Remastered Fatdog64 Live DVD not booting on UEFI system

[Neo_78]

I have created a remastered Fatdog64 DVD on a system that supports only UEFI (secure boot disabled) and no legacy BIOS. The original DVD image boots fine into the Fatdog UEFI boot screen and I can start Fatdog. However, the remastered DVD will not load at all.

If I access the UEFI screen from the original DVD image and then switch to the remastered DVD and try to boot Fatdog, I get the following error:

Error: Not found while loading grub2.efi

What am I missing during the remastering process to get the remastered DVD working on UEFI-only systems?

[JakeSFR]

Did you select this checkbox and also the efiboot.img in the right pane?

FD_Remaster_EFI.gif (42.85 KiB) Viewed 891 times

If so, the resulting ISO should have that file, too. Does it?

As for the grub2.efi file, I'm not sure what it is, I don't use UEFI boot at all...
[EDIT] It's inside efiboot.img: EFI/grub2/grub2.efi.

Greetings!

[Neo_78]

Thanks @JakeSFR. That's the step I have overlooked as I usually create remastered DVDs for legacy BIOS, which does not require it.

Do you know the exact location of efiboot.img on the default Fatdog DVD image so that I can copy it over for the next remastering attempt?

Also, is it possible to use the secure boot option for a remastered live DVD? The documentation only mentions a full installation:

https://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/f ... -boot.html

[JakeSFR]

Do you know the exact location of efiboot.img on the default Fatdog DVD image so that I can copy it over for the next
remastering attempt?

It's in the root directory of the Fatdog ISO:

FD_efiboot.gif (68.43 KiB) Viewed 842 times

Also, is it possible to use the secure boot option for a remastered live DVD? The documentation only mentions a full installation:

This I don't know for sure. But if all the necessary files are there, I think it should work. Only one way to find out.

Greetings!

[Neo_78]

@JakeSFR I copied efiboot.img from the original DVD to the /tmp folder as well as vmlinuz.

Following your instructions, I then selected "EFI boot support" during the remastering process and specified the efiboot.img location in the /tmp folder.

However, the remastered DVD will still not boot. Original DVD image works fine, but the remastered image won't work. It's stuck at the BIOS screen where you select the boot source (USB, DVD, hard drive, etc.).

What am I doing wrong? Something must be missing...

[JakeSFR]

Hmm, I tried the original as well as quickly remastered ISO (only fd64.sfs, nothing more added) in QEmu, emulating UEFI:

Code: Select all

qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 2G -vga cirrus -usbdevice tablet -bios /usr/share/qemu/uefi-bios.bin -cdrom remaster-2022-08-29.iso

and it (slowly, but) boots for me in both cases.

You could try if the new ISO also boots for you in QEmu (load devx.sfs, it's there).

Anyway, I really don't know what's wrong at this point, maybe somebody else who actually did this in the past and tried to boot with real UEFI could chime in...

Greetings!

[Neo_78]

@JakeSFR following your advice, I have installed Qemu 6, created a new ISO with the remastering tool.

The remastered image boots to the Fatdog desktop in Qemu, but I had to remove the enable-kvm option otherwise I get the following error:

Code: Select all

Could not access KVM kernel module: No such file or directory

qemu_system_x86_64: failed to initialize kvm: No such file or directory

I then tried to use Qemu and boot the remastered DVD that I had created with -cdrom /dev/sr0 and get the following error:

Code: Select all

qemu-system-x86_64: -cdrom /dev/sr0: Could not read image for determining its format: Input/output error

OR

When I reopen and close the USB-DVD drive and try to boot the remastered DVD after the previous error, it boots into the UEFI interactive Shell v2.2 where I am stuck.

I get the same results when trying to boot the original FatDog DVD in Qemu.

Considering that the original DVD, which boots fine (without Qemu), has been created with the same DVD-drive/burner and the same DVD brand (DVD-R) with pburn, I don't think this is a hardware or DVD -brand related problem.

Could this be related to the initially reported grub2.efi error?

Something must be missing on the remastered DVD image that is present on the original DVD.

I am really lost here what the problem could be...

[JakeSFR]

The remastered image boots to the Fatdog desktop in Qemu, but I had to remove the enable-kvm option otherwise I get the following error:

Ok, that's some progress.

As for kvm, you probably need to modprobe kvm.

Also, when specifying a physical device in QEmu, no need to use -cdrom option, just type /dev/sr0 directly after all other options.
Maybe that's why you've got the "Could not read image..." error.

When I reopen and close the USB-DVD drive and try to boot the remastered DVD after the previous error, it boots into the UEFI interactive Shell v2.2 where I am stuck.

I get the same results when trying to boot the original FatDog DVD in Qemu.

Considering that the original DVD, which boots fine (without Qemu), has been created with the same DVD-drive/burner and the same DVD brand (DVD-R) with pburn, I don't think this hardware or DVD -brand related problem.

Could this be related to the initially reported grub2.efi error?

Hmm, I'd still try to exclude the DVD's fault by dd-ing (or installing via CP->Install->UEFI Installer) the ISO onto a USB thumb drive and trying to boot from there.
I don't think it's related to grub2.efi at this point.

And I still hope somebody else, who acually had FD remastered and working (or not) with UEFI, chimes in.

Greetings!

[Neo_78]

If I leave the -cdrom flag in Qemu it will give me an error that Qemu fails to start @JakeSFR.

Never had any DVD booting issues with any BIOS version. New UEFI systems seem to have some trouble with remastered images. It does not seem to like newer hardware.

I always continued to use remastered FatDog DVD images with my system configurations and custom programs to ensure that I boot from a clean image loaded into RAM only and eject the DVD after boot.

So the question is, can I achieve the same with a USB drive instead of using a DVD?

I want to ensure that my remastered image is not being altered and the USB drive is not writeable once it has been booted. I just need to use my non-root user account but there is no need to store any data on the USB drive.

Do we have a guide to create a bootable USB drive from a remastered ISO that will be non-writeable?

[JakeSFR]

If I leave the -cdrom flag in Qemu it will give me an error that Qemu fails to start @JakeSFR.

Oh, I think I was wrong, the -cdrom bit is invalid in case of booting from e.g. USB stick, but yeah, it makes sense for sr0. I haven't been using CDs/DVDs for ages...

But in this case, the Could not read image for determining its format: Input/output error might indicate an actual reading problem.

Never had any DVD booting issues with any BIOS version. New UEFI systems seem to have some trouble with remastered images. It does not seem to like newer hardware.

This also might be the case, like I said I've never dealt with UEFI...

I always continued to use remastered FatDog DVD images with my system configurations and custom programs to ensure that I boot from a clean image loaded into RAM only and eject the DVD after boot.

So the question is, can I achieve the same with a USB drive instead of using a DVD?

I want to ensure that my remastered image is not being altered and the USB drive is not writeable once it has been booted. I just need to use my non-root user account but there is no need to store any data on the USB drive.

Do we have a guide to create a bootable USB drive from a remastered ISO that will be non-writeable?

In fact, when you dd an ISO onto a USB stick, it becomes read-only, whether you want it or not.
Then you can use the fix-usb.sh script (included in the original ISO, but also in /usr/sbin/fix-usb.sh) to reclaim the unused free space in a form of an additional parition.
More info: https://distro.ibiblio.org/fatdog/web/f ... drive.html

Greetings!

[Neo_78]

Thanks @JakeSFR.

So I can create the remastered ISO as previously described and then use the following command to write it to my USB pendrive (for instance sdb), correct?

Code: Select all

 dd if=./remastered.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4

Would this require any special formatting of the USB pendrive before running the dd command?

[JakeSFR]

So I can create the remastered ISO as previously described and then use the following command to write it to my USB pendrive (for instance sdb), correct?

Code: Select all

dd if=./remastered.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4

It's bs=4M, with bs=4 it will take forever to dd.

Would this require any special formatting of the USB pendrive before running the dd command?

No, otherwise it would've be mentioned in FAQ.

Greetings!

[Neo_78]

@JakeSFR I was able to dd a remastered iso to a flash drive and the system successfully booted from that drive.

There seems to be something off during the burn process of the DVD in pburn. I am using the same DVD-burner and DVD-brand since ages and it works without problems for BIOS legacy systems but the remastered DVDs do not boot in UEFI. Very strange...

[JakeSFR]

@JakeSFR I was able to dd a remastered iso to a flash drive and the system successfully booted from that drive.

There seems to be something off during the burn process of the DVD in pburn. I am using the same DVD-burner and DVD-brand since ages and it works without problems for BIOS legacy systems but the remastered DVDs do not boot in UEFI. Very strange...

It could be something about the burn process, but also could be your machine's quirk:

I know this is not the answer to your question, but my first UEFI laptop just would not boot from a CD/DVD in UEFI mode. I had to burn a USB stick. I never got it to boot from CD/DVD and never figured out why.

Did you ever boot any OS from DVD in UEFI mode on this box?

Greetings!

[williams2]

Some isos have 2 partitions. A standard iso has no partitions. If the iso was changed, the UEFI partition may have been removed.

On my machine, it will always boot MS Windows unless I press F9 to select the boot manager.
It seems to be impossible to configure it to boot anything other than MS Windows by default, unless the boot partition is modified.

If legacy mode is not enabled, the boot manager will only show UEFI options.

If legacy mode is enabled, it will boot MS Windows UEFI by default, unless the boot manager is selected by pressing F9.
The boot manager will show all the UEFI choices and any legacy items, if any, too. For example, a cd or dvd.

Your machine may work differently.

[Neo_78]

My machine has no legacy BIOS option. Only UEFI is available like most newer systems.

The default FatDog and Puppy images boot fine from DVD and the same DVD-burner and DVD-brand were used to create the DVDs in pburn.

So there must be something in the remastering process that creates the iso in combination with the pburn burning process that makes the remastered DVD unusable...