Wednesday, 2 September 2020

agFM v1.57 Beta1 with VENTOY support

 These new versions are experimental and they allow you to add any Ventoy release to your E2B+AgFM USB drive.

Background

a1ive's latest grubfm allows the F5 function key to boot Ventoy or AIOBOOT from a separate partition which contains those files. However, it is not very useful as we cannot use the same FAT32 partition that E2B+agFM already uses and Ventoy requires a particular fixed partition order!

If Ventoy is detected, then pressing F5 will boot from efi/boot/bootx64.efi on the Ventoy partition or MBR\Legacy boot from the grub2 boot sector (which is actually grub4dos on an E2B drive). The Ventoy files cannot therefore be on the same FAT32 partition as the agFM files.

AIOBOOT can be present on any partition and F5 will boot from the /efi/boot/bootx64.efi file or the /AIO/grub/i386-pc/core.img file (for MBR\Legacy booting). The AIOBOOT files cannot therefore be on the same FAT32 partition as the agFM files.

So the current Ventoy\AIOBOOT F5 function is not suitable for E2B+agFM!


New Betas

E2B v2.05c Beta  and agFM v1.57Beta1 allows you to also add Ventoy to your E2B USB drive. I have asked a1ive to add a few lines of code the grubfm so that F5 can be used to boot Ventoy from the standard Ventoy File Manager too. [Note: extra code is now in agFm v1.57Beta2].

You can also boot to Ventoy directly from the E2B grub4dos menu (MBR\Legacy mode).

The default agFM menu will have a Ventoy menu entry if the Ventoy files have been added.


Instructions for adding Ventoy to an E2B USB drive


Note: E2B v2.05 now includes \_ISO\docs\Make_E2B_USB_Drive\Add_Ventoy.cmd. Just download the latest Ventoy .zip file and drop the file on the Add_Ventoy.cmd file on your E2B USB drive (Windows 10 only).

1. Update your E2B files to v2.05 (download - unzip - run Make_E2B.exe - Update E2B)

2. Update the agFM files on partition 2 (download - unzip - overwrite all files on partition 2 with the new files) - must use agFM v1.57.

3. You now need to add the Ventoy files (latest version is 1.0.20)...

First make a new folder E2B_VENTOY on your computer somewhere...

4a. If you have made a Ventoy USB bootable drive already, copy all the files and folders from partition 2 of the Ventoy USB drive to the new E2B_VENTOY folder.

-- OR --

4b. If you don't have a Ventoy USB drive available, then download the latest Ventoy release as a .zip file.

Open the zip file using 7zip and open the ventoy.disk.img folder (e.g. \ventoy-1.0.20 -ventoy - ventoy.disk.img.xz - ventoy.disk.img (see image below)...


Extract all these folders to the empty E2B_VENTOY folder (four folders in all).

5. We need to change some files in the E2B_VENTOY folders:

The Certificate file ENROLL_THIS_KEY_IN_MOKMANAGER.cer can be deleted.

Go to the E2B_VENTOY\EFI\BOOT folder...

    If the file \grubx64_real.efi exists then rename it to ventoyx64.efi    - OR -

    If the file \grubx64_real.efi does NOT exist (there will only be bootx64.efi present) then rename the file BOOTX64.efi it to ventoyx64.efi

    Delete all files in the E2B_VENTOY\EFI\BOOT folder (if any) EXCEPT for the file ventoyx64.efi

6. The file \ventoy\core.img should already be present in the second partition of the E2B USB drive (as it was in agFM Beta1). If not, or if you are using a later version of Ventoy and not v1.0.20, then go to https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/blob/master/INSTALL/grub/i386-pc/core.img and replace/add this file to the ventoy folder.

7. Your E2B_VENTOY folder should now contain these new files (amongst the old files\folders)...

E2B_VENTOY\EFI\BOOT\ventoyx64.efi  (used for UEFI64 booting)

E2B_VENTOY\ventoy\core.img (used for Legacy\MBR BIOS booting)

8. Now simply copy the entire contents of the E2B_VENTOY folder to the 2nd partition of your E2B USB drive. You should not be prompted to overwrite any existing files on the USB drive - if you are then you did something wrong! Do NOT overwrite any existing files when you add the E2B_VENTOY files.

How it works


MBR-booting
The E2B grub4dos menu file at \_ISO\MAINMENU\alive grub2 filemanager.mnu now contains a menu entry to boot Ventoy using the  Ptn2:\ventoy\core.img file.

If you boot to agFM, the startup_default.cfg menu contains a Ventoy F5 menu option to boot to the  Ptn2:\ventoy\core.img file.

UEFI64-booting
The 64-bit Ventoy efi file is now at \EFI\BOOT\ventoyx64.efi. The startup_default.cfg menu file contains a Ventoy F5 menu option to boot to this file.

Using a startup_menu.txt file?

If you are using your own user menu \boot\grubfm\startup_menu.txt file so that your own menu appears on startup of agFM, then you will have to add a new Ventoy menu entry into the file - compare your file with the new version of \boot\grubfm\SAMPLE_startup_menu.txt file to see the extra menu entry required.

Notes: 
  1. Ventoy recognises the USB boot disk by its exact total capacity. Therefore you should not connect another identically sized USB drive (this means that you should not connect another identical Make\Model\Size of USB drive when booting an ISO using Ventoy). This is only an issue when using Ventoy on a disk that was not made by Ventoy2Disk.exe because that uses a special MBR.
  2. Ventoy files must be on Partition 2.
  3. Ventoy searches Partition 1 for ISO and other payload files.
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10 comments:

  1. Anonymous3 September 2020 at 13:13:00 BST

    hello Steve, Tnctr Serhat100

    I need your help on something, I would be glad if you could help. I'm putting a config file in grubfm.iso.
    I also put (hd0,1) / boot / grubfm / config file of the flash memory, (hd0,1)/boot/grubfm/rules content
    does not see. How to have config file in both places (grubfm.iso and (hd0,1)/boot/grubfm)
    adjustable.

    grubfm.iso>>config>> if [ "${grub_platform}" == "pc" ]; then set MBR=true; fi> grubfm_set --boot 1

    (hd0,1)/boot/grubfm/config>> grubfm_set --boot 1


    (hd0,1)/boot/grubfm/config>> how to structure.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous3 September 2020 at 13:30:00 BST

    (So it will just find config on first drive it detects.
    You should not have a config file inside your ISO.)

    How can it be set or set to include grubfm.iso and in the driver?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Steve Si3 September 2020 at 13:40:00 BST

      I don't understand what you are trying to achieve?
      When grubfm boots it will either run config which is inside the ISO or run config from the USB drive. You cannot have both at the same time.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous3 September 2020 at 14:10:00 BST

    The config file I put in grubfm.iso is (hd0,1)/boot/grubfm/rules on the USB drive
    it goes into passive state, ie I cannot run ISO files on the drives.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous3 September 2020 at 14:19:00 BST

    I put (hd0,1)/boot/grubfm/ a config file here, everything is normal.
    My wish is to put a config file in grubfm.iso and
    Ability to view special config files in (hd0,1)/boot/grubfm/ directory.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous3 September 2020 at 15:00:00 BST

    (I don't understand what you are trying to achieve?
    When grubfm boots it will either run config which is inside the ISO or run config from the USB drive. You cannot have both at the same time.)

    When the configuration in grubfm.iso runs, the configurations in the USB drive do not appear.
    I cannot run ISO files on my drives.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The Pink Pander5 September 2020 at 12:33:00 BST

    Hi Steve, I follow your instructions and I not be able to show ventoy entry in main agFM menu, I'm using latest betas and your latest SAMPLE_startup_menu with required menu entries
    But I don't know what I'm doing wrong, can you help me, please
    thx in advance

    ReplyDelete

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