boot live cd or dvd with grub

sharky · 04-04-2005, 02:03 PM

This issue may be delt with on another thread but I could not find one.

Is it possible to add a cdrom or dvdrom to grub.conf so that I can select it and boot a live cd or dvd from a grub menu?

Regards,
Sharky

homey · 04-04-2005, 04:31 PM

I have a multi boot cdrom which boots livecd distros and operating systems on the hard drive. Here is a recent menu.lst from the cd.

Code:

	color light-gray/blue black/light-gray
title *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* CDROM BOOT MENU *=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*
root (hd0)
title Windows
	rootnoverify (hd0,0)
	chainloader +1
title Fedora Core
	root (hd1,1)
	kernel /boot/vmlinuz ro root=/dev/hdb2 rhgb quiet
	initrd /boot/initrd.img
title Rescue CD V0.2.15
kernel /boot/vmlinuz1 acpi=off root=/dev/ram0 init=/linuxrc nokeymap vga=785
initrd=/boot/initrd1
title Insert Linux V1.2.17
kernel /isolinux/vmlinuz ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=en apm=power-off hdc=scsi hdd=scsi vga=791 nomce quiet BOOT_IMAGE=insert
initrd=/isolinux/miniroot.gz
title RIP Linux V11.6
kernel /boot/kernel devfs=nomount vga=normal nokeymap init=/linuxrc root=/dev/ram0 rw
initrd=/boot/initrd.gz
title Feather Linux V0.7.1
kernel /isolinux/linux24 ramdisk_size=100000 nodma init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off vga=791 nomce quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
initrd=/isolinux/minirt24.gz
title Slax Linux V4.2.0
kernel /boot/vmlinuz2 max_loop=255 init=linuxrc livecd_subdir=/ load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 ramdisk_size=9999 root=/dev/ram0 rw
initrd=/boot/initrd2.gz
title Puppy Linux V9.8
kernel /boot/vmlinuz3 root=/dev/ram0 PFILE=pup001-none-262144
initrd=/boot/image3.gz
title Freedos V9
kernel /boot/memdisk
initrd=/images/freedos.img
title Ranish Tool V2.44
kernel /boot/memdisk
initrd=/images/ranish.img

sharky · 04-04-2005, 04:55 PM

It looks like you booting the cdrom from the bios setting then selecting which OS to boot from there. That's cool but I'm trying to do the opposite.

It would be convienient if I could boot off the hard drive then select cdrom from the grub menu. It may not be possible but I would like to be able to put any live cd in the drive and boot it without having to change my bios boot order.

sharky · 04-05-2005, 12:07 AM

Update:

After some experimenting it appears that grub does not see the cdrom at all.

kencaz · 04-05-2005, 01:16 AM

You may want to look into SBM (smart boot mgr)

http://btmgr.webframe.org/index.php3?body=scrshots.html

This will allow you to boot from the CD, HD, FDD. I don't think you can boot to your HDD then go back and select to boot from CDROM after the fact. SBM will overide your bios boot settings.

KC

sharky · 04-05-2005, 02:23 PM

KC

Installed SBM onto a floppy. When the machine was Rebooted SBM came up and listed the cdrom. I had a knoppix 3.7 disk in the drive. When I attempted to boot the cdrom it returned "Disk Error".

Have you been able to boot cdrom with SBM?