I wrote a similar post about setting up a usb drive that can boot Linux isos under UEFI. I am writing another because I have been able to boot most of the isos that can be used to fix a broken system (including Windows) and help in trouble-shooting.
I have set up a drive that boots Knoppix, System Rescue, Gparted, Parted Magic, Tails, Fedora 20 and Mintlinux 17 (both of which can also help in remedying PC problems; they both contain dd, and Mintlinux has gparted and other utilities).
Before I was able -- with the help of Google -- to set up a usb drive that could boot a few, very modern Linux live isos under UEFI. I then found an extremely helpful website that explained how to set up a usb drive that could boot practically all live isos, even those that were not meant to boot under EFI:
https://www.nixaid.com/creating-uefi...distributions/
If you follow the very precise, well laid out instructions found on the nixaid website, you too will be able to boot many live isos.
I had to deviate from nexaid's instructions when it came to booting Parted Magic and Fedora. To get Fedora to boot I emptied the contents of the iso into a directory named Fedora20 (using Archive Manager or by mounting the iso, i.e., "mount -o loop /path/to/iso /mnt"). I also had to resort to adding the option "root=live:LABEL=boot" in the "linux" line of the menuentry. Since there was no iso, I could not use loopback, etc. to boot it as a loop.
Parted Magic was booted in a similar fashion (no loop), but instead of pouring the contents of its iso into a directory, I had to copy the contents onto the root of the drive.
To get the Knoppix iso to boot, I could not resort to the option "fromiso= . . . with the uuid of the second partition of the drive -- where I stored the isos". I had to utilize the option "bootfrom=/dev/sdb2/isos/KNOPPIX_V7.2.0DVD-2013-06-16-EN.iso" instead (generally "fromiso=/uuid#/path/to/the-iso" works for isos that derive from Debian, but Knoppix is an exception). I got insight into this by perusing the Knoppix Distro Website.
As Nexaid stated, you can easily find the information to append to the "linux" line of the menuentry by opening the isolinux.cfg or (less often) the menu.cfg file found in the iso that you are trying to boot (Use Archive Manager to find them).
Here is a copy of my grub.cfg (as you can see, the label for my drive is "boot" and I placed the isos into a directory that I created named "isos"):
Code:
set timeout=15
set default=0
# (U)EFI Graphic Protocol
insmod efi_gop
insmod efi_uga
insmod font
insmod ext4
if loadfont ${prefix}/unicode.pf2
then
insmod gfxterm
set gfxmode=auto
set gfxpayload=keep
terminal_output gfxterm
fi
insmod tga
background_image /grub/LinuxGreen.tga
#######################################################
search --no-floppy --set=root -l 'boot'
menuentry "Parted Magic 2013_5_1" {
gfxpayload=1024x768
linux /pmagic/bzImage64 initrd=/pmagic/initrd.img boot=live edd=off load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 rw vga=normal loglevel=9 max_loop=256 vmalloc=384MiB
initrd /pmagic/initrd.img
}
menuentry "Fedora 20" {
linux /isos/Fedora20/isolinux/vmlinuz0 initrd=initrd0.img root=live:LABEL=boot rd.live.dir=/isos/Fedora20/LiveOS rootfstype=auto live-config.timezone=America/Los_Angeles ro rd.live.image quiet rhgb rd.luks=0 rd.md=0 rd.dm=0
initrd /isos/Fedora20/isolinux/initrd0.img
}
menuentry "SystemRescue CD 4.2 32 bit" {
loopback loop /isos/systemrescuecd-4.2.0.iso
linux (loop)/isolinux/altker64 isoloop=/isos/systemrescuecd-4.2.0.iso
initrd (loop)/isolinux/initram.igz
}
menuentry "gparted-live-0.19.0-2-i486 " {
loopback loop /isos/gparted-0.19.0.1.iso
linux (loop)/live/vmlinuz fromiso=/dev/disk/by-uuid/3375fa85-5ab9-48ee-8955-989ecfa4b092/isos/gparted-0.19.0.1.iso initrd=/live/initrd.img iso raw boot=live username=user config quiet noswap noeject ip= nosplash
initrd (loop)/live/initrd.img
}
menuentry "AVG Rescue CD" {
loopback loop /isos/avg_antivirus.iso
linux (loop)/isolinux/vmlinuz max_loop=255 vga=791 init=linuxrc iso-scan/filename=/isos/avg_antivirus.iso
initrd (loop)/isolinux/initrd.lzm
}
menuentry "mint17 32 bit" {
loopback loop /isos/linuxmint-17-32bit.iso
linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz file=/cdrom/preseed/linuxmint.seed initrd=/casper/initrd.lz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/isos/linuxmint-17-32bit.iso ro noeject noprompt splash --
initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}
menuentry "tails 1.01 i386" {
loopback loop /isos/tails-i386-1.0.1.iso
linux (loop)/live/vmlinuz fromiso=/dev/disk/by-uuid/3375fa85-5ab9-48ee-8955-989ecfa4b092/isos/tails-i386-1.0.1.iso initrd=/live/initrd.img boot=live config live-media=removable nopersistent noprompt timezone=Etc/UTC block.events_dfl_poll_msecs=1000 splash noautologin module=Tails noapic noapm nodma nomce nolapic nomodeset nosmp vga=normal
initrd (loop)/live/initrd.img
}
menuentry "Knoppix 7.2 DVD" {
loopback loop /isos/KNOPPIX_V7.2.0DVD-2013-06-16-EN.iso
linux (loop)/boot/isolinux/linux bootfrom=/dev/sdb2/isos/KNOPPIX_V7.2.0DVD-2013-06-16-EN.iso lang=en apm=power-off video=640x480 initrd=minirt.gz nomce libata.force=noncq hpsa.hpsa_allow_any=1 loglevel=1 adriane
initrd (loop)/boot/isolinux/minirt.gz
}
As you can see I placed a splash file called "LinuxGreen.tga" in the grub directory (I added the two lines "insmod tga" and "background_image /grub/LinuxGreen.tga" on the 15th and 16th lines of the grub.cfg as well). You can use any tga or jpeg file to make the grub menu look nicer when you are booting the isos.
