Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

wiak wrote: Fri Mar 03, 2023 4:49 am

Your only job is to:
1. Make sure to use LABEL "Ventoy" on that partition.
2. Make a directory called "BOOTISOS" on that same ext4 formatted partition.
3. Put your KLV-Airedale iso into that BOOTISOS directory.
4. Boot the resulting Ventoy usb stick and choose menu option:

a. menuentry "KLV-Airedale-rcX (Ventoy} RAM2 save on demand to Ventoy_Sessions)
(i.e. 4th choice down in the KLV boot menu)

b. or alternatively the 3rd menu choice down (direct writes back to save persistence) should also simply work...:
menuentry "KLV-Airedale-rcX (Ventoy direct saves to Ventoy_Sessions)

Thanks @wiak

I'll keep this more focused on USB persistence.

My issues were with step 2 where:
- I didn't realise a folder called BOOTISOS was required (thought Clarity was just describing the partition to put ISO's into in previous post - understood that the "Sessions" folder is auto created)
- I thought I was unable to "install Ventoy" to an Ext4 partition where Ventoy always creates an exFAT partition during install - I thought there may have been some hidden or system files in the Ventoy partition or something (I'm guessing that's the Fat16 partition now) and I couldn't therefore format it but if its just an empty ext4 partition called "Ventoy" for placing ISO's and the BOOTISO folder into then no issue and will progress on that understanding - it still has the "boot" flag (not with "esp") against it.

Steps carried out:
- Used Ventoy to clear itself from USB
- Installed Ventoy to USB to create the exFAT and fat16 partitions
- Replaced the Ventoy exFAT partition with an Ext4 partition labelled "Ventoy" using GParted
- Opened the Ventoy partition as root to create BOOTISOS folder and copy RC12 ISO into it
- Retrying using boot options 4a and 4b above in Ventoys' "Normal" mode (rather than GRUB or Memdisk mode)...

Screenshot of system current configuration:

wiak wrote: Fri Mar 03, 2023 4:49 am

Your only job is to:
1. Make sure to use LABEL "Ventoy" on that partition.
2. Make a directory called "BOOTISOS" on that same ext4 formatted partition.
3. Put your KLV-Airedale iso into that BOOTISOS directory.
4. Boot the resulting Ventoy usb stick and choose menu option:

menuentry "KLV-Airedale-rcX (Ventoy} RAM2 save on demand to Ventoy_Sessions)

(i.e. 4th choice down in the KLV boot menu)

or alternatively the 3rd menu choice down (direct writes back to save persistence) should also simply work...:
menuentry "KLV-Airedale-rcX (Ventoy direct saves to Ventoy_Sessions)

OK here are the results:

- Ventoy ran as expected on each boot attempt - Normal mode used to boot KLV RC12
- I tried four KLV boot options - items 3, 4, 10 and 11 per the below screenshot of boot options
- Hard reset required after each attempt

- These are the error messages received for items 3 and 4

Error messages displayed for items 10 and 11 in following post as hit Forum post image limit

Error messages displayed for items 10 and 11:

wiak wrote: Fri Mar 03, 2023 4:49 am

[bYour only job is to:[/b]
1. Make sure to use LABEL "Ventoy" on that partition.
2. Make a directory called "BOOTISOS" on that same ext4 formatted partition.
3. Put your KLV-Airedale iso into that BOOTISOS directory.
4. Boot the resulting Ventoy usb stick and choose menu option 3 or 4 from KLV boot menu:

Just to add that I repeated the above steps with the Ventoy "Secure Boot" option unchecked when installing (its checked by default) but the results were the same.

I am having to open the Ventoy directory as root to be able to create the BOOTISOS directory and also when adding the KLV ISO (now confirmed).

Probably because KLV didn't get far enough when installing but the "Sessions" folder has not been created in the Ventoy directory.

Also BIOS settings have:

- Legacy USB Support enabled
- UEFI disabled
- Boot-time Diagnostic Screen disabled

System and Video BIOS both "shadowed" (that's from an "F12" report during start up - not seeing it as an amendable BIOS option currently)

I don't know what is going on on your system..
The menu your attached images are showing is not the menu Ventoy shows for me.
Rather, what your system is finding and displaying is the menu KLV presents for QEMU, which h is not going to work for Ventoy booting...
Clarity should be able to confirm that is not correct Ventoy menu. Is it some old Ventoy version, or has Ventoy recently changed approach?

KLV uses the grub.cfg it includes internal to the iso for Ventoy booting. That does not provide 10 menu choices. QEMU uses grub4dos menu.lst which is menu your test is showing.

Actually, QEMU isn't alone in using that menu.lst.

You would also get that menu your test shows if booting KLV after writing it's hybrid iso image to a usb stick with dd or similar image writing utility. But then you are not booting via special Ventoy image. My request and help was for Ventoy booting case only.

I haven't downloaded latest klv yet. I trust rockedge remembered to put correct rc name in grub.conf and menu.lst. But really looks like Ventoy isn't being used Alex as that shown menu won't work with Ventoy boot. Or has Ventoy changed recently or some old different working Ventoy perhaps?

wiak wrote: Fri Mar 03, 2023 10:24 pm

I don't know what is going on on your system..
The menu your attached images are showing is not the menu Ventoy shows for me.
Rather, what your system is finding and displaying is the menu KLV presents for QEMU, which h is not going to work for Ventoy booting...
Clarity should be able to confirm that is not correct Ventoy menu. Is it some old Ventoy version, or has Ventoy recently changed approach?

KLV uses the grub.cfg it includes internal to the iso for Ventoy booting. That does not provide 10 menu choices. QEMU uses grub4dos menu.lst which is menu your test is showing.

Fair enough.

No its the latest v88 of Ventoy.

Maybe the ISO's Clarity is hoping to send across might work - if not then at least it's narrowing the issue down.

I might retry in Ventoy "Grub" mode rather than "normal" in case its the existing GRUB2 menu for Win7/Kali (or possibly some remnants from a former Fed 36 dual boot install on sda3?) that's confusing things.

When I'm at the KLV menu, could I press "c" to go to the GRUB cls and run a command to directly execute the correct KLV grub.cfg to see if it boots successfully?

I haven't tried running any of the QEMU KLV options yet.

FYI I renamed that sda3 to "Fed 36 broken" rather than "Persistence" before the above tests.

Maybe it would be worth cleaning up the HDD partitions to delete the Extended partition sda4 (that I wasn't able to remove during the Kali install to HDD) then backup the contents of sda3 (from prior Fed 36 I think) and delete the contents and/or partition itself - maybe I need to unmount it as an initial step too if that's an OS agnostic state of a partition?

sda3 almost looks like it has a Fed 36 ISO boot file flashed to it plus the rescue kernel and first version of Fed 36 (v5.17) - it doesn't have a boot flag but probably isn't wise to leave there I'm thinking.

Let's see what happens with Clarity's ISO's first eh.

wiak wrote: Fri Mar 03, 2023 10:42 pm

Actually, QEMU isn't alone in using that menu.lst.

You would also get that menu your test shows if booting KLV after writing it's hybrid iso image to a usb stick with dd or similar image writing utility.

Could you expand on what you mean by that please?

I'm simply using the default Kali file manager (Thunar 4.16.10) to copy the downloaded KLV ISO into the Ventoy sdb1 directory which was opened as root (and perhaps the ISO file transfer isn't being executed as root?) - is this wrong and I should be writing the ISO to the Ventoy directory some other way?

wiak wrote: Fri Mar 03, 2023 10:42 pm

Actually, QEMU isn't alone in using that menu.lst.

You would also get that menu your test shows if booting KLV after writing it's hybrid iso image to a usb stick with dd or similar image writing utility. But then you are not booting via special Ventoy image. My request and help was for Ventoy booting case only.

I just noticed that when I copy the ISO from the HDD Kali Downloads folder to the Ventoy USB directory, that the transfer is almost instant (and perhaps flickering up an error or transfer status window for an instant which closes immediately) rather than seeing the usual transfer status window of 20+ seconds to transfer the 800Mb file.

Should I be using a "sudo cp or dd" command to transfer the KLV ISO to the Ventoy USB directory (only openable as root?

Would dd extract the ISO contents to the Ventoy partition and change it to an ISO 9660 partition in the process?
I've not used dd before and it seems like a copy/extracter of sorts...

hi
I have been standing back pondering what is happening by observing these recent comments.

This is my Ventoy disk list on ! of 3 pages of ISO files in the BOOTISOS folder. I will give more detail as I am finding some different behavior in booting my Ventoy USB via QEMU without a Persistence disk. More detail later this eve when company leaves.

Followed by

MOre later, as i try to iron out some issues I am currently seeing.

Nothing I can really add sorry. It should be a simple matter of booting ventoy usb stick. Ventoy should first then present you with its own menu of iso choices. That menu should include KLV if you have simply used filemanager to copy it into BOOTISOS folder on the Ventoy labeled partition on your ventoy USB stick. Doesn't matter you copied it as root user as long as successfully copied. You don't use dd to copy a simple iso img into BOOTISOS...!..just copy it in.

wiak wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:49 am

...!..just copy it in.

Yes, merely copy all ISO/IMG files, intact, directly to your BOOTISOS folder. Ventoy has no problem finding, listing and launching for boot any of the ISO/IMG files it finds in the folder or partition.

But, I will report some additional finds as soon as company leaves and I can test my USB boot on bare-metal.

Look in BOOTISOS usb directory. Is KLV iso in there? What size is it? If necessary do:

md5sum KLV-airedale-rcX.iso and compare with what it's md5sum is supposed to be in case your copy corrupted it.

Clarity wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:00 am

hi
I have been standing back pondering what is happening by observing these recent comments.

This is my Ventoy disk list on ! of 3 pages of ISO files in the BOOTISOS folder. I will give more detail as I am finding some different behavior in booting my Ventoy USB via QEMU without a Persistence disk. More detail later this eve when company leaves.Ventoy-KLV test in QEMU.jpgFollowed byVentoy-KLV test in QEMU(2).jpg

MOre later, as i try to iron out some issues I am currently seeing.

Something badly wrong here too. That is not the appropriate Ventoy menu once KLV chosen. I'm not home either just now so will check later.

wiak wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:01 am

Look in BOOTISOS usb directory. Is KLV iso in there? What size is it? If necessary do:

md5sum KLV-airedale-rcX.iso and compare with what it's md5sum is supposed to be in case your copy corrupted it.

BOOTISOSis empty (1 item, 0 bytes)

I ran the md5sum from terminal but not sure what to compare it against.

Is the KLV ISO supposed to be inside the BOOTISOS directory?

The KLV ISO is currently alongside the BOOTISO directory - both the folder and the file being inside the USB Ventoy partition...

AlexOceanic wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:22 am

... BOOTISOSis empty (1 item, 0 bytes)

??? I have NO files that has 0 content.

My Ventoy partition looks like this. And as you can see why my earlier picture of a screen from my Ventoy boot show some of this content.

Some of these will NOT boot to desktop via Ventoy. In those cases, I select a SuperGrub2 ISO/IMG and choose the offending one from the SG2D chooser list to boot it.

Later.

wiak wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:01 am

Look in BOOTISOS usb directory. Is KLV iso in there? What size is it? If necessary do:

md5sum KLV-airedale-rcX.iso and compare with what it's md5sum is supposed to be in case your copy corrupted it.

OK so I put the KLV ISO inside the BOOTISOS directory (apologies - can't believe that rooky mistake) but KLV still fails to boot.

"3. Put your KLV-Airedale iso into that BOOTISOS directory."

Clarity wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:36 am

AlexOceanic wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:22 am

... BOOTISOSis empty (1 item, 0 bytes)

??? I have NO files that has 0 content. My Ventoy partition looks like this. And as you can see why my earlier picture of a screen from my Ventoy boot show some of this content.Ventoy-KLV test in QEMU(3).jpg

The BOOTISOS directory previously had 0 bytes (my mistake for not putting the ISO inside the BOOTISO directory as instructed) but now its populated with the KLV ISO but it still didn't remedy the stalling boot issue:

Clarity wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 12:00 am

hi
I have been standing back pondering what is happening by observing these recent comments.

This is my Ventoy disk list on ! of 3 pages of ISO files in the BOOTISOS folder. I will give more detail as I am finding some different behavior in booting my Ventoy USB via QEMU without a Persistence disk. More detail later this eve when company leaves.Ventoy-KLV test in QEMU.jpgFollowed byVentoy-KLV test in QEMU(2).jpg

MOre later, as i try to iron out some issues I am currently seeing.

Just to confirm that I do see the Ventoy boot menu screen before the KLV grub4dos boot menu screen (per the below example you provided) but it only has the one KLV RC12 option as expected.

OK, I am assuming that is from your USB stick. I ask you add a few other forum ISO files to your Ventoy USB;s BOOTISOS folder. Try several of these ISO files which I have just tested from my USB I show earlier ... click any line to get its ISO file:

• SG2D from here

• @fatdog's ISO file from the forum here

• This 'particular' Slacko64 ISO file from the forum here

• @wizard's Friendly Fossa ISO file, here, is another to add

• @peebee's LxPuPSC64 ISO file

• And this up and coming replacement ISO file for FossaPUP64

You will notice that all will boot from the Ventoy list, EXCEPT 1. When that 1 ends at the console, reboot Ventoy, select SG2D ISO and hit its Enter to get its list of the same ISOs. Click the ISO file that does not boot in Ventoy ... and WATCH.

After your tests on your PC, I will attempt an explanation of what is going on. But this will get you going with positive results, IMHO.

Show us your Ventoy or filesystem list of the ISO files that you test.

AlexOceanic wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 2:04 am

Just to confirm that I do see the Ventoy boot menu screen before the KLV grub4dos boot menu screen (per the below example you provided) but it only has the one KLV RC12 option as expected.

You sent a screenshot to say you are booting Ventoy, but what is that top line saying Puppy exton for? How is that you booting from a Ventoy usb stick? What has Puppex Exton got to do with Ventoy??!
And it says QEMU. Again why are you mixing matters. Either use Ventoy or don't, but not QEMU then booting Ventoy - I can't support mixed modes like that when testing like this.

No wonder your KLV menu is the one for QEMU that has nothing to do with the correct menu for Ventoy.

Fact is, KLV could boot in QEMU instead, but you don't need Ventoy for that! And all the tests and ideas I then post are for Ventoy so it is really frustrating to now see QEMU being used to boot Ventoy - don't do that please.

I will do the whole thing from scratch using latest Ventoy which is version 1.0.88. Please don't use old versions of Ventoy - who knows what bugs are in these...

Steps:

1. Making a bootable Ventoy usb stick.

Per: https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_start.html

For Linux - CLI mode
Download the installation package, like ventoy-x.x.xx-linux.tar.gz and decompress it.

So I downloaded and decompressed ventoy-1.0.88-linux.tar.gz
Got it here (it is 19 MB in size): https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/releases
(via page https://www.ventoy.net/en/download.html)

2. Plugged a usb stick in that I will use for Ventoy image install. No need to format it cos going to simply write the ventoy image over the top of what was already there.

3. Noted what device my system sees the usb stick. On my system it was /dev/sdb. It may be different on yours - as root, blkid command entered into a terminal will help you determine that. Make sure it isn't mounted, or umount it.

4. After decompressing (extracting) ventoy-1.0.88 you'll find you have a new folder named: ventoy-1.0.88

cd into that directory
and open a terminal

You can read the README file in there in your text editor for install info if you want to.

Then in that terminal run the following command as root user (include the ./):

./Ventoy2Disk.sh -I /dev/sdX

IMPORTANT where the X is the letter your system sees the usb stick at. As I said on my system it was /dev/sdb
The option -I 'forces' the installation even if an old ventoy install was already there.

5. That will write Ventoy onto the usb stick you selected. Once it appears to have completed, in same terminal run the command:

sync;sync

That is just to make sure it has really written the whole Ventoy install onto the usb stick.

6. If you did the above as described, exactly, then you now have a good Ventoy install of latest version, but /dev/sdX1 will be type exFAT and we want to change that to ext4, so start gparted, find that partition (make sure it is unmounted via right click in gparted), format it to ext4 and make sure to give the result label 'Ventoy'.

Having done that you should now have a bootable Ventoy usb stick ready for creating BOOTISOS folder into which you can copy your KLV-Airedale-rcX.iso as below:

7. So, in your file manager find that usb stick partition labelled 'Ventoy' and in terminal opened there as root user run command:

mkdir -p BOOTISOS

8. Now, still as root user, in your favourite filemanager, copy a good KLV-Airedale-rcX.iso into that usb stick BOOTISOS directory. Having done that, again run the command:

sync;sync

and wait till that command returns and the usb stick stops blinking. Then check in boot isos via your filemanager to make sure this time that KLV-Airedale-rcX.iso is really there and not of course of size 0 bytes. It is over 700 MiB in size as you know.

9. Now, one important detail. Ventoy can get mixed up if you have more than one copy of the same iso you are trying to boot in several places on your system. Find all copies that are not the one in BOOTISOS and either delete them (if you are sure you have good copy on the usb stick) or changed their extensions from .iso to maybe .isoOLD so Ventoy won't find them.

10. Now reboot your system and make sure to interrupt it in such a way that it boots from the Ventoy usb stick. Then choose KLV-Airedale from the hopefully presented menu, and then you should get the KLV-Airedale grub menu (which only has about six items in it) and chose the one I told you already.

menuentry "KLV-Airedale-rcX (Ventoy} RAM2 save on demand to Ventoy_Sessions)

If you are still however getting a huge menu of around 12 choices something crazy is wrong... and I have to give up for now until I have time to look into it again.

I've just completed all the above steps and worked perfectly for me first time.

I booted the Ventoy usb stick, chose KLV-Airedale-rc12.iso

then chose 'normal boot'

followed by the menu choice I gave above for save on demand RAM2 mode.

I'm posting from it now. Save on demand is working. It remembers all my settings for reboot.

Nothing appears wrong at all with Ventoy (using latest 1.0.88) and nothing wrong with KLV-Airedale-rc12.iso. It boots fine with it.

I've uploaded a small (5.2 MiB) mp4 video that shows me booting KLV-Airedale-rc12.iso via above made Ventoy usb stick.

Ventoy_booting_KLVrc12.mp4

Hopefully shows you what you should be seeing:

Download it from here: https://mega.nz/file/WvQhjawQ#ziXpF021W ... a0hbAC2m6Q

Actually, you should just need to click on above link and see a play symbol; press that and it should play (stream). Might depend on your browser. Made video on Android phone, then re-recorded at low frame rate using wex program in KLV-Airedale.

wiak wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 9:03 am

I will do the whole thing from scratch using latest Ventoy which is version 1.0.88. Please don't use old versions of Ventoy - who knows what bugs are in these...

Steps:

1. Making a bootable Ventoy usb stick.

Per: https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_start.html

For Linux - CLI mode
Download the installation package, like ventoy-x.x.xx-linux.tar.gz and decompress it.

So I downloaded and decompressed ventoy-1.0.88-linux.tar.gz
Got it here (it is 19 MB in size): https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/releases
(via page https://www.ventoy.net/en/download.html)
Done
2. Plugged a usb stick in that I will use for Ventoy image install. No need to format it cos going to simply write the ventoy image over the top of what was already there.

3. Noted what device my system sees the usb stick. On my system it was /dev/sdb. It may be different on yours - as root, blkid command entered into a terminal will help you determine that. Make sure it isn't mounted, or umount it.
USB also shown as /dev/sdb on my system (then containing sdb1 and sdb2 but irrelevant I believe) - had to run blkid using sudo to get output - I noticed the partitions listed weren't in chronological order but all partitions on HD and USB drives were shown
4. After decompressing (extracting) ventoy-1.0.88 you'll find you have a new folder named: ventoy-1.0.88

cd into that directory
and open a terminal

You can read the README file in there in your text editor for install info if you want to.

Then in that terminal run the following command as root user (include the ./):

Code: Select all

./Ventoy2Disk.sh -I /dev/sdX

IMPORTANT where the X is the letter your system sees the usb stick at. As I said on my system it was /dev/sdb
The option -I 'forces' the installation even if an old ventoy install was already there.
Done
5. That will write Ventoy onto the usb stick you selected. Once it appears to have completed, in same terminal run the command:

Code: Select all

sync;sync

That is just to make sure it has really written the whole Ventoy install onto the usb stick.
I did this but it was so quick and without output so I ran "sudo sync;sync" afterwards - not sure if this may have caused an issue?
6. If you did the above as described, exactly, then you now have a good Ventoy install of latest version, but /dev/sdX1 will be type exFAT and we want to change that to ext4, so start gparted, find that partition (make sure it is unmounted via right click in gparted), format it to ext4 and make sure to give the result label 'Ventoy'.

Having done that you should now have a bootable Ventoy usb stick ready for creating BOOTISOS folder into which you can copy your KLV-Airedale-rcX.iso as below:
Done although - when proper KLV menu boot still failed I retried after remounting the sdb1 partition using Disks ("Mount" was a greyed out option in Gparted when I tried that first) but it still failed.
Also there is a Gparted warning on sdb2 fat16 partition as follows (this has been the case for all previous attempts too) although seeingas no changes are being made to this partition I think its probably irrelevant:
"Unable to read the contents of this file system!
Because of this some operations may be unavailable.
The cause might be a missing software package.
The following list of software packages is required for fat16 file system support: dosfstools, mtools."
When I just checked again in Disks, both sdb1 and sdb2 are unmounted now, not sure if I should have also mounted sdb2 or whether this is irrelevant seeing as it appears to reset to unmounted on reboot anyway
7. So, in your file manager find that usb stick partition labelled 'Ventoy' and in terminal opened there as root user run command:

Code: Select all

mkdir -p BOOTISOS

Done
8. Now, still as root user, in your favourite filemanager, copy a good KLV-Airedale-rcX.iso into that usb stick BOOTISOS directory. Having done that, again run the command:

Code: Select all

sync;sync

I ran the code as above (not using sudo) and it seemed to run ok so I didn't re run using sudo as before - operation took longer being 700Mb
and wait till that command returns and the usb stick stops blinking. Then check in boot isos via your filemanager to make sure this time that KLV-Airedale-rcX.iso is really there and not of course of size 0 bytes. It is over 700 MiB in size as you know.
Done - note that this time I saw the file transfer status window act normally as it showed the full 700Mb being transferred (rather than the seemingly instantaneous transfer I reported previously when copying)
9. Now, one important detail. Ventoy can get mixed up if you have more than one copy of the same iso you are trying to boot in several places on your system. Find all copies that are not the one in BOOTISOS and either delete them (if you are sure you have good copy on the usb stick) or changed their extensions from .iso to maybe .isoOLD so Ventoy won't find them.
Done for KLV RC12 ISO in HD saved "Downloads" - being a fresh install of Kali, the only copy of any KLV ISO is the one in "Downloads" and I did a Catfish search of the file system just in case and confirmed that the only instances it found had the .isoOLD file extension as planned
10. Now reboot your system and make sure to interrupt it in such a way that it boots from the Ventoy usb stick. Then choose KLV-Airedale from the hopefully presented menu, and then you should get the KLV-Airedale grub menu (which only has about six items in it) and chose the one I told you already.

menuentry "KLV-Airedale-rcX (Ventoy} RAM2 save on demand to Ventoy_Sessions)
Unfortunately it still went to the same KLV boot menu.
Just to clarify your query from a previous post - I just re-used Clarity's screenshot of the Ventoy boot screen her had posted as an example to show that I was seeing the Ventoy boot screen to select KLV (or any other ISO in the BOOTISOS folder) as expected - mine did not have any text at the top of the window as shown on your video.
If you are still however getting a huge menu of around 12 choices something crazy is wrong... and I have to give up for now until I have time to look into it again.

Thank you very much for putting this guide together though - I guess there's something weird going on with my system unless any of the deviations from the above might have caused an issue - I'll retry again not using sudo sync this time but suspect that's not what the issue is.
I'll also see if any of Clarity's ISO's work although I'd rather not confuse matters and just focus on KLV RC12 to keep things simple

Have you checked the klv iso is on usb stick in BOOTISOS? And correct size. Can you write files ok to that sdb1 usb stick partition? I'm wondering if the usb stick is faulty and maybe read only?

Do you get same ventoy grub.conf menu of around six choices only as in video I posted? If so, does first choice RAM0 mode work?

Do you boot Kali from a usb stick? Grub?

wiak wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 1:45 pm

Have you checked the klv iso is on usb stick in BOOTISOS? And correct size. Can you write files ok to that sdb1 usb stick partition? I'm wondering if the usb stick is faulty and maybe read only?
Yes the KLV ISO is in the BOOTISOS directory
Size of original and copied file match at 811,718,656 bytes
Yes I can write files ok to the USB as far as I can tell
My previous concern was that the group "root" only had "read" access per below:

Screenshot_2023-03-04_14-23-36.png (85.3 KiB) Viewed 1882 times

Do you get same ventoy grub.conf menu of around six choices only as in video I posted? If so, does first choice RAM0 mode work?
No its the same KLV grub4dos menu with too many options
RAM0 didn't work either
Do you boot Kali from a usb stick? Grub?
Kali is installed on the HDD and boots from Grub I believe
(Its a customised boot screen but allows me to choose either Kali, Kali advanced or Windows 8 - its actually Win 7 but its recognised as Win 8 by Grub etc I think)

Well I'm glad I was sitting down just then because KLV just booted properly and save persistence is confirmed!!!

All I did was:

- Enabled then disabled UEFI boot (gave a "not secure boot" error on booting)
- Disabled then re-enabled Legacy Boot Support (just skipped USB and went to the Kali Grub 2 boot menu)
- BOOTED FROM GRUB ON THE VENTOY BOOT MENU
- Chose the fourth option "RAM2 save on demand to Ventoy_Sessions"
- Created a test folder/file in "Home"
- Left "save session for future logins" checked on logout
- Selected "save" on the final menu that popped up and bingo!

I guess its still weird that KLV is behaving differently to your machine when I select Normal boot rather than Grub but at least I have a working version of KLV with persistent save on USB at last!

Thanks so much for the extensive help you all provided and happy to try any other configurations if you want to diagnose the Normal boot up issue at some point (and of course I'll let you know if it starts working after any major changes I make) but it's probably an issue specific to whatever I may have messed up in GRUB from prior installs and/or attempting the GPU driver updates so probably not worth your time.

Alex @ Live KLV Airedale Persistent Session on USB

@wiak
@Clarity
@rockedge
@mikewalsh

@AlexOceanic glad to see you have gotten your PC to allow the behavior you are seeing. I apologize to you ofr NOT going forward with my commitment BECAUSE I was suspecting hardware issues over the software steps and was trying to play with UEFI settings on my old PCs to arrive at what you were reporting. It seems from your message that you have sorted out your PCs settings such that it would behave to allow USB booting that you now have.

So, you NOW have a USB that you can drop ISO files on it in that folder; and your PC with your USB will afford the behavior you expect.

I ask that you consider adding other KL distros to see them boot to desktop as well as some of the items i suggested to you before. IN particular, add the SG2D ISO file to the same BOOTISOS folder with ALL of your ISO files.

I, personally, have the SG2D present because some of the modern forum distros will not boot to desktop via Verntoy, yet they will boot to desktop from the SG2D Menu. Thus for all of the forum distros, I have/do successful boot all of them from the forum developers via my single Ventoy USB stick containing all ISO I use.

AlexOceanic wrote: Sat Mar 04, 2023 2:28 pm

Kali is installed on the HDD and boots from Grub I believe
(Its a customised boot screen but allows me to choose either Kali, Kali advanced or Windows 8 - its actually Win 7 but its recognised as Win 8 by Grub etc I think)

Did you know, that both Ventoy as well as SG2D will show AND boot (if you choose) any installed OSes you have on your PC. Thus from each of these 'ISO listers' they will ALSO boot your other OSes you have installed. Thus your Ventoy USB can be a universal booter for everything on your PC including the "installed" OSes.

Enjoy the discoveries you find to make life simpler and speedier.