Qemu for checking bootable flash drives. How to check a boot image on a flash drive or disk. Adding LiveCD launch

MobaLiveCD - free program for check bootable flash drives and bootable CD/DVD disks. The MobaLiveCD program allows you to test for bootability boot disk(flash drive, disk image) with operating system, boot LiveCD, LiveDVD, or LiveUSB, or boot image V ISO format.

Many inexperienced users experience difficulties when checking bootable media, because to do this you need to enter the BIOS, and then correctly set the computer boot priority.

How to check a bootable USB flash drive without restarting the computer? There are ways to check the functionality of a flash drive (bootloader operation, boot menu), without entering the BIOS and without using virtual machine. Moreover, there is practically no chance to check the bootable USB flash drive on a virtual machine.

Free MobaLiveCD - a simple verification tool bootable media, the application emulates booting (works based on the QEMU emulator), thanks to which the user can check the ability to boot a flash drive or disk image.

Many users download images from the Internet, various assemblies from unknown sources. MobaLiveCD will help check the operation of the bootloader so that the user can be confident that in the event of an emergency, the boot disk will do its job: boot onto the computer to perform the necessary actions.

You can download the MobaLiveCD program from the official website of the developer - Mobatek.

download mobalivecd

The MobaLiveCD program does not require installation on your computer; to launch the application, click on the executable file.

How to use MobaLiveCD

After launch, the main window of the MobaLiveCD program will open. The MobaLiveCD program works in English, but everything is very clear there.

Main features of the MobaLiveCD program:

“Install MobaLiveCD’s right-clic association” - “Install MobaLiveCD’s in context menu»

This option allows you to launch MobaLiveCD from the context menu of ISO files. It is not necessary to use this option.

“Start directly CD-ROM ISO image file” - “Run ISO image»

This option allows you to select any ISO file on your hard drive and run it like a CD-ROM drive.

"Start directly from a bootable USB drive" - "Launch bootable USB drive"

This option allows you to select a bootable USB drive (for example, with a Grub4dos or Syslinux bootloader) and run it.

Using MobaLiveCD is very simple: connect a bootable USB flash drive to your computer, and then run the MobaLiveCD program as administrator. To do this, right-click on the MobaLiveCD.exe file and select “Run as administrator” in the context menu.

Hotkeys in MobaLiveCD

When working in MobaLiveCD, use the following hotkeys:

Ctrl + Alt - return to the environment (operating system)
Ctrl + Alt + F - switch to full screen mode
Ctrl + Alt + F - exit full screen mode

Loading an ISO image into MobaLiveCD

There is a boot disk for the program on my computer Acronis True Image with Windows PE as an ISO file. I need to check the ability to download this image. See how you can check this in MobaLiveCD.

In the MobaLiveCD program window, click on the “Run the LiveCD” button. Next, select the location of the image on your computer, select it, and then click on the “Open” button.

In the window with a proposal to create a virtual hard drive for your virtual machine, click on the “No” button. File to be created MobaLiveCD HardDisk is not needed.

There is no point in creating and installing anything, since the program allocates only 256 MB of memory. It will not cope with modern operating systems due to lack of memory.

We have made sure that the disk image is loaded, now you can close the “QEMU” window.

Checking a bootable USB flash drive in MobaLiveCD

Let's check the bootable USB flash drive to see if it can be launched on the computer. To check, I chose boot Windows flash drive 7 PE from Ratiborus.

In the MobaLiveCD window, click on the “Start directly from a bootable USB drive” button.

In the next window you need to select the drive letter of the flash drive. Select the letter of the flash drive, click on the “OK” button.

Then don't create the virtual hard disk.

After Windows selection 7 PE, the system will boot for a while and then open Windows window 7 P.E.

That's it, we made sure that bootable flash drive works.

Users having difficulty with English language, can download the program in Russian from the link mobalivecd 2.1 rus.

Conclusions of the article

The free program MobaLiveCD is a simple tool for checking bootable flash drives and bootable images in ISO format for functionality when booted on a computer. The application checks without entering the BIOS or rebooting the computer.

In the simplest case, to check bootable media created independently or downloaded from any source, a real boot is required. In case of using an image .iso you will need to burn a CD/DVD with boot image data, again followed by loading, which is not always convenient and can require a significant amount of time, especially in cases where not only testing is performed, but also changing the contents of the bootable media (flash drive). The cycle of creating bootable media, then booting using it, evaluating the results and loading into the main OS to make changes and improvements can be repeated many times, which leads to inefficient expenditure of time and effort. Therefore, when creating bootable flash drives, it makes sense to use virtualization tools that allow you to boot in a virtual machine environment ( VM), almost the same as in a real environment.

The process of checking bootable media can be roughly divided into stages:

1. Prepare a bootable image or physical disk.

2. Perform boot using prepared media in a virtual machine environment.

3. Evaluate the download results, correct defects, and, if necessary, return to point 1.

Today there are a large number of software products virtualization, both paid and free, allowing you to perform bootstrap from images or using physical media. Boot technology in a virtual machine environment can be implemented, for example, based on any of the most popular virtualization software products - free Oracle VM Virtual Box or paid VMWare Workstation . However, the use similar programs not always convenient when solving the specific task of testing bootable flash drives or other boot tools, since it requires creating a new virtual machine or modifying an existing one, as well as actions to ensure selection desired device boot in virtual BIOS or VM settings. As a result, the use of such software does not greatly simplify the work and speed up getting results. And this is where it comes to the rescue Qemu- a free program with open source source code for emulation hardware various platforms, including emulation Intel processors x86 and standard devices I/O Virtual machine created Qemu practically no different from real computers and has its own virtual BIOS, boot devices, memory, disks, etc. In a VM environment, the system boots up in the same way as on real computer, and with the ability to use boot images instead of real boot devices.

Feature Qemu is advanced technology command line management, allowing flexible and efficient virtualization management. However, the presence of dozens if not hundreds of command line parameters made it quite difficult to use Qemu ordinary users, which led to the emergence of add-on programs designed for the use of virtual machines with specific properties, including - B.M. for testing bootable media. Below are two software products based on Qemu, the most common boot testing tools are MobaLiveCD from Mobatek and QemuBootTester, created by unknown Chinese programmers. The first is characterized by maximum ease of use, and the second by maximum capabilities for working with bootable media.

MobaLiveCD is the simplest and most convenient tool for testing bootable flash drives and ISO images.

Mobalivecd- free software open source for testing boot disks using virtualization technology from the company Mobatek.

The program simplifies and speeds up the entire process of creating, testing and configuring bootable media, which can be used as images .iso And removable USB drives(flash drives).

MobaLiveCD provides the user with the opportunity to perform all the necessary work on testing bootable media in a virtual machine environment Qemu, without affecting the operation of the main OS in any way and without the use of any additional software products, drivers, libraries, etc. In most cases, you don't even need to have administrative privileges for current Windows user. And, in addition, the program does not require installation on the system, is small in size, and can be used as a portable application, including in the environment of system recovery and diagnostic tools on Windows based PE ( ERD Commander, MS Diagnostic and Recovery Toolset, etc.).

You can download the MobaliveCD program from the Mobatek labs page.

There is also a Russian-language version of the program

The program interface is very simple - all actions are performed using three main buttons of the main window:

Right-click menu- creating a context menu item called with the right mouse button in relation to .iso files for direct loading of the ISO image.

Run the LiveUSB- loading using physical media, which can be a flash drive, portable USB drive, memory cards, etc.

Overall the program MobaLiveCD is not a tool with unique opportunities among virtualization software for testing bootable media, its main advantage is ease of use. In order to test a bootable flash drive, it is enough to have the original image of the bootable system or a bootable physical media and be able to press the right button.

When booting, either from an image or from a USB device, the program asks for permission to create a virtual hard disk - Do you want to create a hard disk image for your virtual machine ? . Such a disk may be required in cases where the loading and performance of installation products that check the presence of at least one hard drive in the system are tested. To check functionality bootable flash drive, as a rule, such a disk is not needed, and the request can be answered with “No”.

To switch input to the virtual machine, just click the mouse within the boundaries of its window; to release it, use the CTRL+ALT key combination. Switching the VM to full-screen mode and exiting it is performed using the key combination CTRL+ALT+F.

QemuBootTester is the most comprehensive boot option testing tool.

QemuBootTester, Unlike MobaLiveCD Allows you to test virtually the full range of boot options, including network boot, boot with kernel parameters on Linux, boot to BIOS modes or UEFI, as well as booting from a variety of different images disk devices.

When launched, the program unpacks its data into a folder ”%TEMP%\QemuBootTester”(by default - "C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp\QemuBootTester"). When the user selects a download option and clicks the button Run Qemu the modified one is being launched executable file Qemu- myqemu.exe with parameters corresponding to the selected option. The bottom of the window displays command line myqemu, executed when the virtual machine starts.

To test bootable USB flash drives, use the mode Hard Disk . This mode allows you to download from any disk media existing in the system.

To select the BIOS/UEFI boot option, use the switch Boot Mode . The default mode is

Unlike MobaLiveCD, this program works not only with images in the format ISO-9660, but also with images of floppy disks, CD/DVD, images HDD miscellaneous format (.img, .ima), as well as with virtual disks the most common virtualization programs (.vhd, .vdi, vmdk)

Any bootable USB flash drive can be easily checked with just a couple of mouse clicks using the absolutely free portable program MobaLiveCD.

Bootable flash drive checker - MobaLiveCD

Previously, in order to check the bootable USB flash drive, when restarting the computer, you had to go into the BIOS, indicate there the disk from which it needs to start (set the startup priority), save the changes and restart again. Then, after checking, go through this entire procedure again to “roll back” the changes. What if there are several such flash drives?

The small program MobaLiveCD (which even no need to install on the system) - it will instantly check a bootable USB flash drive (or CD) without restarting the system and with just a couple of mouse clicks.

How to check a bootable USB flash drive

So, especially for this article, I created a flash drive with an operating system Windows system and launched MobaLiveCD (required as administrator)…

If you download this checker from her official website, then you will have it completely in English...

On the Internet I found a Russian-language version of the program (link to it at the end of the article)…

Here, to check our drive, we need to click the “Launch LiveUSB” button...

...specify boot drive...

...and refusing to create a hard drive image...

...make sure everything is fine with the bootable USB flash drive...

Start of the process Windows installations displayed in the virtual machine window. The verification program allocates only 256 MB of memory, therefore, after making sure of the fact proper operation bootable flash drive - interrupt the process by closing the window with a cross in the upper right.

Now, if your friends ask you to “throw off” Windows image on a flash drive, you can quickly check the result and absolutely calmly and sincerely hand them the finished boot drive.

Download MobaLiveCD (RUS)

I uploaded the Russian version of the program to Google Drive for public access...

Archive size s portable program only 1.4 MB. There are no viruses.

This is how, without dancing with tambourines, you can easily and quickly check your bootable flash drive for new useful and interesting computer programs.

Sometimes there is a need to check some media ( optical disk, flash drive) to see if it is possible to boot from it. Especially for those who do not want to restart their computer for this purpose, there is the MobaLiveCD program. You can download it by clicking on the button " Get MobaLiveCD now!".

The program does not require any installation and runs directly from the downloaded exe file.

You must run the program with administrator rights, otherwise it will not work!

The program interface is quite simple - the main menu has several buttons, equipped with brief comments in English.

Here is a description of each item:

Install MobaLiveCD"s right-clic association- pressing this button will add a button to the context menu of ISO files for opening them with this program.
Start directly a CD-ROM ISO image file- launches the specified iso file from the hard drive - useful for checking bootable disk images.
Start directly from a bootable USB drive- boot from bootloader USB media- for example flash drives. Useful for checking bootable USB flash drives.

Click on the "Run the LiveCD" button. The program will prompt you to select an ISO image on your hard drive. Select the one you need and click “Open”.
The program then asks whether to create HDD for a virtual machine under given ISO image. If the goal is simply to check the possibility LiveCD downloads, or “look” at it, you should answer “No”.

Then, if the selected ISO image is bootable, then it will boot from it. For example, booting from a FreeBSD disk looks like this:

To finish working with the program, simply close it by clicking on the cross.

To download from bootable usb media, you need to click on the "Run the LiveUSB" button. In the window that appears, you need to select a section desired USB carrier.

As in the LiveCD example, next you will be asked whether to create image of a tough disk to run this USB drive. The selection conditions are the same as above - in order to simply “look” or check the download, you need to answer “No”.