Win 7 multiboot flash drive with additional programs. Download and unpack the WinSetupFromUSB program. What to do next

Hello, today I’ll tell you what a cool multiboot flash drive I have, which has saved me more than once. With the advent of large-capacity flash drives (from 8 GB), it became possible to make multiboot flash drives with a huge range of software and operating systems. Now you don’t need to carry around a bunch of disks with drivers and installers for Windows/Linux.

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

First, let me tell you what we will end up with:

  1. Ability to install Windows 7 SP1 x86-x64
  2. Ability to install Ubuntu (any version)
  3. Ability to run LiveCD
  4. Program for working with HDD – Acronis Disk Director
  5. Program for testing RAM MemTest

Preparing the flash drive for use

Now let's look at everything in more detail. First you need to download the archive with the files you will need:

Now you need to prepare your 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. Launch the program grubinst_gui.exe from the archive, select our flash drive in it and click “ Install

If after clicking the Install button you see a window like this, then everything was successful:

Let's move on. Now there is nothing on your flash drive, it is completely 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 in the root of the archive

grldr– bootloader

menu.lst– menu setup file

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

To start, add this line:

Title Turn off PC halt

At this stage, we have a bootable flash drive ready, but it can’t do anything other than turn off the computer (this is the command we added). Now let's check if the flash drive is working. To do this, you don’t need to restart your computer at all, just copy the file MobaLiveUSB_0.2.exe to the root of the flash drive and run it, click 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, “krakozyabry” are displayed on the screen instead of Russian letters

We will fix this issue 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 run the emulator again and see what your bootloader screen will look like. If everything was done correctly, you will see the following screen:

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

Adding the Windows 7 SP1 x86-x64 installer

Now let's add the Windows 7 SP1 x86-x64 installer to be able 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 “Install Windows” item has appeared.

When you select this item, Windows installation begins. Let's move on...

Adding the Ubuntu installer

I often have to use Linux, so I decided to add the Ubuntu distribution to the flash drive. Download the latest distribution from the official website. Create a folder on the flash drive /ubuntu and copy the downloaded image into it (as is, in one file).

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

Now write the following in 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 got

When you select the “Install Ubuntu” menu item, the installation of the distribution will begin

Adding LiveCD launch

A very useful thing! It happens when the system doesn’t boot, and before reinstalling you need to save the contents of your desktop, doesn’t it happen? This has happened to me, and in such moments, LiveCD will help.

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

So, I downloaded the image and put it in a folder /os, V menu.lst added the following:

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

Now I have one more point

I would like to note right away that when launched from the emulator, the version with Windows 7 will not start, but the version with Windows XP will start without problems.

Now we have two operating systems and a LiveCD. Let's add some software.

Adding programs for a bootable flash drive

1. To work with hard drives, I downloaded the image Acronis Disk Director(available on torrents). I put 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 a good tool for working with disks in my arsenal

2. To test RAM, I will use the “MemTest” program

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. Unzip 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 as with a regular disk.

We enter 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)

When loading Hiren's BootCD, you need to wait a little while the disk is loaded into RAM, after which it will start.

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

Title Reset Administrator 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 with an arrow:

5. I will add the Victoria program for diagnosing the hard drive. You can download it. I throw the image into /program I write the following in the menu:

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

In principle, you can add a bunch more things, you can only be limited by your imagination and the size of the flash drive. For me, this toolkit is quite enough.

Here is a screenshot of my bootable USB flash drive

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 Run 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 Administrator password map /program/BOOT-DSK.ISO (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) boot title Hard drive diagnostics Victoria 3.5 map /program/vcr35r.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader (hd32) boot title Shut down PC halt

If you have any questions, welcome to the discussions!

To scan your 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, I don’t yet know how to make sure that there are several images of Windows 7 on a flash drive so that we can choose during installation. (If you have several operating systems in the image for installation, in this case there will be a choice. Read and see how to make it possible to install Windows 7 from one image of Windows 7 Ultimate: Starter; Home; Professional or Ultimate). I hope to sort this out in future articles. He covered all the nuances. Let's run to create a multiboot flash drive.

Let's download the MultiBoot USB program with which we will make a multiboot flash drive.

Download conveniently from torrent

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

After downloading, it is advisable to check the checksums

The checksums have agreed, we proceed to the installation.

Run as administrator MultiBoot USB - Multiboot flash drive.exe

Click OK

The installed program starts immediately

Half the battle is done.

Download and install UltraISO

You don’t have to do this step if you already have a program for working with ISO images (for example DAEMON Tools) installed. We need a program to mount images into a virtual disk to burn Windows to a USB flash drive.

Download UltraISO from the official website and with the desired language

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

Launch the downloaded file. In the security warning window, click Launch

We are greeted by the UltraISO installation wizard. Click Next >

Click Install

Click Complete

UltraISO launches. Click Trial period...

UltraISO installed and running

Let's format and install the bootloader on the flash drive

Go down the page in the Download section and download the ISO image in the archive

In recent years, flash drives have become very popular as a device for installing operating systems. But it would be very nice to have not just one operating system on a flash drive, but several. Let's say several different Linux distributions, or even a flash drive with Windows and Linux. It's possible.

In today's article we will look at how to create a multiboot flash drive with several Linux or Windows operating systems. We will look at both special software and manual partitioning and creation of partitions for a multiboot flash drive. Automatically creating a multiboot Linux flash drive is faster and easier, but manually creating it is much more flexible and you can write, for example, Windows and Linux on one flash drive.

Multisystem is a small open source utility that allows you to create a multiboot Linux flash drive. With this utility we can write any number of distributions to a USB flash drive. All you need is an Internet connection to install the utility, as well as a flash drive with enough free space.

Multisystem installation

You can install on Ubuntu using a PPA. To do this, simply use the following commands:

sudo apt-add-repository "deb http://liveusb.info/multisystem/depot all main"
$ wget -q -O - http://liveusb.info/multisystem/depot/multisystem.asc | sudo apt-key add -
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install multisystem

If you have a different distribution, or you do not want to use a PPA, you can download the program, unpack it to any suitable location and run it with the command:

sudo ./install-depot-multisystem.sh

Creating a multiboot flash drive in Multisystem

After the installation is complete, you can begin creating a multiboot Linux flash drive. Connect your USB flash drive and launch MultiSystem from the main menu of the system or through the terminal:

When you first launch the program it will look something like this:

Select the desired USB drive and press the button Confirm. You may receive an error message like this:

This means that the selected flash drive does not have a drive label, just click OK so that the program installs it itself. After this, you will have to disconnect and connect the flash drive, then restart MultiSystem and select the flash drive again.

After that, confirm the installation of the Grub2 bootloader on it:

Now the multiboot Linux flash drive will be configured. In this window you need to select the disks that should be written to the flash drive:

This is done very simply. Just drag the desired ISO image into the program window. If this doesn't work, you can click on the CD icon and select the desired images in the file system:

Then MultiSystem will extract the files from these images onto the flash drive and make it bootable.

You can add as many distributions as you like, for example this example added CentOS and Android.

After adding images, you will see them in the program menu:

That's all. Now the multiboot flash drive with multiple Linux operating systems is ready for use. Restart your computer and set your USB flash drive as the first boot device in Bios. Then all you have to do is select the distribution you want to run.

Multisystem also has a number of additional functions:

  • Grub Settings
  • Updating Grub and Brug boot loaders
  • Installing VirtualBox
  • Formatting a USB flash drive
  • And many others

To access these options, go to the Menus tab:

You can also check what the boot menu will look like using qemu or VirtualBox:

MultiSystem is one of the best utilities for creating multiboot flash drives. But in an even more flexible way, you can create a multiboot flash drive from the terminal, which we will consider later.

Creating a multiboot flash drive manually

In fact, a multiboot flash drive with multiple Linux operating systems can be created without the help of specialized programs. To do this, a few programs are enough, perhaps already installed on your system, or available from official repositories.

Here's what we need:

  • Gparted is an excellent GUI partition editor. You can use any other one, as long as you know how to use it
  • Installed Grub2 bootloader.
  • qemu emulator to check the functionality of a flash drive

Multiboot flash drive from images

It is not at all necessary to separate a separate partition for each distribution kit on a flash drive. If you only need to write the image files themselves, without modifying them, you can simply drop them into a folder on a flash drive, and then ask Grub to boot from the desired ISO image.

Let's start by formatting the flash drive and making it bootable. It is advisable to format the flash drive in fat32. You can use a file system other than NTFS.

Open Gparted via the main menu or terminal. It is possible that the flash drive is already mounted on the system and to create a multiboot Linux flash drive, you will have to unmount it:

Delete all existing partitions and create one with vfat file system:

You can create two partitions, one for files and the other hidden for operating systems. Only do the one for files first.

Now in the context menu for the partition on which the images will be written, select Manage flags and check the box next to the item Bootable:

Now all you have to do is press the button Apply:

The operation of writing changes to disk may take some time.

Let's move on to installing the bootloader. First, mount the flash drive in the /mnt/USB folder, here /dev/sdx is your flash drive:

$ mount /dev/sdx1 /mnt/USB

mkdir /mnt/USB/iso/

Copy the required ISO files to the /mnt/USB/iso folder. Now install the Grub2 bootloader with the following command:

grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/USB/ /dev/sdx

Now all that remains is to create the bootloader configuration file. Create a file /mnt/USB/boot/grub2/grub.cfg with the command below and add the necessary items for each iso image:

The item should look like this:

menuentry "Ubuntu" (
loopback loop /iso/ubuntu-15.04-desktop-i386.iso
root=(loop)
linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/iso /ubuntu-15.04-desktop-i386.iso noeject noprompt splash root=(loop)
initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz
}

Let's look at what all these lines mean. The first line of the menuentry, with the word in the claws, is nothing more than a declaration of the item and its name. In the second line, we create a loop variable with the address of our iso image. The next line specifies the root file system, in our case this image. The last two lines must be taken from the file /boot/grub/grub.cfg from the image that needs to be loaded. The latter will, as a rule, remain unchanged; you just need to add the image address (loop) before the inird file address, and in the penultimate one we add the iso-scan/filename parameter, again with the address of our image, and the kernel parameter root=(loop).

The example shows code for Ubuntu. Create such points for each image. For example, let’s also make a point for memtest:

menuentry "Test memory" (
linux16/iso/mt86plus
}

The mt86plus executable file needs to be downloaded and placed in the iso folder.

Let's make another point for launching from a hard drive if the flash drive accidentally ended up in the slot:

menuentry "Load Hard Disk" (
set root="(hd1)"
chainloader +1
}

hd1 is our first hard drive, after the hd0 flash drive, and the chainloader command transfers control to the bootloader from this hard drive.

For Windows, the menu item will look a little different, like this:

menuentry "Windows 10" (

insmod ntfs
insmod ntldr
loopback loop /iso/windows.iso
root=(loop)
ntldr (loop)/bootmgr

Everything is the same here, only instead of the Linux kernel we load the Windows bootloader using the ntldr command.

When you finish setting up the file, save it and you can check whether everything worked out. First, unmount the flash drive:

sudo umount /dev/sdx1

Then use qemu to boot the system:

qemu-system-x86_64 -hda /dev/sdx

This is what it looks like:

You don’t have to make the menu yourself, but use the autoiso script. Go to the /mnt/USB folder, then run the following commands:

$ mkdir /mnt/boot/grub2/scripts

$ cd /mnt/boot/grub2/srcipts/

$ wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/coreos/grub/master/docs/autoiso.cfg

Create grub.cfg with the following content:

vi /mnt/USB/boot/grub2/grub.cfg

configfile /boot/grub2/scripts/autoiso.cfg

The script will detect all iso files available on the disk and create a menu from them:

You don’t have to use iso images, but allocate a separate section for each distribution. Then simply unpack the files from the iso image to this partition. Mount the image to any folder, and simply copy the files using cp:

sudo mount ~/ubuntu.iso /mnt/ISO

$ sudo cp -rp /mnt/ISO /mnt/USB1/

Next, the menu item will look a little different. You just need to indicate on which disk the desired distribution and its kernel are located. In Grub, disks are named differently than in Linux. Each disk is called hd and has a number starting from zero, partitions are named starting from one. For example, the /dev/sda1 partition will have the address (hd0,1). As a rule, the disk from which the boot was performed is considered first.

Previously, new computer programs or applications came on CDs. But recently, most computers are not equipped with drives for reading them. More popular is installing software via the Internet. But what should you do if the operating system fails or you need to reinstall a new version of it on another computer? In this case, a flash drive will help, on which the utility for automatically loading the operating system will be installed. It is possible to make a bootable USB flash drive yourself.

Why do you need a bootable USB flash drive with utilities?

For a computer to function properly, it is not enough to install an operating system on it. For correct operation of all functional units in it, correct display of information, playback of audio and video content, drivers or codecs will be required. There are universal collections of codecs for each operating system that work on computers of different configurations, power, types of processors, video cards, input/output devices, and peripheral equipment. When installing an OS from a bootable USB flash drive, you must install all these utilities.

Creating a multiboot flash drive

The solution to the problem is possible by using a flash memory device that is connected to a USB port. To install Windows and all the necessary utilities for its correct operation, you will need a 16 gigabyte (GB) flash drive. To create a multiboot flash drive for Windows XP/Windows XPE/Vista/7/Windows 7PE/8/10, a flash memory capacity of up to 32 GB is useful. A Windows 10 multiboot flash drive is created using specialized programs: Acronis Disk Director & True Image, RMPrepUSB, Bootice, WinSetupFromUSB, XBoot, FiraDisk_integrator.

What you will need

To create a recovery flash drive, you need a copy (or image) of the OS installation disk. To create it you will need the UltraISO program, administrator rights and a disk with the original OS. After downloading, installing and launching, you need to select the location of the image. The UltraISO Wizard will create an ISO image with the OS. Next, select “Burn hard disk image” and create a bootable flash drive. This multiboot flash drive will need to be filled with the necessary service programs, and a standard set of them will need to be downloaded - antiviruses, codecs, backup tools.

Program for creating a multiboot flash drive

It is difficult to create a separate MultiBoot USB Flash for each operating system. It is possible in Windows 8 to create a multiboot flash drive from the command line, but this can lead to errors. Therefore, several utilities have been created that automate these actions, which have the ability to additionally integrate several operating systems, add antivirus programs to the installer, the programs you need, and batch install this entire set onto a multiboot flash drive. Among them the most interesting are:

  • RMPrepUSB is a universal multi-booter for flash drives, launching them in MS-DOS, FreeDOS, WinPE 1, 2 or 3, BartPE, XP, Win 7, Win 8.x, Win 10, Linux. Works with different file systems - FAT16, FAT32, NFTS. Facilitates checking flash memory, formatting hard and flash drives, creating backup images of a bootable flash drive, and has many auxiliary functions in interactive mode.
  • Bootice is a useful program for reinstalling the OS on computers without an optical drive; it has the functions of formatting and splitting the amount of flash memory into several partitions, changing the way the system boots, and you can rename the bootloader.
  • WinSetupFromUSB is a free software product for creating bootable Flash USB for Windows and Linux systems with a simple graphical interface. It has the functions of formatting and marking flash memory, copying installation files from distributions, and final testing of the created bootloader.
  • XBoot is a free program for transferring images of operating systems, codecs, and programs to a flash drive. Its advantages are the ability to create a boot disk simultaneously for Windows and Linux OS, and choose the type of boot loader ISO Emulation or Grub4DOS. The downside is the menu is in English.
  • YUMI – Multiboot USB Creator – a small utility for creating a bootable USB flash, has a simple English interface with descriptions of distributions and recommendations for different computer configurations, offers links for downloading antiviruses, codecs, and drivers.
  • FiraDisk_integrator is a multifunctional boot loader, has the ability to integrate all versions of Windows of different assemblies, there is a choice of localization of installed software according to the interface language, simple creation of an image from all distribution sources loaded into the SSD folder.

How to make a flash drive multiboot with MultiBoot USB - step-by-step instructions

When installing a multiboot program, some antiviruses may block this action. It is worth disabling them temporarily or adding this program to exceptions. To create an emergency flash drive, you must complete the following steps:

  1. Formatting a USB drive for the bootloader format.
  2. Installing the bootloader.
  3. Adding operating system images (files with the .iso extension).
  4. Copying files.
  5. Testing the resulting tool.

Formatting a USB drive

Preparing a multiboot flash drive to turn it into a bootable tool starts with formatting it. Move all the information you need from its memory to other media - formatting will completely clear it. To format, you need to do the following:

  1. Launch HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool.
  2. Select your drive from the list.
  3. Specify File system – NTFS if files larger than 4 GB will be installed. FAT32 markup must be left if you intend to work with computers based on BIOS UEFI.
  4. In Format Options, you should check Quick Format - quick formatting.
  5. Click Start.

Installing the bootloader

Above are several options for utilities that will download all OS distributions and service files. To use them you need:

  1. Copy the installation module of your chosen bootloader to a formatted USB drive.
  2. Then run this installer.
  3. Choose a name for your flash drive.
  4. Click Install.

After successful installation of the program, a message will appear on the screen confirming the installation of the boot utility on the computer. A message will be displayed on the screen asking you to start it. If up to this point you have created a database with all the necessary distributions and programs on your hard drive, you can check the Start program box and click the Finish button.

Adding operating system images

To add images of different operating systems to a multiboot flash drive, you need to prepare them in the root folder on your computer’s hard drive. This will be several files with an iso extension. Using a bootloader like WinSetupFromUSB, you can make a multiboot flash drive for Windows XP, 7, 8, 10 and Linux. To do this you need:

  1. Select the name of the flash drive from the list.
  2. Check the boxes next to the required operating systems in the list, for example – Windows 2000/Xp/2003 Setup.
  3. Specify the location of the mounted images.
  4. Click Go.

Copying utilities and files

After transferring operating system images, you should copy the installation files of all the utilities and programs from our list necessary for the system to work on a flash drive. To do this, in the WinSetupFromUSB program:

  1. Uncheck the Auto format it with FBinst checkbox.
  2. Select the item Linux ISO/Other Grub4dos compatible ISO by clicking the button on the right.
  3. In Explorer we find the folder with program images, select all the programs in turn and click “Open”.
  4. We make sure that they are named correctly in the Boot menu name.
  5. Click Go and see the process of adding the selected utility to the bootable flash drive.

To create a recovery-reanimation multiboot flash drive, the following basic utilities can be included in the installation package, which can always be changed, removed or replaced with new versions:

  • Windows distributions versions 8.1, 10 and XP;
  • Paragon Hard Disk Manager – disk space allocation manager ;
  • AOMEI Backupper Standard – free backup;
  • K-Lite Codec Pack – universal codec package;
  • Kaspersky Rescue 10 – Kaspersky antivirus;
  • DrWeb LiveCD – Doctor Web antivirus;
  • 7-Zip – archiver of files and folders;
  • Recuva – file recovery utility;
  • RegeditPE – registry editing utility;
  • Symantec Ghost v11.0 – for archiving and restoring personal computer data;
  • Elcomsoft System Recovery Pro v3.0 Build 466 – the purpose of the utility is to restore user access to Windows accounts and Microsoft applications;
  • Universal Boot Disk v3.7 – servicing NTFS drives in MS-DOS;
  • NT Password & Registry Editor – change the password and the ability to edit the Windows XP registry;
  • Active@ Boot Disk Professional v2.1 – will help you recover and edit deleted files;
  • QuickTech Pro v5.8 – setup, diagnostics of the computer and its components;
  • MemTest86+ v4.20 – testing RAM;
  • MHDD v4.6 – checking hard drives;
  • Victoria v3.52 – IDE and Serial HDD maintenance;
  • HDD Regenerator v2011 – eliminating physical damage to hard drives;
  • Reanimator – fast liveCD for data recovery and work environment repair;
  • Alkid LiveUSB – universal system recovery utility;
  • Acronis Disk Director & True Image – check hard drives;
  • Elcomsoft System Recovery – viewing, changing, deleting passwords for accounts in Windows OS of all editions;
  • Daemon Tools is a popular virtual CD-ROM;
  • DOS-Navigator – console file manager for OS/2 and DOS;
  • Alcohol 120% is a program for copying and virtualizing disks.

Testing

After creating a multiboot flash drive, you need to check its functionality. To do this, in WinSetupFromUSB you can use the Test in QEMU utility. To do this, do the following:

  • check the box next to Test in QEMU;
  • press GO;
  • the program itself will check the presence of all elements and finally display a list on the computer screen under the heading “Set of boot images and utilities for working with hard drive partitions”;
  • Below is a list of all operating systems, programs and utilities;
  • If some utilities are not installed, you must repeat the installation process.

Burning a bootable USB flash drive using the RMPrepUSB program

The first step is to run RMPrepUSB. Then you need to go to the dialog box, check in the top window whether the multiboot flash drive is defined. Then we do the following steps:

  1. Size – enter MAX.
  2. Volume label – the name of the flash drive in the OS.
  3. On the right, check “No questions asked.”
  4. In the “Boot sector” section, select WinPEv2/WinPEv3/Vista/Win7 bootable (CC4).
  5. File system and options – NTFS.
  6. To the right you need to select the option Boot as HDD (C: 2PTNS).
  7. Check the “Copy system files from the following folder...” checkbox.
  8. An explorer will open in “Browse”, in which you need to select the Easy2Boot archive and click OK.
  9. If you click “Prepare disk”, formatting of the flash drive starts, which must be prepared for this.
  10. Click “Install Grub4DOS”.
  11. We answer “No” to the MBR request.
  12. In the GRLDR ALREADY EXISTS window, press the OK button.
  13. After that, we manually transfer the boot programs to the USB flash drive into the MAIN MENU and UTILITIES Menu folders.
  14. To complete the creation, open the menu item Drive->Make All Files on Drive Contiguous.
  15. By launching the RMPrepUSB emulator and pressing the F11 key, you can check its functionality.

If you copied all your OS distributions to the MAINMENU folder on a flash drive, then they will be reflected directly in this menu. The UTILITIES Menu item will display service utilities and computer maintenance programs. This completes the process of creating a multiboot flash drive using this program. To select the OS and programs to install, you need to navigate through the menu and select the utilities needed for installation.

Multi-flash drive in Bootice - creation procedure

It is known that Bootice is a utility for creating a multiboot flash memory card. You can download Bootice from the official website of the developer. The utility must be unpacked, and after launching the program:

  1. In the Destination Disk item, select the flash drive that must first be prepared.
  2. You should click Process MBR (master boot record).
  3. Select GRUB4DOS 0.4.5c/0.4.6a (grldr.mbr).
  4. Click Install/Config.
  5. Click Save to disk to write all the information to the flash drive.
  6. For Linux systems, SUSLINUX 4.06/5.01 (FAT/FAT32/NTFS) should be installed.
  7. Click Install/Config.
  8. Select SYSLINUX 5.01.
  9. Click confirmation - OK.
  10. After completing these steps, the multiboot flash drive will be ready.

Creating a bootable USB flash drive with multiple operating systems in WinSetupFromUsb

After launching the WinSetupFromUSB utility, the SFX archive will be unpacked, the program will start and a menu will open, at the top of which we find our flash drive in the drop-down list. Your steps will be:

  1. Format the media – check Auto format it with FBinst, then – NTFS.
  2. Check the box for Linux ISO/Other Grub4dos compatible ISO.
  3. Press the GO button.
  4. The flash drive is being formatted.
  5. In the next step, we sequentially select items from the Add to USB disk list and press the GO button - the OS distribution kits are transferred to a multiboot flash drive.

To randomly select downloadable programs, select Linux ISO/Other Grub4dos compatible ISO and click on the button with the image of three dots on the right, an explorer opens in which we select the utilities and programs we need. Then we add all the ISO images in exactly the same way. The Test in QEMU item will help you check the recorded images. To control, we boot from this multiboot flash drive and check its boot menu.

Utility for creating a multiboot USB drive Xboot

The Xboot interface is simple - to create a multi-boot device for installing and restoring the OS, you need to do the following:

  1. To add images, you need to drag iso files into the program window. At the same time, in a green window with the question “How to perceive this image?” when adding Windows images, you must specify Add using Grub4dos ISO image Emulation.
  2. If you are installing a Unix system, then use Utility-Ubuntu.
  3. In addition to OS images, you can add utility images. The program has links, to access which click File->Download. Select utilities and download.
  4. After clicking Create ISO, the program will ask for the path to save the image file and offer to check it in the virtual machine.

FiraDisk_integrator script for resuscitation flash drive with multiple OS

To start creating a multiboot flash drive using the FiraDisk_integrator utility:

Video

Program name: kit for creating a multiboot flash drive
Program version: 2.0 (04.2016)
Release Date: April 2016
Author of the assembly: OVGorskiy®
Interface language: Russian (Russia)

To create a multiboot flash drive you will need:
- this package for creating a multiboot flash drive;
- a flash drive with a size of at least 4 GB (the required size depends on your needs);
- iso images of the Windows operating system vista/7/8/8.1/10... (how many and which ones depend on your needs);
- a computer with a recommended RAM size of 1 GB or more;
- display device with a resolution of 800x600 or more.

This collection for creating a multiboot flash drive is designed for “yourself” with the goal of creating a flash drive with which you can check and, if you need to correct errors in the operating system and computer equipment, install from it different OS editions and bit depths, and all this, having the ability to easily and just place OS images on a flash drive and, if you need to replace and update them, delete and add them. The collection is intended for loading from BIOS. On computers with UEFI, it is suggested to disable this mode or boot in BIOS compatibility mode.

This package contains
- a set of utilities for preparing a bootable flash drive;
- a set of files for copying to a flash drive;
- a set of additional programs and utilities.
Note: you can place as many OS images on a flash drive as its capacity allows. You can download operating system images yourself from this resource or from any other available resources.

List of programs and utilities that will be integrated onto the flash drive
- Active Boot Disk Suite 9.1.0 Ru - a huge package of utilities for working with the OS and computer;
- AntiWinBlock 3.1 FINAL Win8.1PE Upd 03.2016 - a software package designed to treat an infected Windows system from all kinds of viruses. It will help in system recovery for both beginners and advanced users. The disk contains the best anti-virus programs: AntiSMS, AntlWInLocker, uVS, Dr.Web, ResetWindowsPassword, TotalCommander....
- Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 Pro 10.1.25.813 ru - a well-known set of utilities for working with hard drives;
- Acronis Media 2016 (Acronis True Image 2016 and Disk Director 12.3270) - a new set of utilities for working with hard drives;
- Win7 Live CD x86-x64 by Xemom1 - mini OS launched from a Win7-based flash drive;
- Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 Upd 03.2016 - Kaspersky anti-virus to scan the OS for viruses;
- AntiSMS 8.3 PE4 - unlocking the OS after infection with Trojans, blockers, etc.;
- AntiWinLocker LiveCD 4.1.5 WinPE4 - unlocking the OS after infection with Trojans, blockers, etc.;
- Reset Windows Password 5.1.5.567 - reset user passwords for those who forget;
- Active Password Changer 6.0 DOS program will help you quickly and easily reset your Windows password!
- HWINFO-AIDA - obtaining complete information about the PC (DOS);
- Victoria 3.52 - the best utility for working with a hard drive (DOS);
- Memtest86+ 5.01 - the best utility for testing RAM (DOS);
- GoldMemory 7.85 - utility for checking RAM (DOS);
- MHDD 4.6 - HDD testing and recovery (DOS);
- Volkov Commander (NTFS+) - file manager for DOS;
- FixNTLDR - Windows bootloader recovery (NTLDR is missing Press...);
- Kon-Boot 2.1 Commercial - a utility for bypassing a password when logging in (for specialists!);

Note: if you are not satisfied with the set of programs and OS, as well as the design of the menu, you can painlessly replace everything with your own, of course, having a little skill in this.

Description of the process of creating a bootable USB flash drive
Introduction. I think we all have several favorite CD/DVDs with operating systems, programs, utilities for restoring and checking the OS and hardware, etc., which we constantly carry with us - just in case. But CD/DVD is a bulky and unreliable medium. If you're tired of carrying around a bunch of CDs/DVDs, I suggest recording it all on a flash drive. And why not make them a bootable USB flash drive with distribution kits of the necessary OS? This can be very useful when installing/reinstalling operating systems on netbooks that do not have optical drives. It can also speed up the installation process and make it much quieter and easier on a computer that has a drive. A little theory. Initially, the majority of flash drives do not have the ability to boot from it, and the computer BIOS does not even have such a function. You won’t find it in the BootMenu, there are a lot there, usb-floppy, and usb-cd, and usb-hdd, but there is no pure flash drive. We need to trick the computer and present our flash drive as a supported device. Usually they take the boot area of ​​a USB HDD as a basis, i.e. We imagine a flash drive as a bootable hard drive. How to do this? Let's use specialized utilities for this. So, let's use a simple and intuitive method that works on most flash drives.....
Warning: all data on the flash drive will be deleted, take care to save the necessary data from it on another medium!
Instructions. Part 1.
- Unpack the archive of this assembly onto your hard drive.
- Insert the flash drive.
- Open the “Tools” folder.
- Run HP USB Disk.EXE to format the flash drive (see Fig. 1).
- Using the BOOTICE program, install the bootloader (see Fig. 2, 3, 4).

After this procedure, a bootable USB flash drive will be created; now we need to place the files we need on it. Open the “Files_for_flash” folder, select all the files and copy them to the root of the flash drive. To check that everything was done correctly, you need to run the "Moba LiveUSB 0.2" program from the flash drive. This is a miniature virtual machine emulator designed specifically for testing bootable flash drives. After startup, a boot menu should appear with operating commands for launching programs. True, not all programs run under the emulator, but you can evaluate the performance of the menu. You can and should also check the flash drive during actual booting from it by rebooting the computer. Now the flash drive is ready for use as a recovery and test drive.

Differences from previous versions
- support for integration onto a WinXP OS flash drive has been discontinued;
- almost all programs and utilities for the flash drive have been updated;
- the method of integrating the OS onto a flash drive has been changed;
- The boot menu interface has been completely changed;
- now you can integrate as many OS images onto a flash drive as will fit on it, without combining them into one image in advance.

Additional material on flash drive
FiraDisk_integrator - a utility for integrating FiraDisk into OS images;
GFX-Boot Customizer - a program for creating your own boot menus;
Moba_LiveUSB_0.2, MobaLiveCD_v2.1 - virtual machine emulators for testing the boot menu;
WContig is a program for defragmenting files on a flash drive.

Brief description of programs
Multifunctional multiboot flash drive.
Editorial team OVGorskiy.

Active Boot Disk Suite 9.1.0 En
Active Boot Disk Suite is a real operating system on a CD/DVD/USB drive. To load this rescue disk, which contains many tools for working with disks, you just need to burn the image to a disk or USB flash drive and restart your computer. The Active@ Boot Disk distribution includes tools for data recovery, resetting Windows passwords, creating system backups, securely deleting information, etc. Active@ Boot Disk Suite allows you to create images in Windows (based on Windows 7) and DOS shells, you can also use the Boot Disk Builder to add additional files to the image. After which the program will write the created image directly to a disk, USB flash drive, or create an ISO file of a boot disk image.

AntiWinBlock 3.1 FINAL Win8.1PE Upd 03.2016 - a software package designed to treat an infected Windows system from all kinds of viruses. It will help in system recovery for both beginners and advanced users. The disk contains the best anti-virus programs: AntiSMS, AntlWInLocker, uVS, Dr.Web, ResetWindowsPassword, TotalCommander....

Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 Pro 10.1.25.813 ru - Everything you need for professional hard drive maintenance! Unique protection and recovery tools for physical and virtual machines. The best partitioning technologies on the market for hard drives, solid-state SSDs and USB drives. Supports all types of migration scenarios for physical and virtual environments. Agentless protection for MS Hyper-V guest machines. Full support for Windows 10!
Why not have the best? Hard Disk Manager 15 Professional contains everything you need to manage your data and storage devices like a pro. Never before have home users had such powerful tools at their disposal: comprehensive data exclusion filters to optimize backup and recovery operations, the fastest and most secure storage device partitioning technologies on the market, and agentless protection for Hyper-V guest machines.

Acronis Media 2016 (Acronis True Image 2016 and Disk Director 12.3270)
Acronis Rescue Media Full - A universal boot disk containing a software package for full backup, allowing you to create accurate images of the hard drive and its individual partitions, manage partitions - create, move, merge, divide. There are two versions of the disc in the distribution: Russian and British. The disks are complete collections of the most popular Acronis utilities. The "native" boot menu is used.

Win7 Live CD x86&x64 by Xemom1
Win7Live by Xemom1 is a special edition of Win7Live, with a classic interface and support for network and SCSI/SATA devices. There is no multimedia support. The kernel has built-in ERD-Commander 6.5 for restoring crashed Windows 7, and there is also a standard W7 recovery function. It is possible to install 7 in the classic way (from a CD or from the SOURCES folder on any disk), i.e., W7PE can completely replace the PE installer for 7. You can also install any version of Windows from 2000 to 2008 from any media/folder using the WinNtsetup2 program.

Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 with updated databases for March 2016.
Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 is a special program designed to scan and disinfect infected x86 and x64-compatible computers. The program is used when the level of infection is such that it is not possible to cure the computer using anti-virus programs or treatment utilities (for example, Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool) running under the operating system. At the same time, the effectiveness of treatment is increased due to the fact that malware located in the system does not receive control while the operating system is loading. In emergency recovery mode, only the tasks of scanning objects and updating databases are available, as well as rolling back updates and viewing statistics.

AntiSMS 8.3 PE4
The AntiSMS boot disk is designed to automatically treat ransomware, blockers and Trojan.Winlock, which block the Windows OS, requiring the user to send an SMS to unlock the system. Allows even inexperienced users to unlock Windows if the system is infected with blockers (ransomware, advertising and porn banners) or Trojan.Winlock trojans. When you start your computer from a boot disk, the AntiSMS program automatically performs all the necessary actions to disinfect the infected system. The Windows Registry Editor is available in manual mode.

AntiWinLocker LiveCD 4.1.5 WinPE4
AntiWinLocker LiveCD are designed to unlock and treat an already infected (locked) Windows OS, in case of infection with Winlocker (Trojan.Winlock ransomware Trojan), which is a banner that blocks the operation of the system: launching the task manager, registry editor, as well as loading Windows in safe mode and after that the attackers extort money, for example, demanding that an SMS message be sent to a paid number to unlock the Windows OS.

Reset Windows Password 5.1.5.567
Reset Windows Password is the best professional program to reset, change or recover passwords for all types of Windows accounts. The utility supports all versions of Windows, works with local and domain accounts, almost instantly recovers passwords for accounts, in addition, there is a Russian interface and Russian-language technical support. support. Reset Windows Password is necessary if you lose your Administrator password; if you forget your Windows login password, you cannot activate your account. The program is loaded from a bootable CD or USB drive. The application interface is designed in the form of a wizard. Therefore, the operation process does not seem complicated even to an inexperienced user. Unlike other similar utilities, Reset Windows Password is the ONLY program that works CORRECTLY with all types of Windows accounts.

Active Password Changer 6.0 DOS program will help you quickly and easily reset your Windows password!

ASTRA 5.52
ASTRA - Advanced Sysinfo Tool 5.52 A program for analyzing computer configuration. It is very undemanding of resources and works even on very old computers, including those that cannot even dream of using Windows

Victoria 3.52
Victoria is a program for testing, diagnosing and minor repairs of hard drives with IDE or SATA interfaces. The program is free and is intended mainly for employees of specialized service centers. At the same time, Victoria is very popular among a wide range of computer users, since it allows you to: identify faulty areas of the hard drive surface at home; determine the average access time; control the noise level; delete information from the hard drive without the possibility of recovery; set User and Master passwords.

Memtest86+ 5.01
Key update to Memtest86+, a reliable RAM test. The first beta version introduced support for all modern platforms and introduced a number of major internal changes, including support for multi-threading, increased speed of fault detection, and display of processor temperature.

GoldMemory 7.85
The program is a comprehensive test for checking RAM for errors. Supports virtually any type of module, as well as any PC-compatible platform in various configurations. Allows you to scan all available modules and determine the presence of errors, which, as a rule, affect the instability of the system as a whole. The utility is designed to work in DOS-compatible operating systems; it has a number of command parameters for batch work and functions for creating reports based on testing results.

MHDD 4.6
MHDD is a software package for accurate diagnostics and minor repairs of drives (HDD). Allows you to work with drives at a low level, directly through the IDE controller ports. Performs very fast and accurate diagnostics of the entire surface of the drive (unlike programs such as NDD, ScanDisk, which address only logical partitions), regardless of the data located on the drive being diagnosed. Allows you to get rid of the so-called “soft”-bad sectors as quickly as possible.

Volkov Commander (NTFS+)
The famous shell for DOS. VC allows you to mark, copy, move, and delete directories with all subdirectories in the same way as regular files. When copying, you can split and merge files. The functionality is extremely rich.

FixNTLDR
The Fix NTLDR is missing utility restores the Windows bootloader, correcting the situation when, when the computer boots, the message "NTLDR is missing Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart...

Kon-Boot 2.1 Commercial
Kon-Boot is an application program that modifies the contents of the Windows kernel on the fly/during boot, bypassing the Windows authorization system and allowing you to log into a password-protected account without entering a password. Your favorite password is not overwritten, and when Windows is rebooted, the original contents of its kernel and authorization procedure are restored.