home » Tips » How to create a menu for a bootable USB stick. How to create a multi-boot flash drive using YUMI. WinSetupFromUSB - a program for creating multiboot flash drives

How to create a menu for a bootable USB stick. How to create a multi-boot flash drive using YUMI. WinSetupFromUSB - a program for creating multiboot flash drives

But what if you have several computers or laptops at home with different operating systems installed? Or friends often ask to reinstall Windows or install a new version of it. Of course, you can create a bootable USB flash drive every time. You can also buy several flash drives and install various programs on them. But it is much easier to choose this option - creating a multiboot flash drive with different versions of Windows and utilities. This is what this article will discuss.

What is required

So, what is needed for this. Of course, you must have all the necessary ISO images that you want to burn to it: various operating systems and utilities. It can be Windows XP, 7, 8 and others; Dr.Web LiveCD or Kaspersky Rescue Disk - to scan your computer for viruses, Victoria - to fix hard disk errors, Acronis Disk Director - to divide the hard disk into partitions and others. You can download them from the Internet, or make images from disks, you can read about this by clicking on the link.

We will also need a special program with which we will create a multiboot flash drive, and, of course, the USB drive itself. Choose its volume based on what you will record. If this is a set of different programs, 1-4 GB will be enough. If you want to make a multiboot USB flash drive with several operating systems and add programs to it, take a USB flash drive with 8 GB or more memory.

As an example, in the article we will make a multiboot flash drive with Windows 8 and the Victoria program. I took a USB flash drive with a volume of 4 GB. We will use the free program WinSetupFromUSB.

Downloading the required utility

You can download the program from the official website. Write "WinSetupFromUSB" in the search engine and follow the link shown in the figure below.

We will download the latest version of the program at the time of this writing. Follow the corresponding link.

Click on the blue Download button.

Formatting a flash drive

The next thing we will do is format the USB flash drive using standard Windows tools, which we will have bootable. Copy the necessary files from it, as all information from the device will be completely deleted.

Insert it into a computer or laptop, and you need to use a USB 2.0 port. Go to "Computer", right-click on it and select from the context menu "Format".

An information window will appear that all data will be destroyed, click "OK".

When the USB stick is formatted, a window will open. Click "OK" in it and close the utility for formatting.

Operating system entry

Unpack the downloaded archive with the WinSetupFromUSB program and run the file "WinSetupFromUSB_1-6".

First of all, we will write an image with the Windows 8 operating system on our multiboot flash drive.

In the program window, in the section, select the USB flash drive that we formatted. In the "Add to USB disk" section, put a tick in the box "Windows Vista / 7/8/10 / Server 2008/2012 based ISO"

The Explorer window will open. Find the image you want on your computer, in the example it is an image of the Windows 8 operating system, and click "Open".

Click "GO".

After the process is completely completed, the "Job done" window will appear.

I only have a 4 GB flash drive, so I can't write many operating systems to it. If you need to add Windows Vista, 7, 10 to a multiboot flash drive - repeat all the above steps. To add Windows XP, in the "Add to USB disk" section, check the box "Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 Setup"... Each time, choose the same USB flash drive that you used to write images earlier.

Recording programs

Now let's add a program to the multiboot flash drive to check and fix errors on the Victoria hard drive.

Run WinSetupFromUSB and in the section "USB disk selection and format tools" choose our flash drive. Further, in the "Add to USB disk" section, put a tick in the box "Linux ISO / Other Grub4dos compatible ISO" and click on the button with three dots.

Find the image of the program on your computer through Explorer and click "Open". Then an information window will appear, click "OK" in it, or it will disappear by itself after 10 seconds.

Press "GO" and wait for the program to be written to the USB flash drive.

To add other programs necessary for you to the multiboot flash drive, repeat all the above steps. Select the desired utility image each time.

Check

After you add all images of operating systems and programs to the flash drive, let's look at the result - open the flash drive's boot menu in the QEMU virtual machine.

To do this, in the program window, click on the "Refresh" button, then put a tick in the "Test in QEMU" field and click "GO".

You can see what the boot menu looks like after each addition of an OS or program to the USB flash drive.

In the example, the boot menu of the flash drive looks like this. The flash drive contains Windows 8 and the Victoria program. You will have a different list displayed, depending on what you upload to it.

M ultibootable flash drive, complete with a distribution kit of several operating systems, antivirus Live -disk, the necessary programs that work autonomously from bootable media - this is a universal tool for solving various problems and tasks with a computer that ordinary users have to face every now and then. What can we say about IT-specialists, most of whose professional life is the restoration of the working capacity of computer equipment.

Flash drive, which brings together various bootable software solutions, will replace a bunch of different optical boot disks. A single multiboot flash drive can be used to neutralize viruses that block the computer's startup, and to reinstall the operating system, and to restore it from a backup, and to allocate space on the hard disk, and for other tasks. Ready-made images are available for download on the Internet Live -discs with a selection of various software for solving computer problems. But, of course, it is better to prepare a universal rescue tool yourself, picking up the contents of a bootable USB flash drive to suit your individual needs and preferences.

The program can create flash drives with various bootable software WinSetupFromUSB for Windows. It can bundle a selection of bootable media based on the bootloader Grub4dos ... We will use it to create a multiboot flash drive. And, accordingly, this whole process will be discussed in detail below.

1. Contents of a multiboot flash drive

The first step is to prepare a multiboot USB flash drive distribution kit. In our case, we have a USB flash drive with a small volume by modern standards - just 8 GB ... Therefore, it will be equipped only with the necessary tools. And this is a distribution kit Windows versions 8.1 , 10 and old XP , antivirus Live -disk from Avira, a disk space allocation manager and a free backup. To write to a USB flash drive, we prepare ISO -images of bootable media of the selected software and installation disks of operating systems.

2. Download WinSetupFromUSB

WinSetupFromUSB Is a free program. You need to download the latest version on the official website. At the time of this writing, the current version is 1.6 ... WinSetupFromUSB works portable, no installation on the system. All you need to do is unpack the downloaded archive and launch the program shortcut in accordance with the bitness of the current Windows.

Download the WinSetupFromUSB program from the official site:
http://www.winsetupfromusb.com/downloads/

3. Formatting the flash drive

Next stage - flash drive formatting... This process can be carried out as standard Windows tools (command "Format" in the context menu called on the flash drive in the explorer) and inside WinSetupFromUSB. Let's consider the last option.

In the program window at the top, select the desired flash drive, if there are several of them connected to the computer. We activate the checkbox of the option "Auto format it with FBinst"... After that, its additional options will be revealed. Of these, you just need to decide on the future file system of the flash drive - NTFS or FAT32... If the distribution kit prepared for writing to a USB flash drive contains files whose weight exceeds 4 GB , you must select the file system NTFS ... If not, we leave FAT32 default.

The FAT32 file system must also be left if the multiboot flash drive is intended, among other things, to work with computers based on BIOS UEFI. In this case, you will not need to disable the function. Secure Boot, and the distribution kit contained on the flash drive 64 -bit Windows 8.1 and 10 installs on GPT -disk partition.

WinSetupFromUSB prepares a universal bootable USB flash drive - for computers with a regular BIOS, and for devices based on BIOS UEFI. But the interface UEFI sees only bootable USB drives formatted in FAT32... Some programs can bypass such restrictions and create bootable UEFI- flash drives with a file system NTFS, but WinSetupFromUSB, alas, is not one of them.

So, we define the file system and press the button below "Go".

In the warning window about erasing data on a flash drive, click "Yes".

And press again "Yes" in another warning window.

In a few seconds we will see the inscription "Job done" - The work is done. We press "OK".

Now you can start adding the contents of the multiboot flash drive. The order in which you add images of operating system installation disks and program bootable media is not important. It is only important to adhere to the corresponding column in the central part of the window. WinSetupFromUSB.

4. Adding a Windows distribution kit

Adding a Windows distribution kit is possible in two forms of the program window. One of the forms is designed to add images of Windows installation disks, starting with version Vista , the other is for setup files Windows XP and older versions of the system. In our case, we first add the image to the corresponding form Windows 8.1 ... Check the box on this form and use the browse button to indicate the path to ISO-image. A set of a multiboot flash drive is formed in stages: each distribution kit is added and recorded in a separate order. Press the button "Go".

We are waiting for the completion of the process and click "OK".

Now we activate the same form with a tick and use the browse button to add another Windows distribution. In our case, this is the installation disk Windows 10 ... For the same version of Windows, you can add its different editions one by one - 32 - and 64 -bit. Add, click "Go", we are waiting for the completion of the process.

5. Nuances with Windows XP

Presence of an installation disk on a USB flash drive Windows XP it may be necessary in rare cases to reinstall the operating system on very old PC assemblies. But the process of creating a bootable USB drive with this version of the system using WinSetupFromUSB there are some nuances. In the program interface, the upper form is intended for adding a Windows XP distribution kit and earlier versions of the system.

The browse button of this form does not add the usual ISO-distribution image. Before content ISO-image must be opened in the virtual drive. In systems Windows 8.1 and 10 this is done by regular means - on ISO-file, the context menu is called and the command is selected.

AT Windows 7 and earlier versions of the system mount ISO-images are possible through third-party programs such as Alcohol 120% or Daemon tools ... Content connected ISO-image is transferred to a separately created folder.

And this folder is already in the process of creating a bootable USB flash drive is added to the program window WinSetupFromUSB.

The next step is to accept the license agreement.

And only then start recording.

Another nuance is the need to integrate drivers for SATA-controller in the distribution Windows XPif it does not initially contain them.

6. Adding bootable program media

ISO-images of the operating system distribution kit Linux , Live -discs based on Linux and WinPE, bootable media of various programs using the browse button are added in the active form "Linux ISO / Other Grub4dos compatible ISO"... After adding ISO-image a small window will appear "Boot menu name"where you can set a name for how the bootable media will be displayed in the bootloader menu Grub4dos ... In our case, we indicate the path to the anti-virus image Live-disk Avira. Press the button "Go" and wait for the recording to complete.

And then the image.

7. Testing the flash drive

One of the advantages of the program WinSetupFromUSB is built BY to emulate computer hardware - QEMU... Through QEMU you can immediately, without leaving the current operating system, test a USB flash drive - even a regular bootable one, even a multiboot one. At the bottom of the WinSetupFromUSB window, check the option box and click "Go".

A QEMU window will open, in which everything will happen as on the monitor screen after booting from a USB flash drive. The first thing we will see is the bootloader menu Grub4dos... Using the navigation keys or numbers according to the serial numbers of the software in the list, we can select one or another bootable media, Live-disk or operating system installation process.

The Windows installation discs will be combined into two partitions. One will contain distributions Windows XP and older versions of the system, in the other - versions of Windows, starting with Vista ... Each of the sections leads to the window of the additional boot menu for the corresponding versions and editions of Windows.

We remind you that attempts to repeat the author's actions may lead to the loss of the warranty for the equipment and even to its failure. The material is provided for informational purposes only. If you are going to reproduce the steps described below, we strongly advise you to carefully read the article to the end at least once. 3DNews editors are not responsible for any possible consequences.

Remember the wonderful discs with the title in the spirit of "Reanimator" or "Ambulance for your PC", which could easily be found in the nearest booth selling well, very licensed software and movies with music? Sometimes they really helped to quickly deal with computer problems or, at worst, find out what exactly was wrong. Sometimes, of course, the quality of these collections left much to be desired. Nowadays, not every computer can find an optical drive - people have either finally gone to the Web and the clouds, or use USB flash drives and external hard drives to quickly transfer data. And they just can be used for self-creation of the very "first aid kit".

Really, the process is not complicated at all - with the help of special utilities, this is done in just a couple of clicks. The basic idea is simple: we combine several Live-CDs at once with various utilities or OS, write them in a special way to the drive and add a bootloader that will help start this entire economy when the computer is turned on. By the way, in the same way, we can create a universal USB flash drive with several installers of various OS at once. Let's look at some programs that will help us in this matter.

The easiest to use utility for creating multiboot removable drives is called XBoot. You can download it on the official website or on many other mirrors that are listed there. For the program to work correctly, it is imperative to install the .NET Framework version 4 or higher. Working in XBoot is elementary - just drag the ISO images of the required distributions or utilities into the main program window, and it will independently extract all the necessary information and add it to the download list. In the plate, you can edit the fields Name (name), Category (for more convenient navigation, you can scatter utilities into categories) and Help Text (a short description for each download item).

XBoot is "familiar" with many distributions, but sometimes it is still wrong or simply cannot recognize that you slipped it into something. In this case, the utility will clarify this question with the user. If you, for example, are trying to add a Linux distribution, then it would be nice to know who was its progenitor. For example, Linux Mint is actually a variation on Ubuntu. Otherwise, you can try selecting Grub4dos emulation for ISO, floppy or hard disk images. By the way, you can add to the USB flash drive the Live version of Windows 7, the creation of which we considered earlier. In WinBuilder you need to choose to create an ISO image, and in XBoot - the item "PE, MSDART, ERD" when adding it to the boot list. However, Windows installation images starting with XP are unlikely to work correctly. For them it is better to use utilities like Windows 7 USB / DVD download tool.

The choice of software for installation on a USB flash drive is yours. We can recommend as the minimum set such utilities as Memtest86 + and MHDD for diagnosing memory and hard disk, some Live-CD with antivirus (almost every developer of antivirus solutions has such a set), the GParted partition editor, Ultimate Boot CD and Inquisitor Live for testing hardware, as well as software for logging into OS without a password like Kon-Boot or Offline NT Password & Registry Editor. Most of these programs are actually based on either Linux or good old DOS. So there shouldn't be any problems downloading them. In XBoot, under File → Download, you can quickly get download links for popular applications of this type.

As soon as the set of utilities is formed, you can start creating the assembly - just click Create ISO or Create USB. In the first case, an image will be created that can be written to disk. In the second, you will need to select a USB drive where all this stuff will be recorded. It is better to use the recommended syslinux as a bootloader. The speed of creating an assembly depends on the total volume of the selected utilities and the speed of the flash drive.

After everything is ready, XBoot will offer to test the build in the embedded QEMU virtual machine. You shouldn't refuse - you can see how it will look in real life, and at the same time check the performance (well, at least the ability to run) the utilities.

An example of KolibriOS running in the emulator from a flash drive

In the future, to launch QEMU and then test the assembly, you will need to go to the tab with the corresponding name and either drag the ISO image or select the USB drive and click the Boot button. For testing, you can also use the MobaLiveCD program, which is essentially a nice graphical shell for QEMU.

Finally, a couple of important nuances should be noted. First, to avoid compatibility issues, you need to format the removable storage device in the FAT32 system. The creators of XBoot recommend using the RMPrepUSB program to format large disks or flash drives. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine who might need a collection of distributions and utilities with a total volume of several tens, or even hundreds of gigabytes. Secondly, even if the check of the finished flash drive in QEMU failed, try booting from it on a real machine anyway. Thirdly, carefully keep track of which drive you are going to work with now. The hour is not even, you will accidentally overwrite some data on another external HDD. In general, be careful and careful. However, then you will hardly ever need a USB "first aid kit". Good luck!

Hello.

Quite often, many users, due to various system errors and failures, have to reinstall the Windows OS (and this applies to all versions of Windows: be it XP, 7, 8, etc.). By the way, I also belong to such users ...

Carrying a pack of disks or several flash drives with an OS is not very convenient, but one flash drive with all the necessary versions of Windows is a nice thing! This article will show you how to create such a multi-boot USB flash drive with multiple versions of Windows.

Many authors of such instructions for creating such flash drives greatly complicate their guides (dozens of screenshots, a huge number of actions need to be performed, most users simply do not understand what to press). In this article, I would like to keep everything as simple as possible!

So, let's begin…

What do you need to create a multiboot flash drive?

1. Of course, the flash drive itself, it is better to take a volume of at least 8GB.

2. The winsetupfromusb program (you can download it on the official website: http://www.winsetupfromusb.com/downloads/).

3. Windows OS images in ISO format (either download them or create yourself from discs).

4. Program (virtual emulator) for opening ISO images. I recommend .

Step-by-step creation of a bootable USB flash drive with Windows: XP, 7, 8

1. Insert the flash drive into USB 2.0 (USB 3.0 - blue port) and format it. The best way to do this is to go to “my computer”, right-click on the flash drive and select “format” from the context menu (see screenshot below).

Attention: when formatting, all data from the flash drive will be deleted, copy everything you need from it before this operation!

2. Open an ISO image with Windows 2000 or XP (if, of course, you plan to add this OS to a USB flash drive) in the Daemon Tools program (or in any other disc).

My computer. pay attention to drive letter virtual emulator, in which the image with Windows 2000 / XP OS was opened (in this screenshot, the letter F:).

3. The last step.

Run the WinSetupFromUSB program and set the parameters ( see the red arrows in the screenshot below):

- first select the desired flash drive;
- further in the "Add to USB disk" section, specify the letter of the drive in which we have an image with Windows 2000 / XP open;
- specify the location of the ISO image with Windows 7 or 8 (in my example, I specified the image with Windows 7);

(It is important to note: those who want to write several different Windows 7 or Windows 8 to a USB flash drive, or maybe both, you need to: for now, indicate only one image and press the GO record button. Then, when one image is recorded, indicate the next image and press the GO button again and so on until all the desired images are recorded. For information on how to add another OS to a multiboot flash drive, see later in the article.)

- press the GO button (no more checkboxes are needed).

Your multiboot flash drive will be ready in about 15-30 minutes. The time depends on the speed of your USB ports, the general boot of the PC (it is advisable to disable all heavy programs: torrents, games, movies, etc.). When the USB stick has been burned, you will see the Job Done window.

How to add another Windows OS to a multiboot flash drive?

1. Insert the USB flash drive into the USB port and run the WinSetupFromUSB program.

2. Specify the desired USB flash drive (to which we have previously recorded using the same utility Windows 7 and Windows XP). If the flash drive is not the one with which the WinSetupFromUSB program previously worked, it will need to be formatted, otherwise nothing will work.

Testing a multiboot flash drive

1. To start the installation of Windows from a USB flash drive, you need:

insert a bootable flash drive into a USB port;
configure BIOS to boot from a USB flash drive (This is described in great detail in the article "" (see Chapter 2));
to restart a computer.

2. After restarting the PC, you need to press some key, for example, "arrows" or the space bar. This is necessary so that the computer does not automatically start loading the OS installed on the hard drive. The fact is that the boot menu on the flash drive will be displayed for only a few seconds, and then immediately transfer control to the installed OS.

3. This is how the main menu looks like when loading such a flash drive. In the example above, I recorded Windows 7 and Windows XP ( actually they are on this list).

USB flash drive boot menu. You can choose from 3 operating systems: Windows 2000, XP and Windows 7.

4. When you select the first item " Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 SetupThe boot menu prompts us to choose the OS to install. Next, select the item " First part of Windows XP ..."And press Enter.

If you want to create an external media that is capable of installing one of several operating systems, first of all, you need to read the instructions on how to create a bootable USB flash drive in multiboot usb.

MultiBoot USB is a versatile popular utility for creating multiboot removable media. The application is distributed free of charge.

Interface: English.

Creating a USB flash drive in multiboot usb allows you to avoid some restrictions - the user can load two identical OS versions on one external media at once.

They should only have different assemblies. Also, the number of recorded images is unlimited.

It all depends only on the amount of memory on your flash drive.

Initial stage - preparing devices and programs before installation

First of all, you need to think in advance how many images you want to install on one external storage medium.

Based on this information, calculate the approximate location and take a USB flash drive that will have enough memory.

Download and install the multiboot usb utility on your computer from the link that was indicated at the beginning of the article.

Despite the fact that the program has only an English-language interface, there is a detailed instruction on its use in Russian.

Familiarize yourself with the basic functions of the program and the elements of the toolbar before you start. This will help you avoid common mistakes.

The multiboot usb utility image includes a number of programs that are installed on bootable external media without fail:

FreeDOS command line boot utility;
Program for working with NTFS partitions;
You also need to confirm the installation of the password editor and operating system registry;
A program for installing previously deleted files and applications;
QuickTech Pro - utility allows you to quickly test the performance of hardware components of a personal computer or laptop;
A number of programs for testing RAM and the quality of PC service;
A program for checking the health of hard drives and working with their partitions.

Important!Do not delete the contents of the flash drive after the initial stage of its creation, all the above utilities are necessary for the further installation of the operating system on your PC. Removing or damaging at least one component can damage the multiboot flash drive of a software nature.

The main step is to create a bootable removable media

In the initial window of the utility, the user has a list of utilities that are needed to create a bootable USB flash drive. Follow the instructions to prepare your external media:

Turn on the first utility in the list (Figure 1). It is designed to format removable media. Check the QuickFormat checkbox to speed up the process. It is best to format for the NTFS file system.
Thanks to it, you will not have any problems installing images larger than 4 Gigabytes;

# 2. Installing the Hp Usb Disk Storage Format Tool

Now go back to the start menu (Figure 1) and run the grub4dos program. During installation, you need to specify a drive name - select the path to it. The name will not be reflected, you will only see the amount of free space on the selected hard disk.
Now click on the utility installation button;

Number 3. Grub4dos utility configuration

No. 4. Successful unpacking of the package

After installation, a new program window will appear, in which the user must specify the path to the USB flash drive and click the Extract button. This will unpack all the necessary applications that are required for the media to function properly.

No. 5. Appearance of the main application window

To start the basic stage of creating a bootable USB drive, follow the instructions:

Connect the USB flash drive to the computer and wait for it to be recognized by the system
Now run the MultiBoot USB program;
In the main window of the program, select the path to the connected USB flash drive in the Step 1 field;
In the Step 2 box, select all components. They will also be installed on bootable media;
Click on the Create button to create a multiboot USB stick.

After completing all the steps above in the instructions, the flash drive will be created, however, there will not be a single installation image of the operating system on it.

Adding new operating system images

To complete the process of creating a multiboot flash drive, you need to supplement it with images of the operating systems the user needs.

All images must be exclusively in ISO format.

To make it easier for you to navigate between files on a flash drive, create a special folder where you will move all OS images.

This way you will not confuse them with the previously unpacked utilities.

For OS Windows

To install an OS Windows image (of any version and build) on a created USB flash drive, first create a virtual drive using a program or any other similar utility.

Now go to the "My Computer" window and find the mounted disk image there. Open its contents. An example of the content is shown in the figure below:

No. 6. An example of the contents of the directory of a mounted operating system image

Now go to the utility window (Figure 1):

No. 7. Window for recording an OS image of the Windows family

In the above window, select the path to the virtual image drive. Then check the box for the OS version that matches the mounted image. And now press the GO key.

Go to the folder with the image. Its contents will change, as, for example, in the figure below:

No. 8. Contents of the OS image folder after using the WinsetupFromUsb utility

To add another Windows OS to a USB flash drive, do the same, just do not forget to check the box opposite the OS version corresponding to the image (as in Figure 7).

For Linux OS

For Linux operating systems, follow these steps:

find the menu.lst file on the USB flash drive and open it using standard notepad or the Notepad utility;
in the first line write the name of the operating system, in the second - the path to the image. Save the final file. The file system may freeze for 15-20 minutes. Wait until her work returns to normal and the image is written to the USB flash drive.
An example of the contents of a notepad file should look like this:

No. 9. An example of adding a new Linux OS image

Thus, you can add any number of images of different operating systems until the flash drive runs out of free space.

Try not to occupy all the memory on the media, then the computer will recognize it faster and load image files.

Advice! Do not start OS installation immediately after adding all images. Make sure the device is working properly. To do this, run the WinSetupFromUSB utility and select the created multiboot flash drive as a device. Check the box next to TestinQEMU and press the OK button. The process of testing the performance of the flash drive will start.

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