Boot into Duplicati via CD or disc on key?

Hello @danost and welcome to the forum!

I’m not aware of anything shipped by Duplicati that does that, but WinPE and duplicati as Disaster recovery solution was a query about a build-your-own approach that might cover some of the things one would need.

Another approach (because you run Linux) might be to see if you can find something Linux-based. Though these ideas are just thoughts (not tried, not even well-researched), you could possibly just build a recovery system on some read-write USB medium with a standard Duplicati install, or do the install should need arise.

A live ISO approach might be more iffy unless the writes that Duplicati will want to do can be done somehow.

On Linux, Duplicati will definitely need Mono, and sometimes the latest works more reliably than the distro’s. For finding other needs, one approach might be to try an install and see what dependencies get brought in.

One alternative approach in case of drive loss would be to reinstall the OS conventionally, and restore data using Duplicati. In either case, please note that the local Duplicati database disappeared with the drive, and recreating it from destination files is slower than some like (especially if they recreate their entire database).

For a simple non-boot (as opposed to dead drive), there might be other fixes which could be attempted first. Even if boot can’t be restored, a live CD copy of hard drive data to local device might offer a quick recovery, especially if your only Duplicati backup is on the Internet somewhere for extra safety and historical versions.