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Boot Multiple ISO from USB (MultiBoot USB)

How to Boot Multiple ISO from USB and create a Multiboot USB. This is a followup of our previous tutorial Boot ISO from USB. We had many requests come in asking How to Boot various ISO files from USB and I thought we should provide a few more examples. Please note that you will need a large USB device to be able to support every bootable ISO in the menu. I will  update and add more bootable ISO files to the list as I find the time to test them. You can also contact us to submit working Bootable ISO entries for inclusion.

MultiBoot USB Menu (You simply select an ISO to boot from USB)

Syslinux loads GRUB4DOS and the following Boot menu is presented.

MultiBoot Grub Menu - Available ISOs to Boot from USB

Basic Essentials to create a Multi ISO Boot USB Flash Drive

  • "Fat32 Formatted" 512MB-8GB USB Flash Drive (depending on how many ISO's you use)
  • PC that can boot from USB
  • Windows XP/Vista/7 host to create the Bootable USB
  • MultiBootISOs.exe
  • Your select ISO Files

This MultiBoot process will currently enable you to Boot the following:

Official Distribution Sites and corresponding download links are listed.

How to Boot Multiple ISO Files from USB

  1. Download and run MultiBootISOs.exe following the onscreen instructions
  2. Download some ISO Files (listed above) and place them on your Flash Drive
  3. Restart your PC setting it to boot from the USB device
  4. Select the ISO you want to Boot from the Menu and enjoy!

That's all there is to it. You should now be booting your favorite ISO files from your Multi-Boot USB device!

Additional Notes: You can boot Ubuntu and remixes with persistence by using our Casper-RW Creator script to create a Casper-RW file on your USB device. One Distro can use casper persistence only!

If you don't have a floppy drive and get fd0 errors while booting, simply add floppy.allowed_drive_mask=0 to the kernel line for that menu entry.

To make Ophcrack load tables when booted in this fashion, the Tables folder needs to exist at the root of the USB device. We have created a tool that can do this for you.

  • Download and run Table Extractor For Ophcrack and follow the onscreen instructions

Boot Errors: While trying to run an ISO from USB, If you get a Boot error saying:

Error 60: File for drive emulation must be in one contiguous disk area

You'll need to defragment your ISO using one of the following tools:

contig -  Command line tool to defragment ISO files.

wincontig – GUI tool to defragment ISO files.

For information on how to try other ISO's, see the "CDROM emulation (virtualization) section" in the official GRUB4DOS Readme file. Additionally, Here is another good third party guide that explains how things work.

If you successfully boot from an ISO that isn't listed yet, let us know and I will add it to the list.

Please don't contact us asking how to boot X distribution. If the item isn't listed, I have not had the chance to try it.

Latest Changelog:

v0.9 Changelog View menu.lst
- Added Puppy Linux 4.3.1 to the boot menu

Posted under: Flash drive installs using Windows

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