Quote Originally Posted by ruymbeke
So if you have already grub as a bootloader and are willing to boot from an ext2/3 partition, the only thing you need is the initrd_ntfs file to have the option to boot from a iso file. You obviously need to add some entry lines into your grub menu.lst and add the iso, kernel and initrd_ntfs files somewhere in your ext2 partition and have the apropriate path for these files in your menu.lst.
Well, to avoid having to boot into my crippled Gentoo install, I decided to try the NTFS way first. I downloaded the grube.zip file (and 3.8.2 updates) and now launch grub via boot.ini. I've got whoppix 2.7.1 (knoppix 3.8.2-based) launching, but it complains about the modules not being correct for the kernel ("xxx: version magic '2.6.11.9 SMP preempt 386 gcc-3.3' should be '2.6.11 SMP preempt 386 gcc-3.3'" all over the place). It launches the windowing system, but doesn't get beyond loading the background image -- i.e. none of the apps, control panel, etc. are loading. So, I'm guessing this is because they compiled a new kernel which isn't happy about what I've done here. I tried using the stock Whoppix kernel (copied 'linux' file off iso -- right?), but it complains immediately at boot about lack of ntfs support, etc., similar to earlier threads here.

So, my questions, I suppose, are:
1) Would booting this off my existing EXT2 partition help fix this issue?
2) If no, what will this require? Patching and then recompiling the kernel?
3) Is there an alternate way that I'm overlooking?

Thanks again for all your help!