Booting ISO from Grub

[Scotchman]

I have my system perfect. Now I currenty use A multiboot USB flash drive to install my PCLinux or tool kits or LiveCD cloning Recovery ISOs.

What I would love to do is add entries to my PCs Grub menu to alternatively boot one of these live ISOs. For example, Have the ability to run Clonezilla ISO or a Gparted ISO on a netbook without an CD or USB. HAve my cloned recovery image on a separate partition. One of my ISOs is a live CD to boot into some DOS utilities which do not run in DosBox.

IS there a way to boot to a LiveISO from Grub. I will gladly provide the DOS-recover.ISO or something if someone needs it to see how to do this.

I tried placing it in my /boot directory and adding something like this:

     title Ghost_CD boot2
     find --set-root --ignore-floppies --ignore-cd /boot/Ghost_CDboot2.iso
     map --heads=0 --sectors-per-track=0 /boot/Ghost_CDboot2.iso (hd32)
     map --hook
     chainloader (hd0,0)

This is for my Ghost recovery which is needed to recover broken windows test system used for development. The previous entry is the menu.lst entry from my multiboot USB that I currently use but would love to have it on the PC permanently.

Any Ideas? I am still trying to understand Grub so I may have missed something that is obvious to others.

HELP!

[Rudge]

I think you have to install the OS before you can boot with GRUB. The whole point of a bootable .iso is to boot without a boot loader like GRUB.

[Was_Just19]

Do a search of the forum for  multiboot .....  there are a few threads on the subject and also a few methods that can be used.
In general the PCLOS ISO cannot be booted of itself using Grub Legacy ...  files need to be extracted from it and then they can be booted.

In your situation it seems the simplest thing to do would be to install Grub to the boot sector of a partition which holds the OS files to boot, and you can then chainload that Grub from where ever you wish.

Having a live PCLOS on a partition for emergency/recovery is sometimes referred to as a 'poormans' install, so that might also throw up some threads.

I have used various OSs on a live USB drive along with a few PCLOS versions.
The same can be done on a partition of a HDD without much problem.
I have one such on this PC, but have not had to use it thankfully.
I only used Grub Legacy without any other boot manager, so have no info on what the requirements of any other boot manager would be.

So yes, it is not difficult to have many different live OSs on a partition of a HDD for recovery.

The details of how to accomplish it will depend on the boot managers used.

[Was_Just19]

I think you have to install the OS before you can boot with GRUB. The whole point of a bootable .iso is to boot without a boot loader like GRUB.

There must be a boot manager regardless ....  whether Grub or other 

[Scotchman]

Are you asking if you can boot the USB from grub on the hard drive?  I'm not sure if that's possible.

Actually I figured out that I am needing a DOS bootable partition that I can boot from Grub. I guess I get to learn about chainloading now!