I recently wrote an article on how to create a multiboot flash drive. I think there is no point in writing about this a second time, just follow the link and you will see an effective method, believe me.

Now I’ll tell you how to make a multiboot drive with several systems and completely different programs, most likely the article will turn out to be long, but this doesn’t matter, because all the effective options will be in one place.

How to create a multiboot flash drive using WinToHDD

An interesting program that, in addition to creating bootable flash drives, also has functions for copying the system and installing a new one. So that users understand how to use it, I will try to describe everything in simple and understandable language.

Before the process you should move important files from the drive to another location, for example, on hard drive.

You can download WinToHDD from here. Launch the utility and click on the “Multi-Installation USB” section.

A window will open where you need to select the flash drive from the drop-down menu. A message about formatting the flash drive will pop up, be sure to transfer important data. Next, select the system and boot partitions, although there is only one flash drive, so they will be the same. Click on the “Next” button.

The writing of files related to the bootloader to the flash drive begins, an important operation in which it is better not to touch anything, but just wait.

What do you think needs to be done now? I hope you have already prepared operating system images. They need to be moved to a USB drive. That's it, we made a multiboot flash drive.

What to do with a flash drive made in WinToHDD

We created a bootable USB flash drive with several operating systems, which is very pleasing. You should now boot from it. This can be done through the BIOS or Boot Menu, whichever is convenient for you.

The download manager appears, where you select one of the presented items - 64-bit system or 32-bit.

The WinToHDD utility window will appear with the name of the system image. Let's get started new installation and select the desired system from the list. Now click Next.

Next, we are asked to select or create the following partitions - boot and system. Here you must be a more experienced user and not mess anything up. If necessary, convert partitions to MBR or GPT.

If your BIOS is not UEFI, but the Legacy boot type, then you should convert the partitions to MBR and also format them to NTFS.

If you use BIOS UEFI, then convert the partition to GPT. All this is done on the command line.

Once you have specified the required partitions, you can click “Next” and wait for the system to install. You can experiment on a PC with this program if these instructions seemed a little complicated to you, but we managed to create a multiboot flash drive.

Creating a multiboot flash drive using Easy2Boot

First you need to download several files; we will need them during our work:

RMPrepUSB– download from here: http://www.rmprepusb.com/documents/rmprepusb-beta-versions
Easy2Boot– download from here: http://www.easy2boot.com/download/

We launch the RMPrepUSB utility and look at the interface. Lots of functions and nothing is clear. It follows from this that the method will be a little complicated for novice users, but you should not give up this option. Don't forget to connect the flash drive.

Let's first look at those interface items that will be useful to us.

1. We mark the option “Do not ask questions” - that is, no notifications with requests will appear;
2. In the “Size” fields - enter MAX, “Volume Label” - enter any;
3. In the boot sector, select the first option related to Windows;
4. In the File system section, check the “NTFS” and “Boot as HDD” items. You can also choose FAT32, but the option is slower and only supports a maximum of 4 GB file sizes.
5. In the fifth section you need to select the path to Easy2Boot. Attention! There is no need to unpack the archive; we leave it as is.
6. Press the button "Prepare disk". You should have a drive inserted and displayed in the very top field; if there are several disks there, then make no mistake and select the desired flash drive.
7. After completing the operation of preparing the flash drive (it was formatting), you need to click "Install Grub4Dos". If a warning window appears, select “NO”.

It is advisable not to close the utility, because it will be useful to us later. When we open the flash drive, we will see several folders there. There is an “ISO” folder, and in it there are supposed folders for operating systems and some utilities.

What do we do next? You need to take the necessary images and transfer them to the WINDOWS directory; you can also move anti-virus utilities, programs for creating backup copies, working with disks, as well as checking for RAM errors.

Images do not have to be thrown only at WINDOWS folder. You can drop them into the root or ISO folder. When loading from a flash drive, they will still be displayed.

Now that you have copied the necessary files to the drive, you need to return to the main RMPrepUSB window. Open the “Drive” tab and click on the option "Make All Files on Drive Contiguous", or press Ctrl+F2.

Create a multiboot flash drive using WinInstall4Grub4DOS

From this link you can download the WinInstall4Grub4DOS tool. Unzip it and run the file. A welcome window will appear, where we click on the “Next” button.

It’s very good if you have prepared the necessary images. You can select them by clicking on the “Select folder” button; the OS images must be located in some folder, the name must not have Russian letters.

Having specified the path to the system images, click “Next”.

After the next click on the “Next” button, you will see operations for copying, driver integration, and other things. The process can be lengthy and we are even offered to go have some tea, thanks for that.

To add data to system images, the FiraDisk script will run. In the window that appears, click OK.

Will open automatically command line, where the necessary images will be recorded independently.

Now let's see what's in the folder with all the images. Copies of them appeared there with the note “FiraDisk”.

Let's go to the WinInstall4Grub4DOS utility and select the “Save files” option. In Explorer, create additional folder and name it, for example, “Utilities”, since that’s where they will be written. You need to create it in the folder where the folder with the images is located.

If you are interested in what these utilities are, then click on the “Why are these files needed?” button.

Finally, we connect the flash drive to the PC, run HPUSBFW, located in the folder with the utilities, as administrator. A window will appear with a choice of flash drive, file system, preferably NTFS, and a checkmark quick formatting. Start the formatting process. When finished, close the window.

In the utilities folder we find the archive with the GRUB4DOS_GUI tool. Let's run this file.

Move the checkbox to the “Disk” position and select the flash drive next to it. If nothing happens, then run the utility with elevated privileges. Click “Install”.

A command line will open, press the “Enter” button.

In the utilities folder, copy the MENU.LST and GRLDR files to the USB flash drive. If they are not there, then download them from the Internet, they are easy to find. Here's the link so you don't have to search.

Let's create a folder on the flash drive with some name and move the images there with the FiraDisk annotation. We haven't been able to create a multiboot flash drive yet because there are a couple of steps that need to be completed. Let's go!

Using the Wincontig program

One more thing. It is necessary to defragment the copied images. This can be done using WinContig, located in the utilities folder. Launch it and select images using the “Add files” button.

Click on the “Action” section and select “Defragmentation”. We are waiting for the process to complete.

The status should not be fragmented, this means something is wrong with the files, or you need to take a larger flash drive.

In the WinInstall4Grud4DOS window, click “Next”, so we will find ourselves in the section where we will do something.

In the “Menu generator for Grub4DOS” field, you need to specify the path to the disk where you have Windows images. Detailed instructions written in a file that opens by clicking the “What to do?” button.

After that, click “Make”.

After waiting a little, we will see the code that needs to be copied, for which there is a corresponding button.

Open the file menu.lst

We have created a multi-boot media with multiple operating systems. This process turned out to be long and hardly anyone will use it, but it will do for general development.

When booting from a flash drive, the GRUB4DOS bootloader will appear, with a black background and a list of operating systems. You can work on the design of the bootloader using ZXBFM__2.1b, but this is optional.

RESULTS

So, friends. I have created such a voluminous article for you. Now you know how to create a multiboot flash drive that has not only operating systems, but also various kinds of utilities. Some methods turned out to be simple, while others were complex or took a long time to implement. In any case, they are all effective if done correctly. Beginners may have problems, as there are a lot of pitfalls here. If you have a problem, be sure to write in the comments, I will try to help.

» How to create a multiboot flash drive with Windows XP and programs?

How to create a multiboot flash drive with Windows XP and programs?

What is a multiboot flash drive used for?

A multiboot flash drive is a tool that any experienced user would want to have on hand. It can help out in situations when the computer, for example, does not boot from hard drive, and you need to access data when you need to install an operating system on a computer without a CDDVD drive, as well as to run some service and diagnostic utilities. A multiboot flash drive can be used as a carrier for several distributions of operating systems, for example Windows XP, Windows 7, Linux, etc. From it you can load various LiveCDs - “live disks” with systems that do not require installation, work with programs that serve computer devices, conduct anti-virus scans and much more. In a word, it is an extremely necessary and useful thing.

On the Internet you can find many ready-made assemblies for creating multiboot media, but it is best to learn how to make them yourself. Then your flash drive will contain the set of software that you choose yourself. Programs may be different (naturally, in the format boot images), but it is very advisable, among other things, to keep at least one Windows distribution on a flash drive. We will consider the option with Windows XP.

Preparation

Before you begin creating a multiboot flash drive, you need to prepare the following:

• flash drive, with a capacity of 2 GB or more - if you are going to place only the Windows XP distribution and programs on it, and if you want it to have several operating systems, take a larger volume - from 4 GB;
• software that you will place on the flash drive: Windows XP distribution in the form of an ISO image or on a DVD and everything else in ISO, IMA, IMG formats, etc.;
• a computer running OS Windows, where all work will be carried out;
• utilities and files for working with a flash drive: CDDVD drive emulator (UltraISO, Daemon Tools etc.), WinSetupFromUSB - a free tool for transferring Windows XP to a USB drive and a bootloader installer, the bootloader itself - grldr and a configuration file menu.lst (you can create an empty one using notepad text file with lst extension).

Making a flash drive multiboot

Formatting

First of all, the future multiboot flash drive must be formatted in NTFS or FAT32. The option with NTFS is preferable - loading will be faster. For these purposes, you can use different tools, including those built into Windows, but we will use WinSetupFromUSB.

Attention! Before you start formatting, make sure that there is nothing valuable on the media, as all files on it will be deleted.

• Run WinSetupFromUSB and click the “BootICE” button to launch the utility of the same name.

• Click on the “Parts Manage” button to create an active boot partition on the flash drive.

• In the next window you will see a list of sections. In our example, there is only one section. To make it active (the active section is marked with the letter “A” in the Act column), click the “Activate” button.
• To start the formatting process, click on the “”ReFormat USB disc” button, then “Next” and “OK”, without changing anything in the settings. Mark the drive type as “USB-HDD”.

After these steps, the flash drive will be clean and prepared for further work.

Creating a boot sector and copying boot files

We continue to work in BootICE. Our next task is to create on a USB stick boot sector and copy the files necessary for downloading to it. These are, as stated, grldr and menu.lst.

• While in the main BootICE window, click on the “Process MBR” button.

• After this, the “Master Boot Record” window will open, where you need to check the box next to “Grub4DOS” - bootloader type, and then click “Install / Config”. There is no need to change anything in the next configuration settings window, just click “Save to Disc” and close it.

• Close BootICE, copy the grldr and menu.lst files to the root directory of the flash drive and proceed to the next step.

Transferring Windows XP distribution and programs to a flash drive

• Prepare a Windows XP distribution on disk or as an ISO file. Install the disc into the CDDVD drive, and mount the image into a virtual drive, which will be created by an emulator program, for example, UltraISO.

• Run WinSetupFromUSB. In the “Add to USB disc” section of the window, check the box next to “Windows 2000/XP2003 Setup”. A small button on the right will open Explorer so you can specify the path to the Windows XP distribution disk. Next, click on the “GO” button, and the process of copying files will begin. In a similar way, distributions of other operating systems are transferred to a flash drive.

• Copy boot images of other programs that your multiboot flash drive will contain to separate folder. Place it in the root of the drive and give it a clear name using Latin letters. In our example, the folder will be called PROG. We will take as an example MHDD, a utility for working with hard drives, and Memtest86+ – diagnostic tool RAM computer. Images of these programs can be downloaded for free from their official websites.

Configuring the Multiboot Menu

Now the most difficult and interesting part: we have to configure boot menu. We hope you can imagine what it is. This is what you will see after the computer boots from your flash drive. Since it is multi-boot, it should have a list of contents, or rather a menu, with the help of which you could launch the necessary programs. This list is contained in the menu.lst file.

Grub4DOS menu.lst is already included in the installation package. You can use it as a basis for creating your own menu, but you can also clear it of its contents and fill it in yourself. In our case, there is no task of studying the syntax of Grub4DOS commands in detail, so we will clear the file (or create it ourselves) and insert into it the ready-made code fragments necessary for the menu to work.

I must say that the possibilities for customizing the multiboot menu are quite large. You can add a picture as a background, you can use different fonts, enable support for the Russian language, etc. But in order to solve the problem, we will limit ourselves to simple and understandable things.

So, let the first point be offered to us Windows installation XP on computer. Next, let’s say, install Windows 7 or 8, then launch MHDD, followed by Memtest86+. The last items we will add are booting from the hard drive (start Windows), rebooting (reboot) and shutting down the computer (shutdown). Our menu will look like this:

Install Microsoft Windows XP

Install Microsoft Windows 7/8

Installing Windows XP

IN top part document, copy the following code:

title Install Microsoft Windows XP
root(hd0,0)
map –mem /WINSETUP/XPpSP3.ISO (0xff)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
map –hook
root (0xff)
chainloader /I386/SETUPLDR.BIN

• Line title contains text that will be displayed as a menu item. It must be written in Latin characters (there is no support for Cyrillic fonts in Grub4DOS by default).
• In line root the disk partition where the bootloader should look must be specified required file. (hd0.0) in this case it is a flash drive.
• map –mem /WINSETUP/XPpSP3.ISO (0xff)– this entry points to the path to the file that will be launched. In our case, this is XPpSP3.ISO in the WINSETUP folder, which is located in the root of the flash drive.
• Team chainloader makes a call Windows boot loader XP – SETUPLDR.BIN. There is no need to change its parameters.

Of all the above, the user can only change the value of title and map –mem. Everything else should remain as is.

Installing Windows 7 or 8

Indent one line from the previous part of the code and insert the following fragment:

title Install Microsoft Windows 7/8
map –unmap=0:0xff
map –unhook
root(hd0,0)
chainloader/bootmgr

Since the Windows 7 and 8 boot loader is copied to the root of the flash drive, you do not need to specify the path to it. Apart from the title value, everything should remain as is.

Running MHDD and Memtest86+

Below, insert the following code in a line:

title MHDD
find –set-root /PROG/MHDD.IMA
map –mem /PROG/MHDD.IMA (fd0)
map –hook
rootnoverify(fd0)
chainloader(fd0)+1

title Memtest86+
map /PROG/memtest86+.iso (0xFF) || map –mem /IMG/memtest86+.iso (0xFF)
map –hook
chainloader (0xFF)

The command syntax is different, since the boot files of these programs have different formats in our example (IMA and ISO). Here it is important to correctly specify the path to the files on the flash drive: /PROG/MHDD.IMA and /PROG/memtest86+.iso, as well as enter the title.

Booting Windows from your hard drive

The following code fragment will be responsible for it:

title Start Windows
find –set-root –ignore-floppies –ignore-cd /bootmgr || find –set-root –ignore-floppies –ignore-cd /ntldr
map (hd0) (hd1)
map (hd1) (hd0)
map –hook
rootnoverify (hd0)
chainloader(hd0)+1

On hard drives The computer will be searched for the Windows XP bootloader - ntldr or Windows 7/8 - bootmgr.

Reboot and shutdown

The last two fragments, the first of which is responsible for rebooting, and the second for turning off the computer.

title Reboot
reboot

title Shutdown
halt

After that, save the menu.lst file and close it.

Testing

To check how our multiboot flash drive works, run WinSetupFromUSB again. In the main window, find the “Test in QEMU” item and check it. Will be launched virtual machine QEMU, where you can see the boot menu you just created.

If everything is displayed the same as you see in the picture, and each of the points works as expected, your flash drive is ready.

A multiboot flash drive is a set of programs, operating systems or recovery utilities. This flash drive is an indispensable assistant for anyone system administrator and, with basic skills, a useful tool for the average user.

Thanks to the multiboot function, you can easily, using just one flash drive, check the performance of the RAM, HDD, install several operating systems to choose from, and so on. Accordingly, if you have problems with your computer, it is better to have such a tool for restoring and diagnosing the system and equipment.

For example, if you have enough memory on your device, you can:

• Record multiple OS Windows various versions and even together with Linux;
• Enter MemTest, Kaspersky Rescue Disk;
• A package of recovery utilities, for example: Hiren BootCD;
• Driver Pack Solution.

Having such a software package available, you can cover the needs of 90% of computer malfunctions. It will allow you to reinstall the OS and drivers for it or restore a faulty system. Before we start creating a flash drive, you need to download images or installation files that are important to you.

Before you make a multiboot USB flash drive with Windows, you should decide on the program with which we will do this. There are quite a lot of them, but a complete solution all assigned tasks can be WinSetupFromUSB or Sardu. It is possible to use other applications, but for example, let’s consider the ones mentioned.

Creating a multiboot flash drive via WinSetupFromUSB

First, let's look at creating a flash drive using the popular solution from WinSetupFromUSB, thanks to which many similar devices have already been created and a myriad of problems with the system have been solved.

You can simply download the utility from the website using free rights, link https://www.winsetupfromusb.com/files/download-info/winsetupfromusb-1-7-exe/. After this, start the unpacking process. After it is completed, you should follow the selected path and find the utility in the appropriate folder by launching the shortcut that corresponds to your x32 or x64 OS.

To decide how to make a multiboot flash drive with Windows 7 or other versions, you must first insert the media itself into the computer; its volume must be sufficient to perform recording. Usually 16-32GB flash drives are used for this, as a last resort 8GB is possible.

Read also:

So, to create a multiboot flash drive you need:

1.In the first line " USB disk selection..." select the desired media;

2. Check the box next to “Auto format it with FBinst” - this indicates the need to format the USB. This item is needed so that the flash drive auto-boots when the computer starts, but if you have already installed a Windows distribution or other Live CD software on it, then this item should be bypassed;

• Windows 2000/XP/2003 Setup – designed to record the corresponding system versions. To use it, you must specify the path to the I386 folder, which is located in the root of the OS distribution. Your ISO image needs to be mounted or unzipped and the path to it indicated;
• Windows Vista/7/8/10/Server 2008/2012 – an extremely simple method for modern versions of the system, the use of which boils down to specifying the path to the ISO image;
• UBCD4Win/WinBuilder/Windows FLPC/Bart PE – this item is not important for the average user, but it is intended for boot disks with the WinPE system. The installation is similar to the first option;
• LinuxISO/Other Grub4dos compatible ISO – in addition to being used for recording the Linux system and its diversity, this section used to record all diagnostic and/or recovery utilities of interest;
• SysLinux bootsector – alternative way Linux entries, used for those operating systems that include the syslinux boot loader.

After filling out the required fields (don’t forget to check the boxes next to the required items), click the “Go” button and wait for the installation to complete, this may take for a long time 10-30 minutes (depending on the number of entries) and do not be alarmed if it seems that the program has frozen - this is its normal way of working.

If you have a question about how to make a multiboot flash drive with several OSes, especially similar in architecture, then you can simply run the program for the second time and set the path to the file, just uncheck the box next to “Auto format”. The WinSetupFromUSB program will automatically add the image you need to the USB.

Creating a Multiboot USB Flash Drive Using Sardu

Sardu is a similar program, only with a slightly lighter control option. Includes the ability to download the necessary software distributions directly from the application window.

To use the Sardu utility, you should:

• Download it https://www.sarducd.it/downloads;
• Now, without installation, launch the application. In the same way, as in the previous version, there is a breakdown into specific tabs (located on the left), where you can find their corresponding application. Sections have an intuitive image and name. It is worth noting that last point Extra is intended for other images that do not fall under other options;

• Specify the paths to ISO images or programs directly, you can download them here;

• The required amount of space is indicated in the right window and, when everything is calibrated, click on the flash drive icon and the recording process will start.

By using one of the options for creating a multiboot flash drive, you can be fully armed against various system problems and give them a worthy rebuff. Thanks to such actions, you will not necessarily have to replace the OS, but you will be able to restore it, check the functionality of the equipment, and more.

If you still have questions on the topic “How to make a multiboot flash drive?”, you can ask them in the comments

In my previous article, I talked about how to burn various types of information onto CD/DVD discs, for example: music in MP3 format, any boot program (for example, installation disk Windows or antivirus), movie in DVD format and, of course, just a set of any files and folders.

Fortunately, CD and DVDs today they are receding further and further into the background. Many laptops no longer have disk drives, and for stationary home computers there is often simply no point in buying a disk drive (if only for reading and writing Blu-ray discs).

And fortunately, because disks are being replaced by ordinary flash drives, i.e. flash drives. Progress does not stand still and now most music players, video players and TVs support the ability to play information directly from a flash drive! Moreover, you can make a flash drive bootable, and, for example, install Windows from it or run any computer maintenance program (antiviruses, partition managers, LiveCD and much more)!

In this article I will share with you in a simple way creating a bootable one using one simple program.

But how convenient is it now to use flash drives and not carry these discs with you in special boxes? :) I put a lot of any movies and music on one flash drive, after which you can listen to music in the car by inserting a flash drive, watch movies by simply connecting it to the TV or DVD. Also, at the same time, the flash drive can be bootable and simply store numerous of your documents and various kinds of files. In general, everything in one bottle :)

In the article about burning discs, I talked separately about recording music, movies, boot program images and mixed data. And for flash drives, such a manual is not required, because to record movies, music, or just a set of files, you just need to copy it all to a flash drive and that’s it! For convenience, you can also sort into different folders. That is, it is clear that a separate program for writing data to a flash drive is not required :)

For example, I copy music:

It's simple!

And now not only flash drives, but USB external ones are very relevant hard drives, which can contain a huge amount of information, for example 2 TB (2000 GB). And they are used in exactly the same way as flash drives: connect to USB, copy everything you need and you’re done! And no CDs needed.

But how can you make sure that a USB storage device (be it a flash drive or external hard disk) could be recorded, for example Windows installer, and then insert a USB flash drive into the desired computer and install Windows on it directly from the flash drive? Or we want to write a bootable antivirus onto a flash drive to scan the computer before the system starts. And someone may need a boot program to reset Windows passwords. I wrote about this program in the article:

Or maybe someone would like to have several different boot programs on a flash drive with the ability to select through a special menu? It's very convenient! But in this case, unfortunately, simply copying images of the necessary programs to a flash drive is not enough... You will need a separate program to make the flash drive bootable and fill it with the necessary boot programs. I've come across several programs that perform the same function. They are all free! I personally settled on one and haven’t even had to resort to the help of other programs yet.

The program is called "WinSetupFromUSB". She, like many others, is on English, but don’t let this scare you, because you have this article at hand :)

Let's look at how to make a bootable USB flash drive using it.

Download and unpack the WinSetupFromUSB program.

First we need to download the program. As I have already mentioned in many of my articles, you need to download programs from official sites, and not from anywhere! Otherwise, you might end up downloading viruses for yourself in addition to the program :)

winsetupfromusb.com

This is the official website of the program. At the top of the window you will see links to download the latest Beta versions programs, but I do not recommend downloading them, since such versions of programs are at the testing stage and may have various glitches. It is better to always download the latest stable versions released so that there is no “beta” or “b” prefix.

As we can see in the example from the image above, the latest stable version today is 1.5. Here I am downloading it as an example in the form of an unpacked .exe archive. There is another option in the 7z archive, but there is no difference.

In the next window, simply click “Download” and the program will immediately begin downloading to your computer:

After downloading the program, run the downloaded file to unpack:

A window will appear in which you need to specify a folder on your computer to unpack the archive:

I unpack directly to my desktop. In this case, the program will still be unpacked into a separate folder “WinSetupFromUSB”, which will be created independently. To start unpacking you need to click “Extract”.

After unpacking we see a folder with the name of the program:

It is in it that the program itself will be located.

Now let's start creating a bootable USB flash drive...

We create a flash drive with any boot programs using WinSetupFromUSB!

So, we unpacked the program and now in the folder we see 2 files to choose from to run:

One is designed to run on 32-bit Windows systems, and the other (which is labeled “x64”) is designed to run on 64-bit systems. Run the appropriate file depending on the bitness of your Windows. At the same time, there will be no difference in the program itself and the speed of its operation! I recommend running the program as Administrator. To do this, right-click on the file and select “Run as administrator” (see image above).

The program will start and we will see this window:

The program is very easy to use!

First, you should know that the first time you write, the program will format the flash drive, which means deleting all existing data on it. Therefore, either use any empty flash drive for these purposes, or copy everything that is stored on the flash drive somewhere to your computer so as not to lose data!

After you have launched the program, connect the USB flash drive (or USB hard drive) that you want to make bootable to your computer. This can be done before starting the program.

In the topmost section “USBdiskselectionandformattools”, the first thing you need to do is select the USB drive to which you will record. I currently have only one flash drive connected to my computer, so the program automatically indicated it:

If you have several devices connected, be sure to select the one you need in the top selection list (see image above). And, make no mistake, because the program, as mentioned above, will destroy all data! It will be best if you have one single USB drive connected to your computer, onto which you are just going to record programs.

Below, check the “AutoformatitwithFBinst” checkbox to format the flash drive and make it bootable. Next you need to select file system, into which the flash drive will be formatted (point 3 in the image above): FAT32 or NTFS. NTFS will be supported in most cases today, so it's best to choose it. However, FAT32 does not support writing files larger than 4GB, which may hinder you in the future.

Now go to the “AddtoUSBdisk” section:

In this section we will just add boot programs that will be written to the flash drive. We see the following options:

Windows 2000/XP/2003 Setup.
You should choose this if you are going to burn the installer of one of the listed Windows systems onto a USB disk. All of them have long been outdated and I think few people will need this item today.

Windows Vista / 7 / 8 / Server 2008 / 2012 / Based ISO.
This choice will allow you to write the installer to a USB disk for more than modern systems Windows, for example 7 or 8. This is already relevant today and I think it will be useful to many!

UBCD4Win / WinBuilder / Windows FLPC setup / Bart PE.
This item is needed if you want to burn a boot program created based on WinPE to a USB disk. But most boot software is based on Linux, so this opportunity many will never need it at all, or very rarely.

Linux ISO / Other Grub4dos compatible ISO.
Current feature! Allows you to burn a Linux-based boot program to your USB drive. Nowadays, most programs are created this way. For example, bootable versions of antivirus products, a bootable version of the famous backup and recovery program Acronis, a program for resetting Windows user passwords.

SysLinuxbootsector / Linux Distribution using SysLinux / ISO Linux.
This item is likely to be of little use to anyone. The option allows you to write programs with the Syslinux bootloader to a USB drive. If the program image has a Syslinux folder, then most likely you will need to use this option to write it to USB.

So, now that you at least roughly know the purpose of each item in the program, you can start adding programs.

Let's say we want to put the Windows 8.1 installer, a program for creating backups and restoring them - Acronis, and a program for resetting the password onto a flash drive. Let this be an example.

So, check the “WindowsVista / 7 / 8 / Server 2008 / 2012 / BasedISO” item and click the “…” button to the right, intended for selecting an image with the desired Windows:

Click “OK” in the next window:

A standard Windows Explorer will open, where you need to select the ISO file (image) of the system you need and click “Open”. In my example, I select Windows 8.1:

Now I add the Acronis program. I select the item “LinuxISO / OtherGrub4doscompatibleISO” and in the same way, by clicking “…”, I select the image of the bootable version of Acronis in the form of an ISO file:

After selecting the program image, you will be asked to specify the name of the menu item, by clicking on which you will open the added program:

You can mentally ask the question: “how did I know that the bootable version of Acronis is based on Linux, on the basis of which I chose the “LinuxISO / OtherGrub4doscompatibleISO” item?” In fact, in no way, purely intuitively and based on the fact that now most boot programs are built on similar Linux systems. However, you can try to find out this on the official websites of the programs themselves. But it’s even easier to take and write the program directly through the “LinuxISO / OtherGrub4doscompatibleISO” item and if it suddenly doesn’t work, then rewrite the flash drive again, choosing a different option :) Fortunately, all this doesn’t take long.

So, I prepared 2 programs for writing to a flash drive: Windows 8.1 and Acronis installer:

And here, since there is only one option for selecting each type of program to be recorded, another question arises: “How then can you add 2-3 or more boot programs of the same type (for example, Linux-based) or 2-3 Windows installation programs?”

The question is correct! The program allows you to record as many programs as you like onto a flash drive. Everything is limited only by its volume :) But this needs to be done in several approaches.

At the moment, I have already indicated 1 Acronis program based on Linux, and I need to write down another one - password reset, which is also built on Linux. So, you will have to add the password reset program to the flash drive on the second run.

But first, let's write down the 2 programs that I added. To do this, just click the “Go” button at the very bottom of the window:

The program will give 2 warnings that the data will be 100% deleted, the disk will be repartitioned and recovery will probably be impossible. I already warned you about deleting data before starting to work with the program, so I hope you understood all this and made a copy of the files located on your USB drive, if necessary :)

Click “Yes” in each warning window:

The recording process will begin specified programs to a flash drive. The recording duration depends on the amount of data and the speed of the flash drive. The recording process is shown at the bottom of the window:

For example, for this example, I recorded Windows 8.1 3.85 GB in size and Acronis 355 MB in size onto an 8 GB USB 2.0 flash drive and it took me about 15 minutes. If the flash drive were USB 3.0, the process would most likely be reduced to 5 minutes or even less. Nowadays flash drives and external USB hard drives are mostly in USB 3.0 format, which gives a very high speed of information transfer.

The end of recording will be indicated by a window with the inscription “Jobdone”, where you just need to click “OK”:

After the first 2 programs are written, we can run WinSetupFromUSB again and add more programs to the flash drive, without having to format it anymore!

When you run WinSetupFromUSB a second time to add new programs, do not check the “AutoformatitwithFBinst” checkbox! All that remains is to select new programs and press the “Go” button again to record:

As a result, new programs will be added to the flash drive. If you need to add more, then do the 3rd launch of the program and again add what you need :)

That's actually the whole recording process. Now our USB drive is ready and all we have to do is boot from it!

To configure the computer to boot from a USB drive (it doesn’t matter whether it’s a flash drive or an external USB hard drive), most often you have to go into the BIOS and make some settings there. Explain important BIOS features, including boot order from various devices, I'm going to in a separate article:

Now I will briefly show how to do this using the example of one of the BIOS versions - AmiBios:

There are many versions of BIOS and each of them has a slightly different interface and capabilities, but the principle is still the same and each has a device priority menu similar to that described above.

After saving the settings, the computer will reboot and boot from the flash drive will begin, since it was set as the first boot device.

You will need to wait a few seconds and the boot menu will appear, where all the programs we recorded via “WinSetupFromUSB” will be listed:

By selecting the arrow keys on the keyboard (because the mouse works in such boot programs won't) the desired program and pressing the “Enter” key, it will start running.

That's all!

I think that the article will be useful for those who want to have installation files on a flash drive Windows versions and various utilities for recovery, hard drive partitioning, password reset and various other purposes.

As you can see, such multiboot flash drives are very easy to write!

Have a nice day and good luck! Bye;)

In this material we will talk about how to create a multiboot flash drive with multiple operating systems. This will be useful to you in cases where you need a bootable flash drive with which you could install not 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 even have several different Linux distributions stored on a flash drive. And now I’ll show you how all this is done.

What is a multiboot flash drive?

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

A multiboot flash drive for an IT professional or simply for an advanced user who constantly helps people familiar with their computer is a godsend, since you don’t need to carry around several disks, USB flash drives and other devices with various programs and 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 onto one flash drive. This is exactly what I will tell you about today.

WinSetupFromUSB is a program for creating multiboot USB drives. It is implemented as an operating room Windows system and can record on USB flash drives various versions of Windows, starting with Windows XP, as well as various Linux distributions, such as: Linux Mint, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS and others. In addition, with its help you can write boot utilities onto a flash drive, for example, antivirus programs or programs for working with hard drives.

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

Unfortunately, the program does not have a Russian version, but it is so simple that there should not be any difficulties when working with it.

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

Creating a multiboot flash drive using WinSetupFromUSB

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

Step 1 – Download the WinSetupFromUSB program

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

Once you have reached the page, select current version programs (or the one you need), at the time of writing this 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 approximately 24 megabytes in size.

Step 2 - Unpack the WinSetupFromUSB distribution

The downloaded file is not the WinSetupFromUSB program, it is only a self-extracting archive that stores the program files, so we need to extract it first. To do this, run the downloaded file, after which a window will appear to indicate the directory into which the program files will be extracted. Using the button "Three points" select the 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 – Run WinSetupFromUSB

We go to the directory where we extracted the WinSetupFromUSB program files, and there we see two executable file, 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 parameters and creating a multiboot flash drive

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

In the section "USB disk selection and format tools" select a USB flash drive, which we will make multiboot, if only one flash drive is inserted into the computer, then it will be selected by default, but if you have several connected USB drives, then be sure to check the selected flash drive in order to eliminate 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 check the box "Auto format it with FBinst" and specify the file system type, for example, NTFS.

Note! Then, when the multiboot flash drive is created and we add more operating systems to it, there is no need to check this box, it is only needed for the initial setup of the flash drive.

Next, depending on which operating systems you will add, check the appropriate box and indicate the path to ISO file image, which you should already have, using the button with three dots.

For the sake of example, I will first record the Windows 7 operating system, 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 with Windows Vista.

Then the program will warn us that if we want to burn 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 a 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 corresponding button.

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

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

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

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

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

And then Linux Mint.

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

As a result, we received a 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 Multiboot USB Flash Drive

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

For example, I’ll add another Linux distribution, let it be Q4OS, and also click "GO", and there will be no warning messages, since there will be no formatting or creation of partitions.

Step 6 – Boot from a multiboot flash drive

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 flash drive, we discussed how this is done in the material - “How to boot from a flash drive? Changing the boot order of devices in BIOS ».

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

For example, after all the above actions, I have 4 items 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 flash drive with several OS (Windows, Linux)

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