asqwerth wrote:Hi, Richard, I have some questions on your post:
2. Download Easy2Boot_v1.41_DPMS.zip, is the latest as of today:
.a.
http://files.easy2boot.com/200000592-d6 ... 1_DPMS.zip
.b. extract all the files in the zip to the root directory of your, soon to be, Easy2Boot pen drive.
.c. keep this handy in case your files become non-contiguous.
>>So this particular easy2boot pen drive is just a handy place to store the extracted files? It's not >>the actual USB device that is to be your multiboot device?
No. It is
the boot pendrive.
You copy your desired ISOs into the /_ISO/MAINMENU folder on the 1st partition.
The second 33 MiB partition is not used by E2B.
Reboot, it starts and shows a menu of the available ISOs.
In the attached image, you can see my E2B_builder folder.
I extract the E2B.zip into a folder on my harddisk and copy
the contents when I want to build another.
or
if it warns that files are not contiguos,
I can erase the 1st partition on the USB,
copy back the contents of /Easy2Boot_v1.40_DPMS (I unzipped it into a folder).
then copy desired ISOs into the /_ISO/MAINMENU folder
and reboot to try out a new iso.
You don't have to fill it up. Put 1 or 2 and test them.
When another comes along, copy it into /_ISO/MAINMENU
When the pendrive is full or you wish to change them out,
just erase and start over --it's easier to keep all files contiguous.
3. Partition the USB drive, as follows:
.a. Create the 1st partition --the largest, less 33 MiB for the 2nd partition.
.b. Create the 2nd partition --33 MiB, MINIMUM for FAT32!, to ease potential boot problem.
[NOTE: 12 MiB worked before, but gparted said 33 was minimum; however, with 64 MiB seems better.]
.c. Format both partitions as FAT32.
>>I assume this could be a smallish 8GB thumb drive as well?
>>And I just need to partition the thumb drive accordingly?
>>
>>But it's not the aforementioned pen drive?
No. It is the same pen drive, that now has 2 fat32 partitions:
The 1st as large as possible and the
2nd of 33-36MiB, is to guide the operating system to mount the 1st.
>>If it's the same device, I would have extracted all the files
>>in the easy2boot zip to what will become sdc1 after partitioning
>>(I have 2 hard drives sda and sdb), right?
>>
>>*scratches head*
Yes, it is the same device, sdc, in your case;
however, it is always a good idea to check with blkid or lsblk to be sure
that the designation is as expected.
E2B only uses the first partition. The larger one.
The 2nd partition is at least 33 MiB. (you can make it larger ifyou wish.)
As I mentioned above, the 1st partition should be the largest since the 1st partition is usually the first partition to be mounted. That's what I understand as the reason for making 2 partitions when you will only use one of them for easy2boot. Some OSs only mount 1, others mount both.
We ignore the 2nd for our purpose. You can use it if you wish.
The 2nd partition is only a dummy to help the OS read the 1st fat32 partition.
It is never used at all by Easy2Boot, in any manner. It is only done to ease the boot process for some operating systems. You can try it without it if you like, but you will probably have to use the key combination for your OS to get to the boot selection menu, (F12 on some, F11, F8, on some others).
>>And once the thumb drive is set up, any changes or resaving of the iso files
>>to ensure they are contiguous is done in the already-created sdc1?
Yes. The first partition is the only active one so far as e2b is concerned.
.a. in a console:
;; to determine the device number of your USB drive, then run
Code: Select all
$ sudo ./bootlace.com --time-out=0 /dev/sdx
;; where "sdx" could be sdb, sdc, sdd, etc. If all goes well, you will see something like this:
Code: Select all
[richard@mx14 grub4dos-0.4.5c]$ sudo ./bootlace.com --time-out=0 /dev/sdd
Disk geometry calculated according to the partition table:
Sectors per track = 63, Number of heads = 255
Success.
[richard@mx14 grub4dos-0.4.5c]$
>>Am I replacing the "nul" in /dev/nul with /dev/sdc?
No.
The blkid command is to help determine which is your USB device.
You may use
just as well. That's all the code is doing.
>>Your multiboot USB/thumb drive has 2 partitions, but there's no sdc1 and sdc2
>>in the above commands?
Well, no, because we are writing directly to the first partition,
opened with Thunar, usually, so no need to specify.
>>Thanks in advance.
I wrote this out, because it took me several trials before I understood. Like you, I was making it more complicated than it is. :)
You can try it more simply if you wish:
1. Format a USB pendrive.
2. Put grub4dos onto a USB stick, drive or whatever.
You will need to unpack the grub4dos (or just extract the bootlace.com as I did)
then from that grub4dos folder, run the following:
Code: Select all
$sudo ./bootlace.com --time-out=0 /dev/sdc
(if sdc is your pendrive)
3. Copy the E2B contents to part-1 of the USB
(E2B will occupy approx. 65 MiB on the pendrive.)
4. Copy desired ISOs into /_ISO/MAINMENU of part-1 of the USB.
5. Reboot.
Ok. You study a while. Just practice a bit.
Put only 1 ISO and then reboot it.
Helps if you have a second computer for testing.
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