Ventoy is another neat Bootable USB Creation Tool that can be used to boot and run multiple ISO files from USB. Its functionality is simple. Just Format your thumb drive using the tool, then drag and drop your chosen ISO files onto your flash drive. The ISO files are directly copied over and added to the boot menu. This should result in a ready to boot USB device. Ventoy is an Open Source tool, so everyone is welcome to dig in to see how it works. It supports legacy BIOS and UEFI boot options, and also works with UEFI Secure Boot. It is important to note that your flash drive can still be used for regular storage as well.
How it works: This Multiboot USB Tool works by creating a hidden bootable partition which houses the boot menu and boot loader. While another exFAT partition is created and used for storing the ISO files. This method allows for the storage of file sizes larger than 4GB.
Project Home Page
Ventoy Windows Bootable USB Flash Drive Creation
Warning: You cannot initially run this tool from your USB device (store it somewhere on your PC). It will need to format the drive. Additionally, be aware that during install, any content currently on your selected device will be wiped clean!
1. Download Ventoy and unzip using 7-zip or similar software.
2. Then, navigate to the Ventoy folder and Click Ventoy2Disk.exe
3. (1.) Next, select your USB device from the dropdown. (2.) Click Install.
4. Next, simply Drag and Drop ISO files onto your USB drive.
Note: You can drag and drop multiple ISO files at once.
5. Reboot your PC and enter your Boot Device Menu (typically F9, F12, or ESC), and select your flash drive as the boot device.
6. From the Boot Menu, choose an ISO to launch, and enjoy!
Creating the Bootable USB from Linux
Navigate to the latest releases section on github. Note which Ventoy-x.x.xx-tar.gz version is the most recent.
1. From your Linux desktop, open a terminal Ctrl+Alt+T
2. Next, to download Ventoy, as a single line, replacing 1.0.29 with the latest version, type
wget https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/releases/download/v1.0.29/ventoy-1.0.29-linux.tar.gz
3. To extract the .tar.gz file, type
tar -zxvf ventoy*.tar.gz
4. Now change to the directory, replacing 1.0.29 with version, type
cd ventoy-1.0.29
5. To locate which /dev/sdX is your USB device, type
sudo fdisk -l
6. To Install Ventoy on your USB, replacing X with your actual flash device letter, type
./Ventoy2Disk.sh -i /dev/sdX
7. Then simply copy an ISO file to your USB flash drive.
8. Finally reboot, set your BIOS or UEFI to boot from the device. Boot to see if it works.
