Grub

List of live CDs

BootMed
SystemRescueCD
Ubuntu Rescue Remix
Trinity Rescue Kit
~~BackTrack Linux~~
- Superseded by Kali Linux
Hiren's BootCD
Ultimate Boot CD – many diagnostic tools on one bootable CD (BIOS, CPU, HDD, memory)
KNOPPIX
Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10
- Creating Kaspersky boot disk
Where can I download Windows 7 (legally from Microsoft)?
MemTest

Debian Live CD
Debain NetInstall kernel: initrd.gz + linux
Debain Stretch NetInstall ISO or initrd.gz + linux

Creating live image and bootable USB

Bootable CD Wizard – позволяет создавать мульти-загрузочные (Multiple-Image Bootable CD) компакт-диски для компьютеров, которые не поддерживают мульти-загрузку с компакт-дисков.
- mkisofs-2.01 port to MinGW (with extra bonuses)
How do I place a bootable ISO on a USB drive?, How to write precompiled image to USB flash drive?
- Rufus (can also write dd images to USB flash)
- UltraISO
- dd (read/write images)
How to create a bootable Windows USB flash?
Ventoy – an open source tool to create multi-boot USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files based on Grub2.

USB Boot Test:
qemu -boot c -hda /dev/sdb -m 512

Using Grub to create bootable USB

grub4dos

Grub2

Mount your USB to e.g. /mnt/usb and install Grub on it using the command (use actual USB device e.g. /dev/sdd):

grub-install --force --no-floppy --boot-directory=/mnt/[mountpoint]/boot /dev/sdX

How to boot from an .iso file in GRUB2? and How can I boot into an ISO file in GRUB?

menuentry "Bootable ISO Image: install-x86-minimal-20130820" {
   insmod part_msdos
   insmod ext2
   set root='(hd0,msdos7)'
   search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root <individual uuid replaced>
   linux16 /boot/memdisk iso
   initrd16 /boot/images/install-x86-minimal-20130820.iso
}

MemDisk (download)

More configs:

Burg

Brand-new Universal loadeR from GRUB. It's based on GRUB, and add features like new object format and configurable menu system.

Grub2 based bootloader with some grub4dos features like mapping support

Questions answered

How to display all drives and partitions in Grub command line?

Type root (hd in command-line and then press TAB.

Can Grub load kernel from large drives?

Attempt to load Linux explodes with “syntax error”s and “invalid command”s on boot, and manually trying to boot the kernel from the GRUB rescue shell resulted in “error: invalid magic number”.

From this article:

Grub uses legacy addressing scheme known as CHS (cylinder-head-sector). Assuming the number of cylinders is a 16-bit integer (a fairly common limitation), heads is 16 and sector count is 63, we get a limit of 2^16 × 16 × 63 = 66.060.288 addressable sectors, or exactly 31.5GiB.

That means that /boot/ partition should be located in first 32GB.

How to enable framebuffer on Grub?

From Setting the framebuffer resolution on GRUB:

Add/uncomment the following lines:

/etc/default/grub

GRUB_GFXMODE=1024x768x32
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep

and re-generate grub config:

# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

How to reinstall Grub on given partition?

Provided that root partition /dev/sdb1 is mounted to /mnt run the followingto install Grub to MBR of /dev/sdb drive:

# grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sdb

For more correct installation on Debian that includes also updating /boot/grub/grub.cfg one need to mount necessary partitions and run update-grub:

# mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
# mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys
# mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
# chroot /mnt
# update-grub

ISO

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