!

[very_sneaky]

nice