HDClone as bootable iso
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Hi all!
I’m looking for a way to boot my HDClone image but i don’t know how to. Can anyone please help me out here?
Thanks in advance!
Thijs
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@Zc0rp There is no general solution to this as every ISO is a bit different. Depending on it being legacy BIOS, UEFI or hybrid and a few more things…
Which version of HDClone do you use? Free or paid version? Version number?
Take a look at the great list of examples George put together on booting differnt ISOs and try out different methods: https://forums.fogproject.org/topic/10944/using-fog-to-pxe-boot-into-your-favorite-installer-images
Here we have someone saying that it’s possible to boot up HDClone using the memdisk method, so you want to give that a try first maybe: https://forums.fogproject.org/post/114185
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I’ve got the paid version HDClone x version Proffesion edition It would be great if its possible to boot BIOS and UEFI.
I’m trying the memdisk but im stuck. What am i doing wrong? (im not that experienced with these kind of things)
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@Zc0rp Just so you know beforehand: As far as I know memdisk is not able to boot into UEFI mode. So making this work is just a first step usable for legacy BIOS.
Where did you get the iPXE menu parameters/options from? Looks like old PXELinux syntax which is not used by FOG since a long time.
Try using this in field Parameters and leave Boot Options empty:
imgfetch http://${fog-ip}/fog/HDClone/HDClone.iso boot memdisk iso raw || goto MENUI don’t have the ISO here to test so it’s just an example code I took from George’s post using your filenames.
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@sebastian-roth said in HDClone as bootable iso:
imgfetch http://${fog-ip}/fog/HDClone/HDClone.iso
boot memdisk iso raw ||
goto MENUI found it on one of the wiki sites, but yes the post was quite old.
I’ve edited the ipxe menu now i get the following error:
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@Zc0rp Ok, the ISO is even too big to be loaded using the memdisk method so you need to look into the other methods where you extract the ISO and boot the kernel from there. Read through the links posted below.
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@zc0rp Not that you’re not able to do this, of course, but may I ask what you’re planning to use HDClone for? Is there a problem machine that FOG is unable to perform that you’re attempting to use another Cloning utility?
Like I said, it’s not that you can’t do it. You most certainly can. But if there’s something wrong with FOG cloning, we can try to work to fix it.
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@tom-elliott There is absolutely nothing wrong with Fog, i’m a verry happy user of it! But i use HDClone for fast cloning of drives or biotclones for data recovery. I can’t seem to find how to because on the bootable iso there are no files to use for booting as far as i know
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@zc0rp That doesn’t look like an efi compatible disk structure. Do you know if it does boot in a uefi only machine?
I would also expect to see one of the boot loader config files either syslinux or grub to know how to boot the kernel. I do see a linux OS on the disk. So if we knew how to launch the kernel (what parameters) we might make this work in fog.
Also that 127MB iso should fit in memory ok and run with memdisk. I say should, but not all operating systems are capable of running this way.
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@george1421 said in HDClone as bootable iso:
uld also expect to see one of the boot loader config files either syslinux or grub t
Yes i know for sure this boots UEFI and bios but my best guess is that it protected in some way?
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@zc0rp Well if it boots uefi then there HAS TO BE a directory /EFI/boot/ with a file name something like bootx64.efi or something similar. If not the uefi firmware will not see the boot media.
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@george1421 said in HDClone as bootable iso:
if it boots uefi then there HAS TO BE a directory /EFI/boot/ with a file name
I think i found it:
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@zc0rp So tell me how you use this software? Is it like ghost in that its just a windows / dos based program that will run as long as you have a boot media? It does look like a microsoft os based application?
The thought is if it is just a ms os application we could move the files to a winpe environment and boot it in there. We can deploy a winpe image with FOG.
Can you take all of the top section files to the readme.txt and move to a usb flash drive and then run the software from there?
I see this symboi directory. This IS your OS. It looks like hdclone supports two different os’ this symboi OS and a linux OS.
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@george1421 said in HDClone as bootable iso:
The thought is if it is just a ms os applicat
Yes you need the hardware key (usb stick) to use it but i like to boot it from PXE for ease of use. In the file stucture there is an exe for setup in windows but it is also bootable.
if i want to make a new bootable drive i have to do that trough the hdclone program. -
@zc0rp I didn’t ask the question correctly to get the answer I need.
If you take the programs from setup.exe to readme.txt and throw them on a usb flash drive and take that to a different computer. Can you launch the program on a second computer and have it work?
Second question do you an options of using the linux version of this software?
The issue is this cd is using this symobi operating system. I’m going to think it is some kind of linux/msdos like variant. This kernel.map is the kernel and addon.map is the initrd (virtual disk image).
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@zc0rp Yes i can run the exe because it is an portable edition
the program can run on windows or i can boot it from the usb device, i guess it is based on linux but not sure
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@zc0rp said in HDClone as bootable iso:
Yes i can run the exe because it is an portable edition
Great this then gives us a path or at least an idea. In this post https://forums.fogproject.org/post/103323 it talks about building a winpe image that we can use to boot an OS. (sidebar: I’ve done this for a ghost imager). Starting at step 3 it shows how to build a winpe boot environment. You will place the files into the image path before the image is resealed back into the wim. This will place the files you need in the wim file that will get deployed. Once we get to the boot.wim we are done with this tutorial. There is no need to make the iso because that is only for bios mode.
Once we have the boot.wim file then we can follow this tutorial. https://forums.fogproject.org/post/103331 to setup a winpe boot environment for both bios and uefi using wimboot.
