In my last post I kept reminiscing about the most safe and versatile way to boot a Macrium Reflect rescue media. After doing exactly what I set out to do (install a rescue media onto a USB drive – without Ventoy, Easy2Boot or any other shenanigans), I was presented with the chance to actually try out an ST400 for myself via a loaner device.
The Problem
Inserting and booting Windows 10 or Windows 11-based ISO files into the virtual optical drive of the ST400 worked fine. Only with Linux ISOs like Ubuntu or various Arch-based distros I ran into trouble.
After the bootloader, I got booted into initramfs shell or experienced some form of I/O related error with the emulated optical drive.
Stranger still, when disabling SecureBoot, booting the same ISO files works fine.
Even stranger still, booting the same ISO on another machine worked fine with SecureBoot enabled.
So there is clearly something afoot here.
The Workaround
If disabling SecureBoot is not an option, you can work around the issue. Ignore the online discourse about faulty cables or faulty ISOs – this is some odd synchronicity between your mainboard and the ST400 itself.
On most Linux bootloaders you can press “E” to edit the current entry.
Remove the “quiet” and “splash” arguments, and insert the two arguments “break” and “debug” instead:
setparams 'Try or Install Ubuntu'
set gfxpayload=keep
linux /casper/vmlinuz --- break debug
initrd /casper/initrd
The exact parameters present in the original command line can vary across distros, however the parameters you need to add/remove stay the same.
Then press F10 to boot. You will still run into the issue.
Now hold the “1” key on the ST400 pressed for 3 seconds. This causes the optical drive to reload.
This will be noted by some debug output on the Linux console.
Now press Enter, the boot sequence should continue fine.
Observations
The same behaviour is also present if you use VMware Workstation, add the IODD optical drive as a CD-ROM/DVD-ROM drive to a virtual machine, and try to boot.
Using the same ISO file in VMware Workstation directly via the IODD hard disk mode from the ST400 works – so the ISO file is fine.
Just like on “real hardware”, the issue disappears once SecureBoot is disabled on the VMware Workstation host machine.
I am fairly sure that this is related to the way my mainboard’s UEFI handles SecureBoot. Perhaps this is even the intended/correct behaviour, however I just find it somewhat irritating.
The good news is that the Macrium Reflect rescue media is based on Windows, so there would be no need to fenagle with workarounds when in need.
