Project: Booting Ventoy from ISO/CD/DVD

[nguyen ha thai trong]

I am currently working on loading and booting Ventoy from an ISO file or CD/DVD media instead of traditional USB/HDD/SSD. Is anyone interested in collaborating with me on this?"

[Van Flusen]

I am currently working on loading and booting Ventoy from an ISO file or CD/DVD media instead of traditional USB/HDD/SSD. Is anyone interested in collaborating with me on this?"

I work for a large company where the use of USB-drives is prohibited.
However, the use of CD/DVD media is permitted.
It would be a great help if Ventoy could be run from CD/DVD media.
@longpanda has extensive knowledge and is probably the only one who can make this happen.
However, @longpanda has already responded to your request and said that this will not work. 

[tenshikohaku]

You have a good idea because I used to be an information soldier in the military.
The use of USB drives was completely prohibited on military computers, and the use of USB ports on each military computer was monitored.
The only way to access the storage media interface was by using a read-only CD-ROM drive to install operating systems and ERP systems.
The only drawback is the frequent replacement of discs.

Ventoy's core design premise
Ventoy operates on an inviolable premise:

Ventoy will only scan and boot ISO files from writable block devices.

Typical examples include:
USB flash drives
USB hard drives
NVMe/SATA disks

Optical discs (CD/DVD/BD) do not meet this premise.

Why is the "CD-ROM" a dead end in the Ventoy architecture?
Let's also discuss this in terms of disc capacity,
CD-R/RW disc capacity specifications:
CD-R 650MB: Earlier standard capacity
CD-R 700MB: Currently the most common standard capacity
CD-R 720MB: Overclocking capacity (requires a burner supporting overclocking technology)

DVD-R/RW standard capacities:
Single-layer DVD-R 12cm disc: 4.7GB
Dual-layer DVD-R DL 12cm disc: 8.5GB
Single-layer DVD-R 8cm disc (Mini DVD): 1.46GB
Dual-layer DVD-R DL 8cm disc: 2.66GB

BD-R/RW disc media capacity depends on its number of layers:
Single-layer BD-R: 25GB
Dual-layer BD-R DL: 50GB
Triple-layer BD-X(T)L: 100GB
Quadruple-layer BD-X(Q)L: 128GB

For general consumers, the most common are 25GB and 50GB BD-ROM discs.
It should be noted that the BD-XL format requires a specially supported drive to read; older Blu-ray drives do not support it.
I think the number of tools/programs that can be placed is limited by the disc capacity.

CD-ROMs are read-only.
Ventoy performs the following actions during boot:
1.Mount the device
2.Scan the file system
3.Dynamically create the GRUB2/Ventoy chainload structure
4.Create a loop device, map memory, and honk boot chain for the ISO.

These steps all assume that the underlying device can be remounted and manipulated.
However, optical discs:
Cannot be repartitioned
Cannot be remounted as RW
Cannot create a loopback block device
→ Directly excluded from Ventoy's design.

"A similar but feasible method"

1.GRUB2 Multiboot DVD
2.Easy2Boot exports .iso disc image files.
3.iPXE chainload ISO
4.iVentoy

Conclusion:

Ventoy can only be used to "build or maintain Ventoy devices," not as an "ISO multiboot menu."
The optical disc media itself is architecturally incompatible with Ventoy's design goals.