Surely each of you be a beginner System Administrator or just a lover of IT technologies thought about how to create a USB flash drive with several operating systems at once. Everything that is necessary at hand if suddenly one employee has Windows XP installed and another has Windows 7 or 8. Not so long ago I thought about this task, and decided to make a multi-boot USB flash drive for myself.

I originally downloaded from the internet OS from XP to Windows 10 and of course I did not forget about the Hiren "s BootCD boot CD, this is in case you need to access the hard drive bypassing the broken OS.

For this task, I decided to use the YUMI mini-utility, which can create a bootable USB disk with multiple operating systems.

What will it take to create a multi-boot flash drive?

1. Download the mini utility YUMI
2. The hard disk must contain ISO images that will be written to the USB flash drive. For myself, I downloaded the following ISO images. Windows XP, Windows 7 (x64-x86), Hiren's BootCD, and Dr.Web LiveDisk.

Since the flash drive is only 16GB, so far I have stopped at this, because the add-on will need additional software - Antivirus, archiver, graphics editor, and other software.

We complete the task.

1. Open the YUMI program

2. Select the disk to which the data will be recorded. In my case, this is drive H: Multiboot

3. Choosing a distribution kit. If we copy to USB flash drive 7,8, 10 then select the appropriate section.

If this is an ISO image of Hiren "s BootCD, select another option from the list provided.

.

In my case, Windows and Hiren "s were already written to the flash card, so I decided to supplement it with a bootable disk from Eset.

4. On your hard disk you need to find an ISO image and select it

5. Press the "Create" button and wait for the program to finish transferring data.

After one of the images is burned, we can continue adding other ISO images in the same way. The main thing is not to check the "FORMAT" box, otherwise all your efforts will be in vain.

How to add another image to a USB flash drive, for example Windows?

After one of the images has been written to the usb drive, the YUMI program will ask for confirmation to continue working. Press the "YES" button.

From the ready-made list of Step 2, in the "Other Os / Tools" subsection, select Windows string Vista / 7/8 Installer.

Find on the hard disk and select windows image 7

Click the Create button.

Removing and viewing images installed on a USB flash drive.

To see what programs are already installed on the flash drive, just install the checkbox next to the "View or Remove Installied Distro" option. Here you can also uninstall the installed software.

Now there are many operating systems and ISO images you added on a USB stick or external hard drive. To multi- boot menu booted after turning on the computer, and before Windows boot do not forget to set the priority for booting from a USB flash drive in the BIOS.

If everything worked out, the YUMI boot menu should appear.

Each section contains different installation packages, for example, in the "Antivirus Tools" section there will be a link to download LiveDisk, in the "Other Tools" section there is Hiren "s BootCd, and of course the" Grub Bootable ISOs "section contains links to operating systems: Windows XP, 7.8.

In the future, I want to create a USB flash drive that is much more functional, for example, add the operating system Windows 8 and 10, Linux (Ubuntu or Centos), a boot menu for Windows recovery from the image ( Macrium Reflect or Acronis) as well as the wonderful DriverPack that can automatically install all drivers for your computer's hardware.

Please do not compare the article and the video lesson, as they were created in different time... In the video, I showed how you can make a bootable USB flash drive with 4 iso images.

Greetings, today I will tell you what a cool multiboot flash drive I have that saved me more than once. With the advent of large-volume flash drives (from 8 GB), it became possible to make multi-boot flash drives with a huge set of software and operating systems. Now you don't need to carry around a bunch of disks with drivers and Windows / Linux installers.

In my case, a multiboot flash drive is a whole "combine" with two operating systems, software for checking and testing computer hardware, and even with a completely ready-to-run operating system (LiveCD).

First, let me tell you what we will have in the end:

1. Ability to install Windows 7 SP1 x86-x64
2. Ability to install Ubuntu (any version)
3. Ability to run LiveCD
4. HDD software - Acronis Disk Director
5. Testing program random access memory MemTest

Preparing the flash drive for work

Now let's take a closer look at everything. First you need to download the archive with the files that you need:

Now you need to prepare your USB flash drive for further work. Format it using standard windows tools

Ready! Now you need to install the bootloader on the flash drive using grub4dos. Launching the program grubinst_gui.exe from the archive, select our flash drive in it and click “ Install”

if after clicking on the Install button you see such a window, then everything went well:

Let's move on. Now there is nothing on your flash drive, it is absolutely empty, in order for it to become bootable, you need to copy the bootloader files and the boot menu itself to it. They are located at the root of the archive.

grldr- bootloader

menu.lst- menu setting file

Open the copied file menu.lst in a notebook. As you can see, it is completely empty. We will now set it up together with you.

First, add a line like this:

Title Shut down PC halt

At this stage, we have a bootable USB flash drive ready, but it does not know how to do anything except turn off the computer (we added this command). Now let's check if the flash drive is working. To do this, you do not need to restart your computer at all, just copy the file MobaLiveUSB_0.2.exe to the root of the flash drive and launch it, press the button “ Non”

An emulator window will open, in which you will see everything the same as if you booted your computer from a bootable USB flash drive.

As you can see, the screen displays "krakozyabry" instead of Russian letters

We will fix this matter by connecting one of the templates to the bootloader (in my case, winlin.gz). Copy the file to the root of the flash drive winlin.gz and write the following lines in menu.lst at the very beginning

Gfxmenu /winlin.gz

Now start the emulator again and see what your bootloader screen looks like. If done correctly, you will see the following screen:

As you can see now the inscription "Turn off the PC" is displayed normally. Great, now let's move on.

Add Windows 7 SP1 x86-x64 Installer

Now let's add windows installer 7 SP1 x86-x64 for the ability to install windows from your multiboot flash drive.

To do this, download the windows 7 image you like, and extract all the files to the root of the flash drive.

After extracting the files, add the following lines to the menu.lst file:

Title Installing Windows 7 SP1 x86-x64 RU map --unmap = 0: 0xff map --unhook root chainloader / bootmgr

Download the emulator and check what you get. As you can see, the item "Installing Widows" appeared

When you select this item, the installation of Windows begins. Moving on ...

Add Ubuntu Installer

Often I have to use Linux, so I decided to add the Ubuntu distribution to the USB flash drive. We download the freshest distribution kit from the official site. Create a folder on the USB flash drive / ubuntu and copy the downloaded image into it (as it is, in one file).

Now open the ubuntu image in UltraISO program and from the directory / casper copy two files: vmlinuz and initrd.lz to folder / ubuntu on a USB flash drive. The ubuntu disk image name should be ubuntu.iso.

Now add the following to the menu.lst file:

Title Installing ubuntu-10.04.4-desktop-i386 kernel / ubuntu / vmlinuz iso-scan / filename = / ubuntu / ubuntu.iso boot = casper only-ubiquity initrd = / casper / initrd.lz locale = ru_RU quiet splash - initrd /ubuntu/initrd.lz

Restart the emulator and check what you get

When you select the menu item “ Installing Ubuntu”Installation of the distribution kit will start

Add a LiveCD launch

A very useful thing! It happens when the system does not boot, and before reinstalling you need to save the contents of the desktop, does it happen? It happened to me, so in such moments, LiveCD will help.

I downloaded the first assembly I came across (if you want to find it, look for it by name), it contains both windows 7 and Windows XP. For every taste, as they say.

So, I downloaded the image, dropped it into a folder / os, v menu.lst added the following:

Title Start Windows LiveCD map /os/LiveCD_Seven+LEX.ISO (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) boot

Now I have one more item

I want to note right away that when launched from the emulator, the version with windows 7 will not start, and the version with windows xp will start without problems.

We now have two operating systems and a LiveCD. Let's add some software.

Add programs for a bootable USB flash drive

1. To work with hard drives, I downloaded the image Acronis Disk Director(available on torrents). Dropped it in a folder / program and added the following entry to the menu:

Title Working with hard drives Acronis Disc Director map /program/acronis.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) boot

Now I have in my arsenal good tool for working with disks

2. To check the RAM, I will use the program "MemTest"

I downloaded it from. Unpacked and put the image in a folder / program , added the following to the menu:

Title Check RAM MemTest 4.10 map /program/mt410.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) boot

Trying to run from the emulator ...

Works! Let's move on.

3. A huge set of different tools can be found in Hiren's BootCD. You can download it. Unpack and copy the image to a folder / program , you also need to copy the firadisk.IMA file from my archive into it.

firadisk.IMA is a driver that allows you to load a disk image into RAM and work with it like a regular disk.

We prescribe the following in the menu:

Title Hiren`s BootCD v9.3 map --mem /program/firadisk.ima (fd0) map --mem /program/hbcd.iso (hd32) map --hook chainloader (hd32)

While loading Hiren`s BootCD, you need to wait a little while the disk is filled into RAM, after which it will start.

4. Add a utility to reset the administrator password on the USB flash drive. You can download it and copy the ISO image to the folder / program. Added the following entry to the menu:

Title Reset Admin password map /program/BOOT-DSK.ISO (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) boot

The image contains several utilities, we are interested in the one highlighted by the arrow:

5. I will add the Victoria program for diagnostics hard disk... You can download it. I throw the image in / program, I write the following in the menu:

Title Diagnose hard drive Victoria 3.5 map /program/vcr35r.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) boot

In principle, you can add a whole bunch of everything, only your imagination and the size of the flash drive can limit you. For me, this toolkit is quite enough.

Here is a screenshot of my bootable USB stick

And here is my menu.lst file:

Gfxmenu /winlin.gz title Installing Windows 7 SP1 x86-x64 RU map --unmap = 0: 0xff map --unhook root chainloader / bootmgr title Installing ubuntu-10.04.4-desktop-i386 kernel / ubuntu / vmlinuz iso-scan / filename = / ubuntu / ubuntu.iso boot = casper only-ubiquity initrd = / casper / initrd.lz locale = ru_RU quiet splash - initrd /ubuntu/initrd.lz title Start Windows LiveCD map /os/LiveCD_Seven+LEX.ISO ( hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) boot title Working with hard drives Acronis Disc Director map /program/acronis.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) boot title Check RAM MemTest 4.10 map /program/mt410.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) boot title Hiren`s BootCD v9.3 map --mem /program/firadisk.ima (fd0) map --mem /program/hbcd.iso (hd32) map --hook chainloader (hd32) title Reset Admin password map /program/BOOT-DSK.ISO (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) boot title Hard disk diagnostics Victoria 3.5 map / prog ram / vcr35r.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) boot title Shut down PC halt

If suddenly you still have questions, welcome to the discussion!

Other.

So far I haven’t managed to add an antivirus or to check my computer for viruses. From this multiboot flash drive, you can install only one version of Windows 7 and Windows XP recorded on it. That is, while I do not know how to make sure that there are several Windows 7 images on the USB flash drive, and during installation we could choose. (If you have several operating systems in the image for installation, in this case, the choice will be. How to make it possible to install Windows 7 from one Windows 7 Ultimate image: Initial; Home; Professional or Ultimate read and watch). I hope to figure it out in the next articles. I covered all the nuances. We ran to create a multiboot flash drive.

Article structure

1. Download and install MultiBoot USB

Download the MultiBoot USB program with which we will make a multiboot flash drive.

Download conveniently from a torrent

http://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3848726

After downloading, it is advisable to check the checksums

The checksums agreed, we proceed to the installation.

Run as administrator

We press OK

The installed program starts immediately

Half the battle is done.

2. Download and install UltraISO

You can skip this point if you already have a program for working with ISO-images installed (for example). We need a program to mount images to a virtual disk for Windows entries to a USB flash drive.

Download UltraISO from the official site and with the desired language

http://www.ezbsystems.com/ultraiso/download.htm

Run the downloaded file. In the window with the system warning, click Run

Welcome to the UltraISO Installation Wizard. We press Next>

We press Install

We press To complete

UltraISO starts up. We press Trial period ...

UltraISO installed and running

3. Format and install the bootloader on the USB flash drive

We go down to the bottom of the page in the Download section and download the ISO-image in the archive

Downloaded archive

Rename the image to memtest86_5_01.iso and copy to the folder boot on a multiboot flash drive

Now let's fix the menu_u.lst file

To do this, copy the piece of code responsible for launching Elcomsoft System Recovery Pro v3.0

find -set-root /boot/Elcomsoft.ISO

map -mem /boot/Elcomsoft.ISO (hd32)

chainloader (hd32)

and insert below the point that starts the old test of RAM. In the picture below you can see what happened with me.

Change the title - title and image names to memtest86_5_01.iso

Delete the piece of code that runs the old test. Press Ctrl + S and test what we got.

Everything works.

Conclusion

We have created a multiboot flash drive with which you can install, or. It also includes a bunch useful programs which can be run directly from a flash drive, two mini Windows systems 7 and Windows XP (you can boot into them and copy data from system disk before installing the system) and almost full-fledged Windows XP with a huge set of resuscitation utilities installed system and . It remains only to learn how to use it all.

In the next articles about multiboot flash drives, we will try to do it with antivirus software. To be able to cure a system that does not boot.

In this material we will talk with you about how to create a multiboot flash drive with multiple operating systems. It will be useful for you in those cases if you need a bootable flash drive from which you could install more than one operating system, as in traditional cases, but several, in other words, from one flash drive you can install both Windows and Linux, while you can make it so that even several different Linux distributions were recorded on the USB flash drive. And now I will show you how all this is done.

Multiboot flash drive- this is an ordinary USB flash drive on which various distributions of boot systems are recorded. These can be both operating systems and ordinary boot applications, for example, antiviruses or some kind of rescue utilities.

A multiboot flash drive for an IT-schnick or just for an advanced user who constantly helps those familiar with a computer is just a godsend, since you do not need to carry several disks with you, USB flash drives and other devices, with various programs, operating systems that are constantly required. It is enough to create a multiboot flash drive once, on which everything you need will be recorded, and take only it.

WinSetupFromUSB - a program for creating multiboot flash drives

To create multiboot flash drives are used special programs, one of which is the WinSetupFromUSB program, it can write several operating systems to one USB flash drive. It is about her that I will tell you today.

WinSetupFromUSB Is a program for creating multi bootable USB- storage devices. It is implemented under the Windows operating system and can write to USB stick various versions of Windows starting from Windows XP, as well as all kinds of Linux distributions such as: Linux Mint, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS and others. In addition, with its help, you can write boot utilities to a USB flash drive, for example, antivirus software or programs for working with hard drives.

It supports work with UEFI, can record both 32-bit versions and 64-bit versions of operating systems. The WinSetupFromUSB program itself can also work in both 32-bit Windows and 64-bit versions.

Unfortunately, the program does not have Russian version, but it is so simple that there should be no difficulties when working with it.

In order to create a regular bootable USB flash drive with an operating system distribution or simply burn an ISO disk image to a USB flash drive, it is not necessary to use WinSetupFromUSB, you can use other more popular programs, for example, Rufus, an example of creating a bootable USB flash drive with with Rufus you can see in the material “How to create a bootable USB stick with the operating system in Windows? " or, if you only work with Linux distributions, you can use the UNetbootin program.

Creating a multiboot flash drive using the WinSetupFromUSB program

Now let me tell you in detail and step by step how to create a multiboot USB flash drive using the WinSetupFromUSB program, starting with downloading this program and ending with loading from the final multiboot USB flash drive.

Step 1 - Downloading the WinSetupFromUSB Program

You can download the WinSetupFromUSB program from the download page of the official website, here it is —http: //www.winsetupfromusb.com/downloads/

After you have gone to the page, choose the current version of the program (or the one you need), at the time of this writing it is version 1.8. Click on the link with the name of the program.

Then the page of this version will open, we need to click on the button "Download".

As a result, you will download the file WinSetupFromUSB-1-8.exe about 24 megabytes in size.

Step 2 - Unpacking the WinSetupFromUSB Distribution

The downloaded file is not a WinSetupFromUSB program, it is only a self-extracting archive that stores the program files, so we need to unpack it first. To do this, run the downloaded file, after which a window will appear for specifying the directory into which the program files will be extracted. Using the button "Three dots" select a folder, and then press the button Extract.

As a result, the WinSetupFromUSB directory will be created in the specified folder, in which the program files will be located.

Step 3 - Launching the WinSetupFromUSB program

Go to the directory where we extracted the files of the WinSetupFromUSB program, and there we see two executable files, this is the WinSetupFromUSB program:

• WinSetupFromUSB_1-8.exe - version of WinSetupFromUSB for 32 bit systems;
• WinSetupFromUSB_1-8_x64.exe - version of WinSetupFromUSB for 64 bit systems.

You run the file that matches the architecture of your system.

Step 4 - Configuring WinSetupFromUSB Settings and Creating a Multiboot USB Drive

There is no need to install the WinSetupFromUSB program, so after launching you will immediately open the program interface.

In chapter "USB disk selection and format tools" select a USB flash drive, which we will make multiboot, if only one USB flash drive is inserted into the computer, then by default it will be selected, but if you have several connected USB drives, then be sure to check the selected flash drive in order to exclude unpleasant consequences, since the process of creating a multiboot flash drive involves the complete destruction of data from the USB drive.

When initially creating a multiboot flash drive, we need to prepare a file USB system flash drives, for this we put a tick "Auto format it with FBinst" and indicate the type of file system, for example, NTFS.

Note! Then, when the multiboot flash drive is created, and we will add more operating systems to it, this checkbox does not need to be checked, it is only needed for initial setup flash drives.

Further, depending on which operating systems you will add, put the appropriate checkbox and indicate the path to ISO file the image that you should already have previously, using the button with three dots.

As an example, I will write the Windows 7 operating system first, so I check the box under “ Windows Vista/ 7/8/10 / Server 2008/2012 based ISO ". This checkbox must be checked if you want to record operating systems of the Windows family, starting from Windows Vista.

Then the program will warn us that if we want to write 64-bit Windows Vista SP1 with UEFI support, then we need to select a different file system, namely FAT32. We are recording Windows 7, so we click OK.

We find and select the ISO image we need, click "Open".

We have chosen one operating system, now let's choose another one, let it be with us Linux distribution more specifically, Linux Mint 19.

To do this, in the section "Linux ISO / Other Grub4dos compatible ISO" we also check the box and select the desired ISO image using the appropriate button.

In this case, the WinSetupFromUSB program will offer us to set the display name of this distribution in the multiboot USB flash drive menu, i.e. what will be the name of the item in the menu when loading. You can change, or you can not change, but in any case, click "OK".

Everything is ready to start creating a multiboot USB flash drive, in which we will have two systems for now - these are Windows 7 and Linux Mint 19. Click "GO".

The program warns us that all data from the flash drive will be erased, press "Yes".

Then press again "Yes", in order to start formatting the flash drive, creating the necessary partitions and then writing the distributions to the flash drive.

After that, the process will finally begin, we can observe its progress, for example, after preparing the flash drive, the ISO image of Windows 7 will be written first.

And then Linux Mint.

This process will be completed when the message appears. "Job done" , press "OK".

As a result, we got a USB flash drive with two operating systems, which we can now use to install these systems on a computer.

Step 5 - Adding Additional Operating Systems to the Multi-Boot USB Flash Drive

In case you need to add additional operating systems to your multiboot flash drive, i.e. If you want you to have not two systems on a flash drive, but, for example, three or more, then you specify the ISO images of the required operating systems in the WinSetupFromUSB program in the exact same way to add to an existing multiboot flash drive. Only, as I noted earlier, a check mark "Auto format it with FBinst" no need to put. Also remember that there should be enough space on the flash drive.

For example, I will add another Linux distribution, let it be Q4OS, and also click "GO", there will be no warning messages, since there will be no formatting and partitioning.

Booting from a multiboot flash drive is carried out in the same way as from other bootable flash drives, in other words, in the BIOS you need to set the boot from a USB flash drive, how this is done, we examined in the material - “How to boot from a USB flash drive? Changing the boot order of devices in BIOS ".

Difference from booting from regular boot USB devices is that in the case of a multiboot flash drive, you will first start a menu in which you must select what exactly you want to download. If you do not make a choice, then by default the boot will continue from the hard disk, i.e. normally.

For example, after all the above steps, I have 4 points in my multiboot flash drive, these are:

0 - Windows 7;

2 - Linux Mint 19;

To select a system, you must use the arrows on the keyboard.

Video instruction - Creating a multiboot USB flash drive with several OS (Windows, Linux)

That's all for me, I hope the article was interesting and useful to you, so far!

This article addresses the questions asked by users of our site in the article: Creating a bootable USB drive using WinSetupFromUSB. For example, there was a question about how can you write two axes of Windows 7 on one USB stick or "what if you want to install two axes on a flash drive at once: for example, Windows XP Home and Windows XP Prof, then how to do this so that this choice of operating systems is displayed on the netbook even when booting?" ... We did not answer the questions raised as quickly as some of our visitors would like, but in this article we will offer solutions to the questions raised.

The question is also relevant because the memory capacity of our flash drives is constantly increasing. Create a bootable USB flash drive with one image recorded on it, given that there are still many free space does not make sense. (The creation of "regular" bootable USB drives was discussed in the following articles: How to make a bootable USB flash drive using Novicorp WinToFlash? and How to make a bootable USB flash drive with Windows 8 ). Therefore, it would be logical to make such an option: write several Windows versions on one flash drive and, if necessary, choose what to install.

Let's get down to implementing the issues raised. Our task will be to write two operating systems to one flash drive at once - Windows XP and Windows 8 in such a way that after booting from the flash drive, we could choose which one to install. And for this we need a small portable program YUMI... You can download it from these links (YUMI version 2.0.1.5):

After downloading the archive with the program, unpack it and run the file. A window will appear:

Creating a bootable USB stick is broken down into a few simple steps. The first step is to specify the USB stick. Of course, the flash drive must be connected to USB. It needs to be formatted, preferably with the NTFS file system.

The program allows you to format in FAT32, but due to the fact that this file system does not work with files larger than 4GB, it is better to manually format it to NTFS. If, nevertheless, you will not record images larger than 4GB, then you can try FAT32 as well.

How to format a USB flash drive to NTFS was discussed in the articles: Writes that there is not enough space on a USB flash drive, although there is space and How to format a USB flash drive.

So, we have completed the first step, indicated the USB flash drive, proceed to the second step - we need to choose what we will write to the USB flash drive. We recommend choosing the penultimate option .

We have come to the third step - select the ISO image for writing to the USB flash drive. To do this, press Browse.

Specified the ISO image, now click , that is, Create.

Click Yes

We see that files are being copied from the image to the USB flash drive.

All files from the image have been successfully copied to the USB flash drive, click Next.

Here is very important point... The program asks if you want to add another ISO image. If we want to write only one image to a USB flash drive, then press No... But our task is to write another image to a USB flash drive, so we press Yes.

Here we go over the previous three steps again. Here's what you should get as a result:

We recorded two images on a USB flash drive and this is enough for an example. Since we do not copy any more disk images to a USB flash drive, then click No... You can write as many iso images to a USB flash drive as the size of your USB flash drive allows.

The program reports that everything has been recorded perfectly. To complete the work, click .

Everything is now ready. To start working with our flash drive, configure the BIOS to boot from the USB port. Having booted from a USB flash drive, you will see a menu where its items will be the names of the images that you recorded on the media.

In this way, a multiboot flash drive is created or, in other words, in this way you can write several operating systems to a USB flash drive at once.

About how successfully you work with the proposed program or your own methods of creating multiboot flash drives, write in the comments to the article.