Backtrack 4 ISO problems

eyvind

Member
I am running on a netbook/ultraportable. It is an MSI X340, with and Intel 723 Celeron, 4500MHD graphics. It has a 320GB HD. I have now installed Windows 7 X64, whcih works flawlessly except for the webcam (which works on my sisters - exactly the same setup), but thats not my real problem. I have installed Ubuntu using WUBI, which works perfectly. I now wanted to run Backtrack. As I was planning on installing another OS, I decided to run Backtrack as a LiveCD instead of a HD install (which would be slighlty complicated anyway). I do not know very much about Linux boot managers, such as GRUB, but Im very comfortable with the Windows boot manager. Anyway, back to the point. I have no CD/DVD drive on my laptop, and I only have access to my old 2GB flash drive, which is currently full of stuff. Of course I could run it from the flash drive, but since I just moved into a new house it is the only flash drive I took with me, and I also want to use it for other things. Then EasyBCD came along. I noticed it had an ISO boot function, so I attempted to add Backtrack4 as a bootable ISO. When I Load it, the boot window works, but when i open any option it says loading for a while, then it shows some text involving BusyBox, and a console line comes up saying "initramfs", where i can type simple linux commands. After this nothing happens, no GUI, no backtrack functions.

I would be very happy if someone could help me out with this,
Eyvind
 
This isn't a bug in NeoSmart software, it has to do with how ISO boot works with Grub.

I've tried ISO boot with BackTrack 3 and grub legacy and can confirm its not possible, so looks like thats the case with Grub2 as well. Unfortunately only a small handful of ISOs with kernels that don't wipe out the mapping of the ISO at boot well boot using this option.

Solution? VM it. You can get a VMWare image ready to play with on the site if you like VMWare. With VirtualBox you can easily boot an ISO file as a virtual disc drive or you could install BackTrack in a VM if you desire persistence. If you don't want to VM USB drives aren't too expensive either. I'd recommend getting a separate USB drive dedicated to tech stuff only so your everyday work isn't at risk of loss on the other USB you use.
 
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