Boot from Arch ISO on USB with UEFI BIOS [SOLVED]

After following the instructions here, I a FAT32 formated USB "ARCH_201209" with the extracted ISO on it but have no idea how to actually boot from this USB. When entering the BIOS on my MB, I see nothing that would allow me to select the USB as a boot device. Do I need to drop into the UEFI shell to accomplish this?
EDIT: It seems this is a limitation of my MB which is actually perfect in every other regard including overclocking. The board for reference is an Asus P8Z77-V Pro running BIOS v1504. I really hope they fix this BS in a subsequent BIOS update.
Last edited by graysky (2012-09-09 13:31:59)

Wow, this MB pisses me off. Turns out that I had to completely powerdown, plugin the USB, enter the BIOS and ONLY then was the USB available as a boot option. I wanted to test that I could actually boot to the thing and do so. Arch booted flawlessly.
What I found after rebooting out of the live USB was that I couldn't boot my system at all. The BIOS just kept coming up in an endless loop as I would select the 'arch_grub' option that previously worked. The solution to this bullshit was to drop to the EFI shell and add an entry that points to 'fs0:\EFI\arch\grubx64.efi "Arch Linux MANUALLY ADDED"'
:angry:
...can someone tell me why in the world we are going to UEFI boards? I actually opened a thread that has yet to receive a reply on this very topic. I am making this as solved. Thank you all for the quick replies.
Summary of links that really helped me:
UEFI Related:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/EF … l_Commands
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Gr … fi_package
Arch USB Related:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/UEFI#Archiso
Last edited by graysky (2012-09-09 13:33:22)

Similar Messages

[Solved] Unbootable USB with both BIOS and UEFI setup

I'm installing Arch to a USB flash drive to be bootable across a wide-range of computers (like the Arch ISO for USB) - both with legacy BIOS and with UEFI support (32bit instead of 64bit for greatest compatibility). I've installed Arch successfully and everything with it works fine.
To get the flash drive to bootup on legacy BIOS systems, I've installed Grub. This went without a hitch and this boots up on every legacy BIOS machine I've tried.
However, I cannot for the life of me get UEFI working. I only have one UEFI-enabled machine to test on. I've tied settings up both Gummiboot and Grub for UEFI support and they both seem to get to the same place. I get their boot entries to show up in the UEFI's boot up menu, but it boots the UEFI installation already present on the system (another Arch installation). If I remove the UEFI entry for the Arch installation on the machine, it lists the flash drive in the boot-up menu but clicking on it tells me that there were no bootable mediums found. So I'm guessing there is a configuration error somewhere.
The Arch ISO disk boots up successfully over UEFI on the machine without a hitch. SafeBoot is disabled on the UEFI machine machine. The UEFI machine has a working UEFI Arch installation by Grub2 which works fine - I setup the flash drive pretty much the same was as detailed below but it doesn't work.
Here is my setup:
Disk /dev/sda: 57.9 GiB, 62176362496 bytes, 121438208 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 7AF2949B-01DA-4A5D-96B5-C716601BF56B
Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sda1 2048 10487807 10485760 5G EFI System
/dev/sda2 10487808 10489855 2048 1M BIOS boot
/dev/sda3 10489856 121438174 110948319 52.9G Linux filesystem
It is a GPT formatted flash drive, with an EFI partition, a BIOS Boot partition (for Grub) and finally a LUKS encrypted file system. (I have also tried the system without LUKS and I still get the same results as above).
ESP partition with Gummiboot (/boot): (ls -LR /boot)
EFI grub initramfs-linux-fallback.img initramfs-linux.img intel-ucode.img loader vmlinuz-linux
./EFI:
Boot gummiboot
./EFI/Boot:
BOOTIA32.EFI BOOTX64.efi
./EFI/gummiboot:
gummibootia32.efi
./loader:
entries loader.conf
./loader/entries:
arch.conf
(with BOOTIA32.EFI copied to BOOTX64.EFI so UEFI would recognize the flash drive.)
ESP partition with Grub (/boot): (ls -LR /boot)
EFI grub initramfs-linux-fallback.img initramfs-linux.img intel-ucode.img loader vmlinuz-linux
./EFI:
Boot gummiboot
./EFI/boot:
bootx64.efi
./EFI/grub:
grubia32.efi
grub.efi
I've tried copying both grub.efi to bootx64.efi and grubia32.efi to bootx64.efi. Both seem to be the same file.
BLKID
/dev/sda1: UUID="E3BA-7D68" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI System" PARTUUID="d3619522-56c7-4a18-9997-3a9649809506"
/dev/sda2: PARTLABEL="BIOS boot partition" PARTUUID="40132eb6-2994-44b8-a6c4-8380fbd45a98"
/dev/sda3: UUID="a7392099-0853-4b03-a1e9-82e298eaab95" TYPE="crypto_LUKS" PARTLABEL="Linux filesystem" PARTUUID="300f4171-f1b5-4407-beee-060ae8fb8dee"
/dev/mapper/Root: LABEL="Root" UUID="679ba330-de69-4805-ba12-59d479ea12fc" TYPE="ext4"
fstab (using default mount options from fstab generator)
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# /dev/mapper/Root LABEL=Root
UUID=679ba330-de69-4805-ba12-59d479ea12fc / ext4 defaults,relatime 0 1
# /dev/sda1
UUID=E3BA-7D68 /boot vfat rw,relatime,fmask=0022,dmask=0022,codepage=437,iocharset=iso8859-1,shortname=mixed,errors=remount-ro 0 2
Grub for legacy BIOS was setup with the commands:
grub-install --target=i386-pc --recheck --debug /dev/sda
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Grub configuration from /boot/grub/grub.cfg
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="cryptdevice=UUID=a7392099-0853-4b03-a1e9-82e298eaab95:Root"
I've tried both Gummiboot and Grub2 (not at the same time) alongside Grub for the legacy BIOS bootup. BIOS bootup works fine.
UEFI configuration with Gummiboot:
gummiboot --path=/boot install
/boot/loader/loader.conf
default arch
timeout 4
/boot/loader/entries/arch.conf
title Arch Linux
linux /vmlinuz-linux
initrd /initramfs-linux.img
options cryptdevice=PARTUUID=300f4171-f1b5-4407-beee-060ae8fb8dee:Root root=UUID=679ba330-de69-4805-ba12-59d479ea12fc ro
UEFI Configuration with GRUB2:
grub-install --target=i386-efi --efi-directory=/boot --bootloader-id=grub --recheck
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
mkdir /boot/EFI/boot
cp /boot/EFI/grub/grubia32.efi /boot/EFI/boot/bootx64.efi
I have to copy grubia32.efi to bootx64.efi so my UEFI system detects the flash drive.
I have done all of these steps on a BIOS machine, and a UEFI machine, both with the same results. The machine recognizes the flash drive in the bootup menu and lists it as an option to boot from, but it tells me no bootable device was found. I don't care which method I need to use to get the flash drive to bootup over UEFI, gummiboot or Grub, I'm just trying to get it to work.
Last edited by awbs (2015-05-17 18:25:19)

It sounds like you are on the right track. I got it to work using a similar method. Here is my setup: 16GB USB 2.0 Corsair Voyager.
gdisk -l /dev/sdb
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.0
Partition table scan:
MBR: protective
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present
Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.
Disk /dev/sdb: 31950720 sectors, 15.2 GiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 0C83EC1E-9109-4E1E-9EB8-01373E2339D4
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 31950686
Partitions will be aligned on 2048-sector boundaries
Total free space is 2014 sectors (1007.0 KiB)
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size Code Name
1 2048 206847 100.0 MiB EF02 BIOS boot partition
2 206848 616447 200.0 MiB EF00 EFI System
3 616448 31950686 14.9 GiB 8300 Linux filesystem
As you can see, I made 3 partitions on a GPT labeled USB stick. You need to format the EF00 and 8300 partitions:
mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/sdb2
mke2fs -t ext4 -L isofiles /dev/sdb3
"isofiles" is the label I used for the ext4 partition. You can change this. Now install Grub for EFI on the ESP partition:
mount /dev/sdb2 /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/boot
grub-install --target x86_64-efi --efi-directory /mnt --boot-directory /mnt/boot --removable
Place your grub.cfg file in /mnt/EFI/BOOT.
Install GRUB for legacy BIOS on the bios_boot partition:
umount /mnt
mount /dev/sdb3 /mnt
mkdir -p /mnt/boot
grub-install --no-floppy --target i386-pc --boot-directory /mnt/boot /dev/sdb
Place your grub.cfg file in /mnt/boot/grub. On some systems, it is /mnt/boot/grub2.
Copy all of your ISO files, e.g., arch, gparted, clonzilla, etc, to the ext4 partition. you will need the UUID of the ext4 partition:
blkid /dev/sdb3
This is because we are using a UUID search method to find the ISO's before loop mounting them. You can obtain the grub menu entries for various distros here. I used the following grub.cfg to boot arch and gparted in EFI mode:
set default="0"
function load_video {
insmod efi_gop
insmod efi_uga
insmod video_bochs
insmod video_fb
insmod video_cirrus
insmod all_video
load_video
set gfxpayload=keep
insmod gzio
insmod part_gpt
insmod ext2
set timeout=10
submenu 'GParted -->' {
set default="1"
set isofile='/gparted-live-0.22.0-1-amd64.iso'
menuentry 'GParted -- default settings' --class gparted --class gnu-linux --class os {
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root THIS_IS_YOUR_UUID
loopback loop $isofile
set root=loop
linuxefi /live/vmlinuz boot=live username=user config components quiet noswap noeject ip= nosplash findiso=$isofile
initrdefi /live/initrd.img
submenu 'Arch Linux -->' {
menuentry 'Install Arch Linux' --class arch --class gnu-linux --class os {
set isofile='/archlinux-2015.04.01-dual.iso'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root YOUR_UUID
loopback loop $isofile
set root=loop
linuxefi /arch/boot/x86_64/vmlinuz archisolabel=ARCH_201504 img_label=isofiles img_loop=$isofile earlymodules=loop
initrdefi /arch/boot/x86_64/archiso.img
The legacy grub.cfg file is identical to the above, except that you use "linux" and "initrd" instead of "linuxefi" and "intrdefi". Note that unfortunately you have to use two grub.cfg file, one for UEFI and the other for legacy placed in the locations described above. However, they are very similar.
When you boot the machine, if it is an ASUS board, let's assume, press F8 during POST. You should see "Corsair - UEFI" and "Corsair". They should both work. Good Luck.

Arch Linux Live USB - FAT-fs error [SOLVED]

Hello,
Every time I try to boot from one of my USBs, it comes up with the error:
FAT-fs (sdb-2): IO charset iso8859-1 not found
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb2,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
This error occurs when using both my custom archiso image AND the latest official live image. I have tried reformatting the partition using another computer, to no avail. I have set up another live USB using the exact same commands as this one, and it boots up fine. The partitions on this one are set up like:
/dev/sdX1 - LUKS data partition
/dev/sdX2 - FAT-32 partition (what I'm trying to boot from)
I've been able to boot from this USB before. The only thing I can think of that could do this would be when my laptop died while the LUKS partition was mounted. Any help would be appreciated.
Last edited by DoctorSelar (2014-05-11 00:15:04)

This is a known bug:
https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/40217

How to boot from Windows 7 installer USB-thumbdrive?

I have created a Windows 7 installer USB-thumbdrive from .ISO image using Boot Camp Assistant.
What I can't figure out how to make my Mac Mini boot from USB to start the Windows 7 installer. The USB-thumbdrive does not show up in the boot menu when pressing ALT during startup (I'm using generic PC keyboard) nor is it available for selection in System Settings --> System --> Startup Disk.
My computer is early 2009 Mac Mini, Intel Core 2 Duo, 4Gb RAM, OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.4.

Anyone?
Additional question: is a 2009 Mac Mini able to boot from USB to begin with?
The situation has become particular annoying, because my Mac Mini's optical drive appears to be damaged and therefor I'm not able to boot from any kind of Windows install DVD.

How do I enable booting from CD/DVD and USB drives?

Ok, I have been struggling with this all night, and I am stumped. I have a brand new z510 notebook, and I need to do a clean install of windows 8.1. Problem is that I can't seem to boot from CD or USB. I have entered the bios, and although the DVD rom drive works, and it shown correctly in BIOS, it does NOT allow me to add it to the boot list. Also, there is an option called 'Boot From USB' I enable that, and still the USB boot does not show up in the boot list. The only thing I have in the boot list is the 'Windows Boot Manager' and it lists the name of my drive.
I thought that maybe secure boot was the issue, but I tried disabling this, and is still doesn't let me do what I want.
I am kind of at my wit's end here. I just paid $800 for a top of the line laptop, and I can't even boot from a cdrom. Every computer I have had since the 1980s have allowed me to do just that without trouble.
What am I missing??
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Do you see any BIOS settings like "Boot mode" with a "CSM" or "Legacy" type of item as a choice? You might try toggling that to see if you can successfully boot from external media that way.
Disclaimer: I don't have a Z510 to confirm the BIOS screens. I'm going by inference from what I see on my Y2P and X1C.
Please let me know if this works.
Regards.
Edit: LenBlazer was quicker on the draw.
Please do post back with how things work out.
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Hard disk doesn't appear in disk utility when booting from dvd only via usb

i put a new hard disk (wd3200bevt) in my macbook white and my macbook pro 2.4 (not alu). when i boot from the dvd (10.5) disk utility doesnt find any disk. when i boot from an usb stick with leopard on it then it found the disk and i can install the system. when the system is installed and the books can boot the installed system anything looks fine, but when i boot from the original dvds disk utility doesn't find any hard disk once more.... when i boot from my usb stick it shows the new disk in disk utility. what is the problem when i boot from dvd?

don't know but try two boots in a row. worked for me.

Boot from a flash memory USB stick.

I'd like to be able to boot my MacBook (information in signature) from a USB flash memory stick. I have read instructions and suggestions, but I'd like to have feed back from users who have had a hands-on experience. I'm thinking about a 32GB USB stick, and I know I shall have to formate it before I actually select boot components from Leopard's installation DVD (or soon to come Snow Leopard), using "Pacifist", an e-mail client application, and GnuPG encryption software. I have already two USB cable connected "conventional" drives where I backup up regularly the whole contents of my HDD. The idea of an USB stick is to be able to boot the MacBook from it, in case of need. Thanks in advance for any feedback.

I have a 4GB with 10.4.11 installed with some utilities. It's not very fast, but better than keeping a hard drive around that does the same thing.
my install was limited due to available space. Had to install the OS on a 2nd partition on my macbook pro, ran some utilities that trim extra lang pkgs, etc. & also disabled / deleted apps such as dashboard, deep sleep mode, to name a couple.
Then I used Disk Utility to image that over to the thumb drive.
You won't have the space issue, so all you should have to do is format the flash drive to GUID HFS+, boot from the DVD & let the installer run. Not sure why you would need pacifist, the installer should work as long as the disc OS version supports your machine.
The encryption is up to you, never done it with the tool you mentioned, so you'll have to follow their instructions.
unless you are going to store data you don't want released / stolen / found by others, then personally I don't think it's necessary.

Booting from clone on a USB drive?

Hi.
I was thinking of installing SL to a Corsair Flash Voyager 16GB USB drive, and to carry that around in case my MBP ever died when I'm out 'n' about.
I'll be using external drives to handle data, so the USB would be just to boot from.
Good plan..?

Wow - this thread has grown!
I don't think I explained myself enough. I work with video cameras that require frequent downloading and archiving of data. This means being as lightweight as poss. Unfortunately I already have to lug around two G-Tech hard drives which the client takes away, so carrying a third (which may never even be used) isn't too attractive and the idea of a bootable USB which just carries the OS and the really important progs seemed nice.
On the other hand, you say it's slow? I hadn't expected that. And this job involves moving around multiple tens of GB of data quickly, so anything that introduces a bottleneck...
Maybe I'm better off with a 5 1/2" in a decent enclosure, like this http://www.amazon.co.uk/G-Technology-GDM4-500-EMEA-G-Drive/dp/B002RAXML0/ref=sr14?ie=UTF8&qid=1288727611&sr=8-4 . Bit of a price difference though...
Thanks for then input.

Booting from external hard drive USB 2.0

I have an iBook G4 collecting dust in my garage because the internal hard drive is dead. I want to give it to my cousin just to surf the web so I took it to the genius bar and they were able to boot it from an external hd. Yesterday I purchased a 250 GB WD Passport external hd for $29 at Target. I was able to partition and format the hd from my MacBook Pro and have it PowerPC ready. Finally I was successful in installing Mac OS X Tiger onto it. Now that I am trying to boot from it on the iBook G4, I get nothing but the blinking folder with the question mark.
I have searched the forums and most people are quick to respond with the answer that a firewire hd is the only way to boot but I am hoping there is SOME other way around it, even if it means a lot of extra steps. Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

As Kappy says, while a few PowerPC Macs can boot from USB, I don't think that capability exists for an iBook.
http://support.apple.com/kb/TA25908
Note on the Apple Knowledge Base article:
Products Affected
Power Mac, iMac

Mac OS X drive unbootable after booting from Arch cd

I don't know if you guys can help me with this as its not actually involving Arch, though it was caused by the installer disk. I booted my intel iMac from the arch disk, thinking I could boot into the OS to check it out and see if this is the distro I want. However it seems like you have to install it first, so I shut down the computer(without installing anything), ejected the disk and turned it back on. Then I just get a black screen with a "_" , so I thought it was still trying to boot from the CD drive (though I thought usually if theres no CD then it tries the hard drive). So I put in my Leopard CD and set the boot device back to the hard drive. Now when I start up I get a folder with a ? on it and cannot see any boot devices. I'm sure theres something really stupid that I did wrong, but please any help would be appreciated. I've been doing lots of searches, so if you can't help me with this and there's another forum that might help, please point me in the right direction.

CheesyBeef wrote:
Ok, the "arch menu" you saw was the Grub bootloader. That should do absolutely no harm with picking the first option. After that, it does boot into a command prompt, asking for you to login. After you login, you have to run "/arch/setup" to begin the installer dialog, and from there you can begin installing your new system and are prompted before it does anything potentially harmful.
So my best guesses, based on the information given, are that the boot order is messed up from choosing the CD drive to boot (I don't know if you do this through the bios or by pressing a key during boot and selecting a boot device) or the hard reboot did something to your drive. But still, I am pretty darn sure the Arch setup does not mount any hard drives or partitons unless you really begin the installer, and it doesn't sound like you did.
Ok, so I booted into the command prompt, and yes, I did not begin the installation. However, at this point I simply powered off the computer, then I held down the option key durring startup to bring up a menu which allows me to choose where to boot from. All I saw here was the arch cd, which I then ejected, leaving nothing left. So I inserted my Mac OS 10.5 install disk and ran disk utility to see if there was anything wrong with my drive. Everything seemed fine. So I went into the startup disk selection, and saw the drive, with OS 10.5 on it and selected it as the boot drive, and restarted. But still when I try to boot it goes to a blank screen with a folder that has a ? on it. I know that something is amis here, and I'm really trying to figure it out. It must be some way connected with what I did, and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with arch, from what I've read its a really good distro. I'm just stuck and frustrated is all.

Can I boot from an internal hard drive with a different verison of OSX?

My wife had a MBP5,5 running a version of OSX earlier than Mavericks (came with snow leopard, believed we upgraded to Lion or Mountain Lion at some point but can't recall right now, for the life of me) and my daughter spilled a drink on it the other day ending its run. As a result, I bought a used MBP MD101LL/A with Mavericks installed and planned on just swapping its hard drive with hers (which I know survived the spill...I've been able to access it via a tethered enclosure since) and choosing her old drive as the startup volume on boot. All went according to plan, but the boot gets no further than the Apple logo. Any suggestions? Because I was swapping out the hard drive, I didn't take the drive that was in the new MBP when I bought it but I'm sure I can get it if need be. Same applies to the installation discs. I have the 10.6 installation DVD and tried to boot from it and get to Disk Utility to no avail. Any information/guidance would be greatly appreciated.

If your New to You Used Mac is froom mid 2012 and originally came with Lion installed on it you will need to Reinstall that version using the Online Internet Recovery system and then at first boot of the new install use the Setup Assistant system to copy over all the data from your wifes old hard drive.
To access the Online system at startup hold down the Command + Option/alt + r keys and keep them held down until you see a globe on the screen. From the resulting screen that cames up, Mac OS X Utilities, select Disk Utility and then the top most entry for the hard drive, left hand panel, drive model number and size, and then the Partition tab. Repartition the drive as One Partition, You Must do that to get ride of the Mavericks Recovery HD partition which is hidden. Name the partition Macintosh HD with a format of Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
Once that is done exit disk utility and select Reinstall Mac OS X.

How to boot from CD-Rom on 520CDT with no OS on hard drive

Hi
I formatted the drive on this Tecra 520CDT laptop (old I know but I have a use for it), only to discover that it does not seem to want to boot from the CD-Rom drive. I no longer have the interchangeable floppy drive. Any suggestions as to how I could force it to boot from CD-Rom (I have changed boot order in Bios) Windows disks or something else?
Until I can do so, I cannot reinstall an OS.
Alternatively, will any old external floppy drive work, and if so which port? will it boot from parallel port?
Thanks
Jonathan

Hi,
on these "Oldies" you have to create a boot floppy disk with the CD Driver.
Then you must connect the CD and Floppy Drives, have to boot this Floppy disk and C: prompt will be available!
Then when the CD ROM driver was loaded you can start the CD.
It can be that you need the original Toshiba Drives!
Bye TOK

Touchsmart 610 will not boot from CD drive or USB device.

Hi all
I have a TouchSmart 610 and I performed a standard restart but it would not boot. I tried the various options in restart recovery to no avail.
I made a win 7 recovery disk on another win 7 64 bit machine to try and repair the Windows os but I cannot get the PC to boot from the CD drive.
I have altered the boot order in BIOS so that CD is first. But when I try to boot up it goes to the windows recovery screen again.
I have an "ultimate boot" disc and tried to boot from that but same problem.
If I look at Bot order in BIOS it still says CD is first.
Anyone got any iddeas?
Thanks in advance.

Hello Grasper,
Welcome to the HP Forums.
I understand that you're having an issue with the computer booting from CD Rom. I will do what I can to help with this.
Check the BIOS and make sure "legacy devices" is enabled.
You can also try and manually boot to the CD ROM. On start up if you press F*(F8/ F9/ F11/ or ESC. it varies per computer) It will bring up a menu with the devices you can boot from. If the disk drive is listed select it and see what happens.
If nothing happens it could be an issue with the CD ROM itself. You could try another drive in that case. If its still not working at this point, then it could mean an issue with the motherboard itself.
I hope this was able to help you out. Thank you for posting on the HP Forums.
I worked on behalf of HP.

Mac doesn't boot from start volume - blinking folder with question mark

Hi,
my iMac with Snow Leopard 10.6.6 issn't booting anymore from the Hard Drive. It shows a blinking folder with a question mark. After starting, before the folder appears, I hear a two or three times "clack" sound with a following silent speed down of a fan.
So I started from the installation DVD. On the "Choose Startup Disk" Menu there appears only the DVD and network. In Terminal by using "df" i only see my external Hard Disk, the DVD, and some /private/var folders. By listing the "/Volumes" directory only the external disk and the DVD appear.
I tried to restore a Time Machine backup from the external disk. After choosing the backup in the dialog "Select for Destination" it says "Searching for disks" but it doesn't find any after waiting some minutes. It also shows "This disk does not have enough space to restore your system" but there issn't any disk selected.
For me it looks like the Hard Drive with my system is dead. Does anybody has another idea what I can try?

unfortunately I can't start the single user mode. It is always booting from the installation DVD. I tried mouse clicked at boot to eject it, but it doesn't work. Also I can't come to the Startup Volume menu by holding the option key. I always come to the installation menu. There I can't eject the disk from Disk Utility, because it is working on it. I also can't eject it using the eject key on the keyboard in the Startup Disk menu. From the Terminal I can't access my Hard Disk from /Volumes and therefore also can't access my user's home directory.

Boot from second partition on usb hard drive

I have a time machine external usb drive. I have created a second partition of 8GB on this drive and restored OS X Install ESD 10.7.5 to this second partition so that I can easily rebuild if necessary. I would like to be able to boot from this second partition. When I hold down Option key at startup, I see the external drive as an option, but the iMac wants to boot from the Time Machine Backup partition, rather than the Lion Partition. It doesn't give me the choice of the second, bootable partition on this drive. Is it possible to do this?
[Mac 24" early 2009, running 10.7.5 Lion]

rchealey wrote:
Curiously when you boot from this partition, you get virtually the exact same experience as you do when booting from the recovery partition except that the recovery partition tends to suggest that it will download and install Lion, whereas booting from the partition containing the install doesn't mention download.
That's normal behavior. The Recovery HD only has enough code to go to Apple's servers and DL the installer; whereas, the InstallESD contains everything. Do note, however, that running either will check Apple's servers for additional components, whatever those might be. Thus, Internet access is required to do either.

Boot from Arch ISO on USB with UEFI BIOS [SOLVED]

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