Manually configuring a multiboot usb

I'm trying to configure a USB flash drive that can multiboot different isos in EFI. The USB drive is setup with a 32 gb fat partition at the front of the drive, and has a couple other general storage partitions on the rest of the drive. I tried using multibootusb, but that can't recognize the usb drive. (I'm guessing either because of the partitioning or the fact it's an ssd crammed into a usb drive)

I managed to install grub to the disk using

grub-install --target x86_64-efi --efi-directory /mnt/Refind/ --boot-directory=mnt/Refind/boot --removable

I have an archiso, and gparted iso on the disk currently.

With the grub.cfg looking like:

set imgdevpath="/dev/disk/by-uuid/A570-EB2F"

menuentry '[loopback]archlinux-2016.03.01-dual.iso' {
set isofile='/mnt/Refind/boot/grub/iso/archlinux-2016.03.01-dual.iso'
loopback loop $isofile
linux (loop)/arch/boot/x86_64/vmlinuz archisodevice=/dev/loop0 img_dev=$imgdevpath img_loop=$isofile
initrd (loop)/arch/boot/x86_64/archiso.img
}

menuentry "[loopback]gparted-live-0.25.0-3-amd64" {
set isofile="/mnt/Refind/boot/grub/iso/gparted-live-0.25.0-3-amd64.iso"
loopback loop $isofile
linux (loop)/live/vmlinuz boot=live union=overlay username=user config components quiet noswap noeject toram=filesystem.squashfs ip= nosplash findiso=$isofile
initrd (loop)/live/initrd.img
}

gparted just manages to boot to the gnu / linux warranty page, and sits there for 5 minutes or so. The Arch iso won't boot, giving an error message about magic numbers.

Ideally, I'd use rEFInd, but I can't figure out how to get it to detect and boot iso files.

Anyone able to help me get Arch and gparted booting up in EFI mode?

i didn't read. too long
but i think this might help you

Also if i'm wrong, i apologize in advance.

Yumi is available in the aur for Arch Linux, but it throws errors.

BLAST.
I'm not an Arch user so I wouldn't be able to help there.
Hopefully someone else here would have some experience.

Hope all is well.

I've managed to get grub working on this disk in the past. Think I didn't configure everything correctly, since I had to turn csm on. So, I cleared it and tried setting up refind. (can boot to it, but don't see any documentation on booting isos) So, I'm back to trying to get grub working in efi correctly.

Just changed from gpt partition table to an mbr, and it works now. I think refind would work with gpt, but I can't find any documentation on getting it to boot iso files.

Is there something specific that you want by making the multiusb manually ?

If not, there are two projects that I really recommend to check out:

  • multisystem for linux (archlinux has a package)
  • easy2boot mostly for windows but it can be done in linux also

Both support a ton of linux distos (including archlinux) also well windows and windows pe based livecd.

I love multisystem. The only issue with it is installing multisystem on arch breaks Nemo. I think it's since gksu is causing a conflict with polkit.

It's also a 256 gb flash drive, and I believe easy2boot wants the full disk. (I have separate partitions)

As for Nemo, that is a strange bug. Does that bug is present if you create a normal usb installation with DD as recommended by the arch tutorials ?

As for easy2usb, the default script uses all the space of the selected pen, but there are several tutorials for modifying easy2boot and some of them teach how make a multi partition usb like this one.

Even you don't use any of these scripts, create a usb pen with the both programs and them a have a look at the files created by them to see if you can use some of them in your grub.conf. Most likely the most closest one is multisystem since easy2boot uses grub4dos.

Oh that doesn't happen with dd. If I install multisystem on Linux Mint it doesn't occur either. All it does is stop Nemo from launching as root from the right click menu. I can still launch it as root from the command line.

It still sounds like there are limitations with Easy2USb. I might give it a look later. Though, yeah checking out the files generated by multisystem does seem like the best way forward. I either have to figure out what installing multisystem changes, or just restore to an earlier back up.

When I formatted the usb drive to get the rescue boot partition up, I had forgotten the second partition had had the scripts I use for automating reinstalling my Arch. Luckily, I found DDRescue, which hopefully can recover those lost partitions.