Dual Boot dm-crypt'ed USB Drive?

I'm attempted to dual boot two Arch installs, each with dm-crypt/luks. I've been able to do this with a single Arch on a USB drive...but with both I'm hitting some snags (perhaps just in theory).
What I'm imagining:
+----------------------------------+
/dev/sdb | MBR |
+----------------------------------+
/dev/sdb1 | /boot for Arch 1st (Unencrypted) |
+----------------------------------+
/dev/sdb5 | Luks for Arch 1 |
| +------------------------------+ |
| | / for Arch 1 | |
| | | |
| | | |
| +------------------------------+ |
+----------------------------------+
/dev/sdb2 | /boot for Arch 2 (Unencrypted) |
+----------------------------------+
/dev/sdb6 | Luks for Arch 2 |
| +------------------------------+ |
| | / for Arch 2 | |
| | | |
| | | |
| +------------------------------+ |
+----------------------------------+
Also, note they wouldn't be using the partition number, but /dev/mapper...etc but the physical partitioning would look like this.
Does this look doable, or has anyone set up something similar before? (i.e. before I spend hours installing and encrypting )
The part I'm not sure about is which Arch install "owns" the grub install? Or does it even matter/can they share the MBR? I.e. Only one of them installs grub to the MBR...the other simple exists with a /boot at some partition that the other Arch install hopefully finds?
Thanks for any help!

Thanks for the replies, I'm going to try and get this working over the weekend once I have a few hours to spare! I'll report back here with my findings. After looking into it a bit deeper, I think it's possible as well. I may have originally been over thinking it, but time will tell!
As for the why; I'm trying to combine some resources (cause it all comes down to the dollar!) for a work project. We currently have two separate machines (both with VASTLY different setups, yet both running Arch) that I'm trying to combine into a single dual boot machine. I thought about virtualization, or using something like docker but these machines are mutually exclusive (i.e. they never need to be running at the same time) and are both very resource intensive. Both machines use full system encryption as a company policy, and it appears to me that using a dual boot setup would be the most resource efficient and safest bet in the long run.

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BOOT FROM AN EXTERNAL USB DRIVE???

I know apple has made it clear about booting from an external USB drive
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106474
but I know that there are people who are able to boot from an external drive, does anybody know how to do this?
It's just that id like to work on final cut studio on an external drive for various reasons:
1st: my powerbook's HD is small and slow (60gb)
2nd: my external usb drive is big (160 gb) and fast (7200 RMPS!)
so a little help would be apreciated
best regards

"Actually, USB II is faster than FW 400."
In theory, probably. In real life Firewire 400 is much faster than USB2, not to speak of Firewire 800:
"Wee Wiebetech" Portable FireWire/USB2 Drive Challenges The Fastest Competitors.

"Booting from Boot Camp Assistant created USB Drive...Failed to load BOOTMGR"

Hi Apple Ppl of the Wrld: I need help I been working on installing windows 8 on my Mac.
Spec of equipment:
Mac Book Pro Mid 2012
Bootcamp Version: Version 5.0.4 (473)
Bootable USB Flash Drive: Type Scan disk 4 GB windows 8 pro iso image but without the driver and the 2nd Scan disk USB flash drive with 32 GB with the Bootcamp Drivers downloaded and saved to this drive.
Please Note: I also have the original back up installation disc for Microsoft 8 Prof 64 from Microsoft where I purchased it from.
1st Bootcamp is not recognizing the Original Microsoft 8 Pro backup disk from microsoft itself.
Solution: I created the New Image from the Original Microsoft installed disc in my desk top and changed the extension to .ISO then burned the ISO image into the newly purchased DVD+R. Then I ran Bootcamp Once again and it get the following error message "The installer disc could not be found -- Insert your Windows installer disc and wait a few seconds for the disc to be recognized. Solution
2: Created a bootable usb drive with bootcamp assistant successfully with bootcamp. Yes I close, ejected or un-mounted any image that was open or had been previously used then i restarted the Mac. Next, I start the bootcamp assistant tool once again then i get the same insert your windows installer disc message.
3: Then I try to resolve the installer disc not found issue: this are the steps i took: a). Lauch disc utilities
    1. Selected the top most drive 750 GB Macintosh HDD
    2. On the right you’ll see 5 tab buttons: First Aid | Erase | Partition | RAID | Restore.
    3. Choose Partition. Then I clicked + to add another partition size of the partition was 222 GB
    4. Change the Name of the Partition to BOOTCAMP
    5. Change the Format to MS-DOS (FAT)
    6. Click Apply to save the changes and then reboot your Mac and we’ll begin Windows installation.
    7. During reboot, press and hold the alt/Option key and you’ll be presented with drives to boot from.
    8. Use the arrow keys and return button to select the Windows yellow USB key drive containing your Windows 8 installation files.
    9. This will begin the Windows install. --> then i get the following message: "Booting from Boot Camp Assistant created USB Drive...Failed to load BOOTMGR".
4: Take the Mac to best buy and let them resolve the issue and charge me like a million dollars for it :'( since i have no other idea who to get this bootcamp working at all. This has been a terribly lengthy issue and it is not as simple as it is claimed to be since i started with the Original Windows Disc Purchased from Microsoft and I have the Optical disc drive which it should be simpler from what I understand.
Please can you help It would be of great help.
<Email Edited by Host>

from what i understand you are trying to install win 8 pro from a "backup disk" the one that you purchased from microsoft.
this will not work, it is not an installer disk.
you need to start the process again. erase the partition you made on your hdd. in disc utility click the minus button after selecting the bootcamp partition, then manually drag the divider down fully then apply.
next, erase your usb then format it.
download win 8 iso from here;
http://getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/download-windows-8-pro/
it is perfectly legal to use your purchased product key in this install.
in bootcamp select the iso image you just downloaded, select your preferred partition size, check all 3 options.
you have the support software on another usb but you wont need it so it can be discarded. the install will work far better with the iso and support on the same drive.

Boot Camp For Lion -- USB ISO Method --"Booting from Boot Camp Assistant created USB Drive...Failed to load BOOTMGR"

Hello, has anyone had experience with dealing with this speciifc problem?
In short, upon rebooting, I am getting a black screen with a line of text that says, "Booting from Boot Camp Assistant created USB Drive...Failed to load BOOTMGR." Nothing happens after that.
I am using Mac OS X Lion 10.7.4. I have an ISO of Windows 7 Prof. along with an 8GB usb drive. I changed the coding in my bootcamp program to allow for the normally first invisible option that allows creation of a USB Installation program using an ISO that is normally only for computers without an optical drive.
I have that box checked, the check for new software box, and the install windows box checked. I went through the process of creating the USB, downloading the software, and partitioning the drive. Then on restart, I get the failed to load bootmgr error.
Some people have suggested using two usb drives for this. I am trying that method but it does not seem to help thus far.
Can anyone offer any help?
Thanks.

from what i understand you are trying to install win 8 pro from a "backup disk" the one that you purchased from microsoft.
this will not work, it is not an installer disk.
you need to start the process again. erase the partition you made on your hdd. in disc utility click the minus button after selecting the bootcamp partition, then manually drag the divider down fully then apply.
next, erase your usb then format it.
download win 8 iso from here;
http://getintopc.com/softwares/operating-systems/download-windows-8-pro/
it is perfectly legal to use your purchased product key in this install.
in bootcamp select the iso image you just downloaded, select your preferred partition size, check all 3 options.
you have the support software on another usb but you wont need it so it can be discarded. the install will work far better with the iso and support on the same drive.

I can't boot from OS install USB drive Mac Mini Model 1176

How I can't boot from OS install USB drive, Mac Mini Model 1176

Thank you Eustace Mendis for your answer.
I rebooted the Mac Mini holding the Option key down but it doesn't work. I used an USB drive with O.s 10.7 from Apple that I have used previuosly with other computers and I also tried with a CD install O.S 10.6
It seems that the Mac Mini can't recognize the keyboard inputs and I tried with 3 different keyboards but still didn't work.
I also reset the SMC and PRAM but I had no luck. Any clues?

No application runs after booting from an external (USB) drive

Hi all,
my best hope is that I just embarrass myself with a blatantly obvious question instead of finding a real issue that will be resolved only in later updates. Here it is:
As I want to upgrade my hard drive in my good ol' MacBook, I wanted to backup my present boot HDD to an external USB drive (freshly formatted, HFS+ journaled, GUID partition table). I tried both SuperDuper! and Carbon Copy Cloner. In both cases, the backup/cloning process goes fine, and I can reboot into the external drive, and the OS starts (yes, with wifi working, even iStat menus, textExpander etc. initiating fine). But all applications (not those on the menu bar, though) crash and notify me of some thread having tried some invalid operation, or sometimes I even got some vague reference to kernel protection.
Do you have any ideas what this is? Something new and (supposedly) secure in 10.5.6? I tried a fairly standard procedure, I think. (Also, it is a fairly pressing issue as I would not really want to waste much more time on this drive swap. And I would rather use disk-cloning than the install disk and sucking back data from an apparently unreliable backup.)
Many thanks for any thoughts!
(Just to inform the interested, I ran a fairly extensive cleaning-maintenance-rebuild cycle by the latest Onyx before starting all this, this should clean up the state of the OS pretty much. But I could not run DiskWarrior. Convince me if you think that this would solve the problem.)

Thanks Devin, I think my issue is a bit different.
I am 'long' past the 10.5.6 update (as long as possible), it did not crash, and Software Update checked what it wanted several times since then (as it is set to do so daily).
Thanks for the safe boot tip, I have not tried it yet, though I am skeptical why would this help applications starting up without breaking some kernel protection -- but only if I booted up from an external drive.
I repaired all I could before the cloning of the drive, only the deep maintenance of DiskWarrior was skipped. With the disk or the OS itself, I basically did what you can, even the stuff that you are rarely supposed to do. (Onyx is a great tool to do all these and more, freely.)
I am not sure either that a FireWire drive would have helped, but who knows. (But really, the OS would boot, just the applications would feel that their are on an 'inferior' drive?) In any case, FireWire drives are not that easy to come by, and a risky investment -- e.g. I could not use them with the new MacBooks. Oh, and all my work was done on a firm table, but again, the behavior would be hard to explain as the HDD misbehaving, as the OS had no glitch, just I could not start applications without their crashing immediately.
Thanks again, I hope I run into something useful or if it is a bug then Apple magically pushes out some update before their winter break, or I will sadly watch my precious new drive sitting on a table idly.

Dual boot Win7 on external eSata drive with Precision M4700

Because virtualization doesn't support some HW devices I need, I would like to dual boot Win7 Pro/64 on an external (removable) HDD connected to the eSATA port of my Precision M4700.
eSata means optimal performances, but will the boot menu be happy with a removable disk, i.e. which will NOT be permanently connected (obviously I won't boot the OS on the removable disk if it is not connected) ?
And on the legal side, is it OK to use the OEM license of the OS that shipped with the system for this ?
As a side question, are the OS entries in a Win7 boot menu bound to a physical disk on a specific Sata port ? IOW, what happens if I move a HDD with a bootable partition/volume from the internal bay (port 0) to an external eSATA enclosure connected to the eSATA port (port 5) ? Is the eSATA port transparent to the Win7 boot loader ? Will the volumes and drive letters remain unchanged and appear seamlessly to the OS on it ?

Hi Benoitm,
Assuming the M4700 can boot from an external eSATA port, this should be possible. And it should be possible to install onto an HDD then put that drive in an external case and boot from it. Your preferences and drive letters should be retained. You might want to verify your system can boot to an external HDD first.
The Dell license only covers the version of the OS that came with the system. In theory, dual boot requires two licenses.

WinXP dual boot Solaris on 2nd hard drive problem...

Hi there ppl,
run into a bit of a prob with dual booting winxp and solaris. I have WinXP on 1st hard drive and Solaris on 2nd hard drive 2 (Solaris - partition 1 with slice 0 x86 active, DOS - partition 2 for installing linux later, DOS - partition 3 for fat32 file storage later).
I want to boot to Solaris on drive 2 from the WinXP boot loader on drive 1. Could somebody please tell me exactly how to do this as I've copied the bootsect.sun file from Solaris via floppy to the WinXP C:\ drive, and edited the WinXP boot loader to:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)C:\bootsect.sun="Solaris/x86"
and when I select to boot to Solaris I get:
Windows could not start because the following is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll
Please reinstall a copy of the above file
WinXP still boots ok.
Any help would be much appreciated, thanks already.

I am having a same issue....
1.....1st 80 GB hard disk, I had window XP installed. (NTFS format)
2....add 200 GB, 2nd hard drive, make 3 partitions, on first 50GB partition I have install Solaris 10.....Having some issue with network config, but its resolve, thank this forum.....
Now, everytime when ever I need to go to Solarid, I have to go in BIOS screen and switch HD, I mean if I want to boot to solaris, I have to make a 2nd (200GB) hd primary..Soaris work fine, but from the GRUB menu, if I select window, its get hung up...
now if I want to boot to window, again I have to go to BIOS and need to switch around hdd.... make 1st (80GB) hdd primary, windows work fine....
Questions are, I do not want to go bacK & forth in BIOS.....
1....Can some one help me, provide me the step-by-step information that how can i set up dual boot, so I can use my 2nd drive (200GB) as a primary and from the GRUB, I select windows and its boot to windows... if its otherway around,,,its still ok....I don't want my kids mess up BIOS....
2...What is a chainloader+1...can some one explain?...what is +1 mean.
3....How to install GRUB in MBR?
Lion-O any ideas, how to boot windows bootloader from 2nd HD? Please step-by-step Instuctions....

I accidently used Disk Utility to fix a partition. I cant boot in with any USB drive. Help.

I accidentally used Disk Utility to fix a partition. It erased it. I desperately need to restore it.
I have an imac without a cdrom. How do I create a bootable usb with testdisk as for some bizarre reason it seems impossible to create a bootable usb drive for osx. I tried GParted and the ultimate boot disk that both have test disk.
I am stumped. Why can't I boot into my imac with a usb? I have a mac air that I just cant seem to create a usb drive with testdrive thats bootable. I even tried rEFit but no luck.
Anyone have an idea? How do I fix my system ?

I have an imac OSX 10.8.
I tried creating a usb drive of testdisk on my mac air so that I could use it to boot into the iMAC and restore the partition table.
I created it using:
hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o target.img ~/Desktop/ubcd530.iso
dd if=./target.img.dmg of=/dev/rdisk1 bs=1m
It did not work. It would not boot. I also tried Gnome Partition tool and that did not boot either. I need my old system as it has important data
Any tips? Thanks!

[SOLVED] Dual-boot Arch/Windows - 2 hard drives

Hi Everyone
I've just installed Arch and I'm having a bit of a problem dual-booting between Arch and Windows XP, which are each on a seperate Hard drive.
I've done this successfully before with Mepis Linux and Windows XP, but for some reason it's not working this time.
The difference is that I've recently purchased a new computer and both Windows and Arch are on SATA drives whereas last time they were both on IDE drives. Also I'm not sure whether or not to enable SATA AHCI mode in the BIOS (apparently it doesn't work with XP anyways), or SATA port 0-3 Native mode. Although I've tried all possible combinations and it doesn't seem to work at all.
Here is my menu.lst file:
# (0) Arch Linux
title Arch Linux
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/0df05d3b-537c-4576-ad36-1f90a6b01ec0 ro vga=773
initrd /boot/kernel26.img
# (1) Windows
title Windows
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
When I boot into Arch from Grub it works fine, but when I try to boot into Windows from Grub, I get this:
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
and then nothing....No error message or anything. It just hangs. Does anyone have any ideas as to what's happening? Thanks in advance.
edit: It seems I solved the problem by adding these lines to the menu.lst file:
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
root (hd1,0)
I can now boot into either Arch or Windows from the Grub menu
Last edited by axle (2008-09-30 02:35:54)

This is a question that can very easily be answered by doing a simple google serach. Google is your friend. I suggest you start there and come back if you run into issues.

Can't boot Snow Leopard from USB drive made in Yosemite

Hi all,
I have a brand new macbook pro running Yosemite, but some of the software I have will only run in Snow Leopard.
Running Snow Leopard as a Virtual Machine has been clunky, so I wanted to try an alternative and install Snow Leopard onto an external HD and work from that.
I got hold of the Snow Leopard dmg file and created a bootable USB thumb drive (I did this within Yosemite) to try to install it onto the external HD. I used the instructions here:
http://www.maciverse.com/installing-snow-leopard-onto-an-external-hard-drive.htm l
But when I restart the computer and try and boot from the USB drive, I just get the grey background with dark grey apple symbol, indefinitely. The installation process never commences.
What am I not doing right?
Thanks in advance for any insights.

You can only do what you are trying from a model that can be booted into Snow Leopard. You have a 2014 model that can only be booted by Mavericks or Yosemite. You cannot run Snow Leopard on your machine except in a VM or a Mac from 2010 or earlier.

Dual boot arch from second hard drive [SOLVED]

I have two sata hard drives connected. Hard drive 0 has my working updated version of arch.
I'm trying to boot off the second hard drive that has an older installation of arch. I have added this to my menu.lst of my first hard drive:
# (2) Arch Linux 2.6.31
title Arch Linux 2.6.31
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/29523114-ab52-4a9b-b93f-e2da915c0dc1 ro vga=773
initrd /kernel26.img
I have also tried using /dev/sdb1 on the kernel line with the same results. The uuid is correct I am able to obtain that from /dev/disk/by-uuid/
this is definately where the vmlinuz26 file resides for that hard drive. I can mount it and see it.
But when I choose this option, it tries to boot but then I get:
kinit: init not found!
Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill init!
Pid: 1, comm: init not tainted 2.6.31-ARCH #1
What do I need to change? Do I need to add something to that initrd line? Thanks.
Last edited by kekules_dream (2010-01-10 21:43:31)

I had to change the uuid to that of the root partition on sdb (the second hard drive) even though I had a /boot partition on it (sdb1). It is now working.
# (2) Arch Linux 2.6.31
title Arch Linux 2.6.31
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz26 root=/dev/disk/by-uuid/4a5827bc-6ace-4d4d-9ba7-24586e365c8a ro vga=773
initrd /kernel26.img

Booting from iso from usb drive

I want to boot arch from iso from my thumb drive. Based on the wiki article on Grub, I've put this entry to my grub.cfg:
menuentry "Arch Linux x86_64" --class iso {
set isofile="/iso/archlinux-2014.05.01-dual.iso"
loopback loop $isofile
linux (loop)/arch/boot/x86_64/vmlinuz archisolabel=ARCH_201405 img_dev=/dev/disk/by-label/IKAROS img_loop=$isofile earlymodules=loop
initrd (loop)/arch/boot/x86_64/archiso.img
Grub seems to load the kernel fine, but the kernel then fails to mount the drive with the following message:
:: Setup a loop device from /iso/archlinux-2014.05.01-dual.iso located at device /dev/disk/by-label/IKAROS
:: Mounting '/dev/disk/by-label/IKAROS' to '/run/archiso/img_dev'
[ 9.556128] FAT-fs (sdb1): IO charset iso8859-1 not found
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdb1,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so.
ERROR: Failed to mount '/dev/disk/by-label/IKAROS'
Falling back to interactive prompt
You can try to fix the problem manually, log out when you are finished
sh: can't acces tty: job control turned off
[rootfs /]#
I know I could dd the iso on the usb stick and probably avoid this, but I like my setup with several isos in a directory and appropriate grub entries. Does anybody know how to fix this?
Last edited by Remedan (2014-05-02 19:23:41)

elken wrote:I made it sometime last year and it has a load of ISOs on it but yes Arch was one of them. It was MultiCD sorry, not yumi. Like I said, it was a year ago. MultiCD was a piece of cake.
Well, with MultiCD I can create an image which can boot multiple isos and write it on the drive. The thing is, I want to be able to use the drive as a storage device also. So I'd like something that would allow me to have a FAT partition on the drive and boot from that.
But the core of my trouble is that the live arch doesn't seem to be able to handle the FAT partition.

Can't boot install disk from usb drive

I bought a macbook pro back in late 2007 and up until now im getting ready to sell it. So now while restoring to factory settings, i wiped off the hard drive and i need to reinstall my install discs which i still have. However, the cd drive doenst work on the laptop. It hasnt worked since i can remember. I already imaged the instal disk into a usb flash drive and tried booting from there. When i turn it on and hold "option," it reads the flash drive as a backup, but it wont boot from it. I click the flash drive, and it loads, but then the apple logo gets replaced by a "no symbol."
I have a new macbook pro, but not a firewire cable or an external cd/dvd drive. Anyone know how i can get the old laptop to boot from the usb?
BTW, the install cd's are for tiger, but i installed snow leopard when it came out. Im not sure if i still have the cd for snow leopard, but i dont think that would help since the cd drive doenst work. Do i need to buy an external cd drive to reinstall my operating system?

chonke wrote:
the install cd's are for tiger, but i installed snow leopard when it came out. Im not sure if i still have the cd for snow leopard
Well that's your problem you used Tiger and the firmware was changed to prevent booting from the older operating system once you upgraded to Snow Leopard.
You will need a copy of the Snow Leopard disks, the white one's online at Apple will work
Then you need to follow this to make a 10.6 install USB
http://www.maciverse.com/install-os-x-snow-leopard-from-usb-flash-drive.html
Here are the instructions to install Snow Leopard, I advise zero erasing the entire drive first, this will clear any bad sectors and make the install work perfectly when you sell it and not get call back (although the cd drive is dead of course)
You might be able to extract the free iLife off the Tiger disks, then Software Update fully to bring it up to date using Pacifist from CharlesSoft.
How to erase and install Snow Leopard 10.6
BTW, you can't boot/install off a external optical, only internal.

Booting OS from external USB drive?

I have a MBP (mid-2009). With my old computer, I could only boot the OS from an external drive (via firewire). I thought I heard that with my new Mac I can boot the OS from an external drive (via USB).
Is this true? I can buy a USB enclosure pretty cheap and need to know if I can boot the OS from it.
Thanks,
Bryan

The drive is formatted GUID and on install, you have to deselect everything not essential, like extra fonts, printer drivers (these take up a fair amount of space) Language Translations and X11, but the basic installation was still shown as 5.9G, leaving 254MB on the disk. With earlier versions of the OS (and 10.6 from what I saw briefly) you can also deselect unneeded applications, which also takes the size down. (For an iPod a couple of years ago, the installation was 1.1G.)
Next time a 16G would be better as I was unable to update to 10.5.8 but I still had enough space for Disk Warrior. Time for 10.6. . . .

Dual Boot dm-crypt'ed USB Drive?

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