Cyril

Bootable USB how-to’s

• MultiBoot USB
• Windows USB
• Clonezilla (installed to hdd)
• Update PC BIOS
• Volume label

MultiBoot USB

https://mbusb.aguslr.com/
let’s have our standard util-iso’s on one usb.
clonezilla, gparted, etc…

git clone the project, then from within the folder, prepare the usb.
per using the script:
./makeUSB.sh -b -e /dev/sdc ext4

Get bootable files

Once you have a bootable USB drive, it only remains to copy the bootable files (ISO or kernel) to the pendrive. […] save them into $mntusb/boot/isos.

Windows USB

WoeUSB (gui tool)
Windows USB installation media creator for the gnu/linux platform
sudo zypper in WoeUSB
commandline usage example: sudo woeusb --workaround-bios-boot-flag -d Windows1809ALL.iso /dev/sdc
workaround flag ensures that the boot flag is set, because many legacy bios will skip the device if the flag is not set.
It is unclear why this is not enabled by default.

Clonezilla (Install to hard-disk)

https://clonezilla.org/livehd.php

• Decide mount/boot location (could be separate partition or space on local drive)
• Download clonezilla.zip
• unzip clonezilla to chosen directory
  unzip /path/of/clonezilla.zip -d /chosen/directory/
• Rename live to live-hd
  mv /chosen/directory/live /chosen/directory/live-hd
• Append [grub] menuentry to /etc/grub.d/40_custom

  menuentry "Clonezilla" {
  set root=(hd0,2)
  set livePath=/path/to/live-hd
  set liveUUID=<PARTUUID>
  linux $livePath/vmlinuz boot=live union=overlay username=user config components quiet noswap nolocales edd=on nomodeset ocs_live_run=\"ocs-live-general\" ocs_live_extra_param=\"\" keyboard-layouts= ocs_live_batch=\"no\" locales= vga=788 ip=frommedia nosplash live-media-path=$livePath bootfrom=/dev/disk/by-partuuid/$liveUUID toram=filesystem.squashfs
  initrd $livePath/initrd.img
  }
  

• update grub
  grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
• Reboot & profit

Update PC BIOS

FreeDos [(per ArchWiki)]:
Procedure:

1. Grab the USB "Full" installer from http://www.freedos.org/download/
2. Extract the archive, locate the .img file
3. Determine which of /dev/sdX is your USB stick
   lsblk
4. Write the image directly to the block device:
   dd if=FD12FULL.img of=/dev/sdX status=progress (where X is the letter representing your USB stick as a block device, don’t write the image to a partition)
5. Double-check that the image copying worked:
   fdisk -l (you should see a single partition on a DOS disk with the bootable (“boot”) flag set)
6. Mount the partition, and copy over the .exe used to update your firmware
   • Stay on the safe side and limit the filename to 8 characters (without extension), upper case
   • Ensure that you verified any checksums provided by your hardware vendor
7. Unmount and reboot. Do whatever is needed to boot from the USB drive

Once you are in the FreeDOS live installation environment:

1. Select your language
2. You will be prompted to install FreeDOS
   • Select "No - Return to DOS"
3. You should see a prompt (C:>)
4. Verify that your firmware upgrade tool is present
   dir /w
5. Run the executable
   • author note: in the case of the Dell tool, the machine displayed a spash screen and then rebooted. Upon reboot, it started the firmware upgrade automatically, and ran for about 2 minutes with the fan at full speed)
6. Once the process specific to your vendor completes, optionally verify through the BIOS setup screen, as well as by running dmidecode when you’re back in linux

Volume label

https://www.tecmint.com/change-modify-linux-disk-partition-label-names/
https://superuser.com/questions/1022992/how-to-change-a-usb-stick-name

ext2,3,4
sudo e2label /dev/sdb3 multiboot-repo

ntfs
ntfslabel /dev/sda5 NTFS_DIR

exfat
exfatlabel /dev/sda3 EX_PART

per ArchWiki