# First we'll clone iPXE
$ git clone git://git.ipxe.org/ipxe.git
# Go into the src directory of the cloned git repo
$ cd ipxe/src
# Compile the UEFI iPXE executable
$ make bin-x86_64-efi/ipxe.efi
# First we'll wipe the USB drive (THIS WILL DESTROY ALL DATA)
$ sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdxY bs=512 count=1
# Then we'll partition the drive
$ sudo cfdisk /dev/sdxY
# cfdisk will ask you what type of partition table you want, select GPT
- Make a partition at least
512M
in size. - Switch the type from
Linux Filesystem
toEFI system
. - Write these changes to the USB drive and quit.
# First we'll format it FAT32
$ sudo mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sdxY
# Now we'll make a directory to mount the USB drive in
$ mkdir /tmp/efidrive
# Now we can mount the USB drive
$ sudo mount /dev/sdxY /tmp/efidrive
# Assuming you're still in the ipxe/src directory
# Make the necessary efi/boot directory in the USB drive
$ sudo mkdir -p /tmp/efidrive/efi/boot
# copy the executable and rename it to bootx64.efi to conform to the UEFI standard
$ sudo cp bin-x86_64-efi/ipxe.efi /tmp/efidrive/efi/boot/bootx64.efi
# unmount the drive
$ sudo umount /tmp/efidrive
That's it! You should now have a UEFI-bootable USB drive with the UEFI ipxe binary!
After a bit of tweaking i made a hybrid - bootable for BIOS and UEFI systems. Recently i got one only with UEFI and no legacy BIOS option.
Idea is to remain with DOS label type (not GPT) for machines with BIOS and create fat32 filesystem type ESP for boot loader which will be accessible and executed by machines only with UEFI firmware.