In order to have access to files on the disk when the system does not start, it is better to take care in advance of a universal bootable media with various useful programs. CHIP will tell you how to make a “rescue flash drive.”
Sometimes unexpected problems with your computer ruin all your plans and prevent you from completing urgent tasks. The hassle of reinstalling the operating system, drivers, programs and data recovery can take many hours, not to mention the fact that it requires the appropriate knowledge and experience. Another possible danger is virus infection, which will require system disinfection and, probably, data recovery. In most of these cases, a pre-prepared bootable flash drive could help, containing a set of useful utilities and even an operating system, with which you could both work with familiar and favorite applications and easily restore the functionality of your PC.An equally important component is the autonomy and ease of use of such a medium. For example, if you urgently need to process information while you are visiting or on a business trip, then the guest PC may simply not have the necessary or familiar applications. And with our “rescuer”, if you are sure that you will have access to the guest PC, then you won’t have to take your laptop on the road, which is very important, for example, on trips abroad with air travel. To some extent, this also increases the security of working with personal data and websites. Of course, to save information and access the Internet, you can also use Live CDs created using popular utilities such as Dr.Web LiveCD and LiveUSB, Kaspersky Rescue Disc, or bootable media with Acronis products, memtest86, etc. However, these tools have a narrow focus. CHIP will tell you how to create a universal emergency flash drive for restoring the operation of a personal computer and lost data, carrying out preventive and test work, suitable for use on someone else’s PC.
We create flash drives with Windows OS
Today, the most common operating system is Windows 7, and we will create media with this OS.
Almost any flash drive, memory card or portable hard drive can be used as a storage device. The main requirements here are speed and capacity, which should be sufficient to install the OS and store useful programs and data. Flash media is convenient because it is light and compact and is not afraid of shocks and shaking. However, if you plan to work with it constantly, then it is worth remembering that its read/write resource is limited and at some point it will be better to replace it with a new one. To get an acceptable speed, it is desirable that the flash drive supports the USB 3.0 standard. For large amounts of data, it is better to use a portable HDD, but do not forget that it is sensitive to shock. To create a bootable flash drive, you will need a drive with a capacity of at least 8 GB, a Windows 7 installation (licensed) disk (or its image) and the free PWBoot program.
How to do it
1. Insert the drive on which you want to install the OS into your PC. Remember that all data previously recorded on it will be destroyed during the installation process. Open the Windows 7 installation disk or extract its image - for example, using the 7-Zip archiver - and extract the install.wim file from the sources folder to any directory.
3. Specify the location of the Install.wim file. In the drop-down list, specify the OS version that will be installed on the disk. PWBoot does not display the Cyrillic alphabet correctly, so the list of versions will most likely be unreadable. The order of OS versions in the list from top to bottom goes from the youngest to the oldest: Starter, Home, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate, Enterprise. Having selected the desired version, check the “Enable boot from USB interface capability” checkbox and click the “Next” button.
5. In the “System boot volume” drop-down list, select the drive on which you plan to install Windows and check all the checkboxes. After completing all the manipulations, click on the “Next” button. After this, PWBoot will automatically format the drive, install the OS on it and make it bootable. This process can take up to two hours, depending on the writing speed of the USB drive. After completing the installation, run the system for the first time and configure basic settings. To speed things up, disable decorative graphic enhancements. You can do this from the Start | Control Panel | System and Security | System | Advanced system settings" on the "Advanced | Options". Once you boot from such a drive, you will be able to freely use Windows and install programs as if you were working in normal mode.
 |
Booting from removable media
In order for your PC to start from a CD, DVD, flash drive or external USB drive when rebooted or turned on, you need to change the BIOS settings.
The vast majority of modern motherboards provide the ability to boot from a USB flash drive, but on older models you can sometimes only enable boot from optical drives. The problem in some cases is solved by installing the latest BIOS version, but for older motherboards such updates may not be released.
When you turn on your PC, enter the BIOS by pressing the “Del” or “F2” key. Next, you need to find the corresponding menu items, indicating the boot order and devices used for this. Depending on the manufacturer and BIOS version, this can be done in the “Boot” or “Advanced BIOS features” sections. In addition, modern motherboards allow you to specify the device from which the system will boot without reconfiguring the BIOS. To do this, when starting the PC, you need to call the “boot menu”. As a rule, this can be done using the “F12” key.
Portable programs
If you have full access to guest software, but you want to work with familiar applications and save the results on a flash drive without leaving traces, it makes sense to simply prepare a set of portable versions of the necessary programs and write them to removable media. Portable editions of utilities can work without integration into the system, without leaving traces on someone else's PC and without changing its settings. Many different options can be found at portableapps.com. A convenient solution is the PortableApps.com Platform application, which allows you to download and update a set of portable programs from the resource of the same name.
The application also simplifies the work when launched from a flash drive on someone else's PC. Its menu is similar to the Start menu in Windows and allows you to comfortably work with portable utilities. For those who have not yet decided on a portable set of programs, we have prepared a list of the most commonly used ones.
|
Thunderbird Portable |
Mail client |
|
Dr.Web CureIt, Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool, McAfee Stinger portable |
Antiviruses |
|
Recovering Deleted Data |
|
|
Secure Data Deletion Tool |
|
|
Notepad++, Portable AbiWord, Libre Office Portable |
Text editors |
|
AIMP (you can select the portable version during installation) |
Audio player |
|
VLC Media Player Portable |
Video player |
|
CDBurnerXP (portable version) |
Burning discs, creating images |
|
Graphics editor |
|
|
SIW, System Spec |
PC testing, component reports |
|
Archiver |
|
|
Portable KeepPass |
Manager of passwords and other authentication data |
|
TrueCrypt (you can select the portable version during installation) |
Encrypt disks, files and folders |
|
Google Chrome Portable, Opera Portable Edition, Mozilla Firefox Portable Edition |
Browsers |
|
Messenger, IP telephony |
PortableApps.com Platform provides quick access to any of the applications located on a flash drive, as well as their additional installation.
The PortableApps.com Platform application allows you to install dozens of ready-made portable programs onto a flash drive.
 |
The SIW portable application will provide information about the system, hardware, network environment and offer a series of tests.
Creating a simple installation flash drive
Many manufacturers have already stopped equipping their computers, such as netbooks and ultrabooks, with optical drives.
If there is no disk drive, you can reinstall the system only by booting from the installation flash drive. To create such media, the easiest way is to use a special utility - for example, YUMI. You will also need an ISO image of the bootable Windows installation disk or other operating system that you want to run from the flash drive.
You can create such an image from a finished DVD using the CDBurnerXP program. Just launch the application and select “Copy disc” in the main menu. In this case, specify the disk inserted into the drive as the source, and the folder on the hard drive into which the ISO image should be saved as the destination. Click on the "Copy Disc" button. Using the same program, you can burn previously saved images to optical discs. Having received the image, you can proceed to transfer it to a flash drive or memory card. Insert the drive into the USB port. If it contains the necessary files, copy them to another medium.
How to do it
1. Launch the YUMI program and in the drop-down list of the “Step 1” field, specify the location of the flash drive.
3. Specify the location of your existing ISO image in the “Step 3” field using the “Browse” button. Click the "Create" button and wait for the boot drive creation process to complete. After that, perform a test run from it, remembering to change the BIOS settings.
 |
Using Slax Linux
In cases where you do not have a licensed copy of Windows OS (ISO or bootable DVD) at hand, we recommend using free Linux-based software. After downloading the archive, you need to place the slax folder on the drive, go to the slax\boot folder and run the bootinst.bat file. Now the created flash drive can be used to boot and work in Slax Linux. In addition to the system itself, you will probably need additional tools. They can be downloaded from the “Modules” section (slax.org/ru/modules.php). The developers offer a very wide range of different programs and add-ons, including games, graphic and text editors and other useful utilities. You can simply copy the downloaded applications to a USB flash drive in the slax\modules folder.
If you want to create an external drive that can install one of several operating systems, you first need to read the instructions on how to create a bootable USB flash drive in multiboot usb.
MultiBoot USB is a universal, popular utility for creating multiboot removable media. The application is distributed free of charge.
Interface: English.
Creating a flash drive in multiboot usb allows you to avoid some restrictions - the user can load two identical versions of the OS onto one external drive at once.
They should only have different assemblies. Also, the number of recorded images is unlimited.
It all depends on the memory capacity of your flash drive.
The initial stage is 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 flash drive that will have enough memory.
Download and install the multiboot usb utility on your computer using the link provided at the beginning of the article.
Despite the fact that the program only has an English-language interface, there are detailed instructions for using it in Russian.
Familiarize yourself with the program's basic functions and toolbar elements before you begin. This will help you avoid common mistakes.
The multiboot usb utility image includes a number of programs that must be installed on bootable external media:
- 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 - a utility that allows you to quickly test the performance of the 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 of the above utilities are necessary for further installation of the operating system on your PC. Removing or damaging at least one component can lead to the failure of a multiboot flash drive of a software nature.
The main stage is creating bootable removable media
In the initial window of the utility, the user has access to a list of utilities that are necessary to create a bootable USB flash drive. Follow the instructions to prepare the external media:
- Enable the first utility in the list (Figure 1). It is designed to format removable media. Check the QuickFormat box 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 whose volume exceeds 4 Gigabytes;
No. 2. Installing the HP Usb Disk Storage Format Tool
- Now return to the start menu (Figure 1) and run the grub4dos program. During installation, you must specify the disk 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 drive.
Now click on the utility installation key;
No. 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 flash drive and click on the Eject button. This way you will unpack all the necessary applications that are needed for the media to function properly.
No. 5. Appearance of the main application window
To begin the basic stage of creating a bootable USB flash drive, follow the instructions:
- Connect the flash drive to the computer and wait for it to be recognized by the system
- Now run the MultiBoot USB program;
- In the main program window, select the path to the connected flash drive in the Step 1 field;
- In the Step 2 field, select all components. They will also be installed on the bootable media;
- Click on the Create button to create a multiboot flash drive.
After completing all the steps above in the instructions, the flash drive will be created, however, it will not contain a single installation image of the operating system.
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 more convenient for you to navigate between files on a flash drive, create a special folder where you will move all OS images.
This way you won’t confuse them with previously unpacked utilities.
For OS Windows
To install an OS Windows image (of any version and build) on a created 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. Example of the contents of the directory of a mounted operating system image
Now go to the utility window (Figure 1):
No. 7. Windows OS image recording window
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 folder with the OS image after using the WinsetupFromUsb utility
To add another Windows OS to a flash drive, do the same steps, just don’t forget to check the box next to the OS version corresponding to the image (as in Figure 7).
For Linux OS
For Linux operating systems, follow these steps:
- find the file menu.lst on the flash drive and open it using a standard notepad or the Notepad utility;
- In the first line write down the name of the operating system, in the second line - the path to the image. Save the final file. The file system may freeze for 15-20 minutes. Wait until its operation returns to normal and the image is written to the flash drive.
An example notepad file content should look like this:
No. 9. 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 take up all the memory on the media, then the computer will recognize it faster and load image files.
Advice! You should not start installing the OS immediately after adding all the images. Make sure the device is working properly. To do this, run the WinSetupFromUSB utility and select the created multiboot flash drive as the device. Check the TestinQEMU box and click OK. The process of testing the performance of the flash drive will start.
Thematic videos:
How to create a multiboot flash drive
How to create a multiboot flash drive with MultiBoot USB
MultiBoot USB - Creating a multiboot flash drive
How to create a bootable USB flash drive. The process is shown without installing OS installation files onto a USB flash drive.
In this article I will describe several ways to make a bootable USB flash drive for free and without much effort:
Let me explain why I chose these three options, so:
The advantages of creating a bootable USB flash drive using the UltraISO program are that even in trial (free) mode, this program will help you create a bootable USB flash drive without any problems and it also has many different functions. The disadvantages (if they can be considered such) are that it needs to be downloaded and installed; the installation process itself consists of pressing the Next button 4 times. In my opinion, the ideal third-party solution for creating a bootable USB flash drive for Windows XP, 7, 8.
Creating a bootable USB flash drive using a utility from Microsoft - USB/DVD Download Tool, the advantage of this method is that without special skills and abilities, thanks to a few clicks of the mouse you get a bootable flash drive. Minus - an official (downloaded from the Microsoft website) ISO image of the operating system is required, otherwise the utility may not accept your ISO image and refuse to write it to a flash drive, or it will give an error when creating the image (I personally encountered such problems, which is why I think it is necessary to indicate them ).
And finally, creating a bootable USB flash drive using the Windows 7 command line. The big advantage of this method is that you don’t need to install anything, but simply by entering a few commands, you will get a bootable flash drive with Windows XP, 7, 8. I don’t even know the disadvantages of this method ...probably only because it is not attractive, since all commands are executed on the command line.
So, to create a bootable USB flash drive you will need:
1 Flash drive with a capacity of at least 4 Gb (everything must be removed from the flash drive, as it will be formatted)
2 ISO system image
3 BIOS, which will allow you to start installation from a flash drive
4 Utility for creating an image (UltraISO, USB/DVD Download Tool)
If you have all this, then let's get started:
Creating a bootable USB flash drive using the UltraISO program.
First of all, download the latest version Ultra ISO .
After that, start the installation of the program, click "Further"
We agree to the license agreement
Select or leave the default installation location for the program
After this, the UltraISO program will open, click "File-Open"
Select an ISO system image, in this example Windows 8 will be used
After this we press "Boot - Burn Hard Disk Image..."
In the next window, select the device on which the image will be written and click "Record".
After this, a warning window will appear stating that everything will be deleted from the flash drive, click "Yes".
Then the recording process will begin, which will last several minutes.
After the writing process to the USB flash drive is completed, it becomes bootable.
As sad as it may be for many, the era of CD/DVDs is slowly but surely coming to an end... Today, users are increasingly thinking about having an emergency bootable USB flash drive in case they suddenly have to reinstall the system.
And the point here is not only to pay tribute to fashion. The OS is installed faster from a flash drive than from a disk; such a flash drive can be used on a computer that does not have a CD/DVD drive (and all modern computers have USB), and you shouldn’t forget about the ease of transfer: a flash drive can easily fit into any pocket, unlike a disk.
1. What is needed to create a bootable USB flash drive?
1) The most important thing is a flash drive. For Windows 7, 8 OS, you will need a flash drive with a size of at least 4 GB, preferably 8 (some images may not fit into 4 GB).
2) An image of a Windows boot disk, most often an ISO file. If you have an installation disk, you can create such a file yourself. It is enough to use the program Clone CD, Alcohol 120%, UltraISO and others (see how to do this).
3) One of the programs for writing an image to a flash drive (they will be discussed below).
Important point! If your PC (netbook, laptop) has, in addition to USB 2.0, also USB 3.0, connect the flash drive to the USB 2.0 port during installation. This applies primarily to Windows 7 (and lower) operating systems, because... These OS do not support USB 3.0! The installation attempt will end with an OS error stating that it is impossible to read data from such media. By the way, they are quite easy to recognize, USB 3.0 is shown in blue, the connectors for it are the same color.
usb 3.0 on laptop
And one more thing... Make sure your Bios supports booting from USB media. If your PC is modern, then it should definitely have this function. For example, my old home computer, bought back in 2003. can boot from USB. How configure Bios to boot from a flash drive - .
2. Utilities for burning a bootable ISO disk to a USB flash drive
2.1 WinToFlash
I would like to focus on this utility mainly because it allows you to burn bootable flash drives with Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8. Probably the most universal! You can read about other functions and capabilities on the official website. Here I would like to look at how you can create a flash drive for installing the OS.
After launching the utility, by default, the wizard starts (see screenshot below). To proceed to creating a bootable USB flash drive, click on the green checkmark in the center.
The process of transferring Windows system files usually takes 5-10 minutes. At this time, it is better not to load your PC with unnecessary resource-intensive processes.
If the recording was successful, the wizard will notify you about this. To start the installation, you need to insert the USB flash drive and restart the computer.
One of the best programs for working with ISO images. It is possible to compress these images, create, unpack, etc. There are also functions for recording boot disks and flash drives (hard drives).
This program was mentioned quite often on the site, so here I will give only a couple of links:
2.3 USB/DVD Download Tool
A lightweight utility that allows you to burn flash drives with Windows 7 and 8. The only negative, perhaps, is that when writing, it may give an error of 4 GB. The flash drive supposedly doesn't have enough space. Although there is enough space for other utilities, on the same flash drive, with the same image...
By the way, the issue of recording a bootable USB flash drive in this utility for Windows 8 was considered.
2.4 WinToBootic
Website: http://www.wintobootic.com/
A very simple utility that will help you quickly and worry-free create a bootable USB drive with Windows Vista/7/8/2008/2012. The program takes up very little space - less than 1 MB.
At the first launch, it required Net Framework 3.5 installed; not everyone has such a package, and downloading and installing it is not a quick task...
But the process of creating bootable media is very fast and pleasant. First, insert the flash drive into the USB, then launch the utility. Now click on the green arrow and indicate the location of the image with the Windows installation disk. The program can directly record from an ISO image.
2.5 WinSetupFromUSB
A simple and main free program. With it you can quickly create bootable media. By the way, what’s interesting is that a flash drive can accommodate not only Windows OS, but also Gparted, SisLinux, a built-in virtual machine, etc.
To start creating a bootable USB flash drive, run the utility. By the way, please note that there is a special add-on for the x64 version!
Once launched you only need to specify 2 things:
- First, indicate the flash drive on which the recording will be made. Usually, it is determined automatically. By the way, under the line with the flash drive there is a checkbox: “Auto Format” - it is recommended to check the box and not touch anything else.
- In the “Add USB dick” section, select the line with the required OS and check the box. Next, indicate the location on your hard drive where the image with this ISO OS is located.
- The last thing you do is click on the “GO” button.
By the way! The program may behave as if it is frozen while recording. In fact, most often it works, just do not touch the PC for about 10 minutes. You can also pay attention to the lower part of the program window: messages about the recording process appear on the left and a green stripe is visible...
3. Conclusion
In this article, we looked at several ways to create bootable USB flash drives. A few tips when writing such flash drives:
- First of all, copy all the files from the media, in case you need something later. During recording, all information from the flash drive will be deleted!
- Do not load your computer with other processes during the recording process.
- Wait for a successful information message from the utilities with which you work with the flash drive.
- Disable antivirus software before creating bootable media.
- Do not edit the installation files on the flash drive after burning it.
That's all, happy OS installation everyone!
In my previous article, I talked about how to burn various types of information onto CD/DVD discs, for example: music in MP3 format, any boot program (for example, a Windows installation disk or antivirus), a movie in DVD format and, of course, just a set of any files and folders.
Fortunately, CDs and DVDs are becoming increasingly relegated to the background these days. Many laptops no longer have disk drives, and for stationary home computers there is often simply no point in buying a disk drive (if only for reading and writing Blu-ray discs).
And fortunately, because disks are being replaced by ordinary flash drives, i.e. flash drives. Progress does not stand still and now most music players, video players and TVs support the ability to play information directly from a flash drive! Moreover, you can make a flash drive bootable, and, for example, install Windows from it or run any computer maintenance program (antiviruses, partition managers, LiveCD and much more)!
In this article, I will share with you a simple way to create a bootable one using one simple program.
But how convenient is it now to use flash drives and not carry these discs with you in special boxes? :) I put a lot of any movies and music on one flash drive, after which you can listen to music in the car by inserting a flash drive, watch movies by simply connecting it to the TV or DVD. Also, at the same time, the flash drive can be bootable and simply store numerous of your documents and various kinds of files. In general, everything in one bottle :)
In the article about burning discs, I talked separately about recording music, movies, boot program images and mixed data. And for flash drives, such a manual is not required, because to record movies, music, or just a set of files, you just need to copy it all to a flash drive and that’s it! For convenience, you can also sort into different folders. That is, it is clear that a separate program for writing data to a flash drive is not required :)
For example, I copy music:
It's simple!
And now not only flash drives are very relevant, but also USB external hard drives, which can contain a huge amount of information, for example 2 TB (2000 GB). And they are used in exactly the same way as flash drives: connect to USB, copy everything you need and you’re done! And no CDs needed.
But how can you make it so that you can write, for example, a Windows installer onto a USB drive (be it a flash drive or an external hard drive), so that you can then insert the flash drive into the desired computer and install Windows on it directly from the flash drive? Or we want to write a bootable antivirus onto a flash drive to scan the computer before the system starts. And someone may need a bootable program to reset Windows passwords. I wrote about this program in the article:
Or maybe someone would like to have several different boot programs on a flash drive with the ability to select through a special menu? It is very comfortable! But in this case, unfortunately, simply copying images of the necessary programs to a flash drive is not enough... You will need a separate program in order to make the flash drive bootable and fill it with the necessary boot programs. I've come across several programs that perform the same function. They are all free! I personally settled on one and haven’t even had to resort to the help of other programs yet.
The program is called "WinSetupFromUSB". It, like many others, is in English, but don’t let that scare you, because you have this article at hand :)
Let's look at how to make a bootable USB flash drive using it.
Download and unpack the WinSetupFromUSB program.
First we need to download the program. As I have already mentioned in many of my articles, you need to download programs from official sites, and not from anywhere! Otherwise, you might end up downloading viruses in addition to the program :)
winsetupfromusb.com
This is the official website of the program. At the top of the window you will see links to download the latest Beta versions of the program, but I do not recommend downloading them, since such versions of the programs are at the testing stage and may have various glitches. It is better to always download the latest stable versions released so that there is no “beta” or “b” prefix.
As we can see in the example from the image above, the latest stable version today is 1.5. Here I am downloading it as an example in the form of an unpacked .exe archive. There is another option in the 7z archive, but there is no difference.
In the next window, simply click “Download” and the program will immediately begin downloading to your computer:
After downloading the program, run the downloaded file to unpack:
A window will appear in which you need to specify a folder on your computer to unpack the archive:
I unpack directly to my desktop. In this case, the program will still be unpacked into a separate folder “WinSetupFromUSB”, which will be created independently. To start unpacking you need to click “Extract”.
After unpacking we see a folder with the name of the program:
It is in it that the program itself will be located.
Now let's start creating a bootable USB flash drive...
We create a flash drive with any boot programs using WinSetupFromUSB!
So, we unpacked the program and now in the folder we see 2 files to choose from to run:
One is designed to run on 32-bit Windows systems, and the other (which is labeled “x64”) is designed to run on 64-bit systems. Run the appropriate file depending on the bitness of your Windows. At the same time, there will be no difference in the program itself and the speed of its operation! I recommend running the program as Administrator. To do this, right-click on the file and select “Run as administrator” (see image above).
The program will start and we will see this window:
The program is very easy to use!
First, you should know that the first time you write, the program will format the flash drive, which means deleting all existing data on it. Therefore, either use any empty flash drive for these purposes, or copy everything that is stored on the flash drive somewhere to your computer so as not to lose data!
After you have launched the program, connect the USB flash drive (or USB hard drive) that you want to make bootable to your computer. This can be done before starting the program.
In the topmost section “USBdiskselectionandformattools”, the first thing you need to do is select the USB drive to which you will record. I currently have only one flash drive connected to my computer, so the program automatically indicated it:
If you have several devices connected, be sure to select the one you need in the top selection list (see image above). And, make no mistake, because the program, as mentioned above, will destroy all data! It will be best if you have one single USB drive connected to your computer, onto which you are just going to record programs.
Below, check the “AutoformatitwithFBinst” checkbox to format the flash drive and make it bootable. Next, you need to select the file system into which the flash drive will be formatted (point 3 in the image above): FAT32 or NTFS. NTFS will be supported in most cases today, so it's best to choose it. However, FAT32 does not support recording files larger than 4GB, which may hinder you in the future.
Now go to the “AddtoUSBdisk” section:
In this section we will just add boot programs that will be written to the flash drive. We see the following options:
Windows 2000/XP/2003 Setup.
You should choose this if you are going to burn the installer of one of the listed Windows systems onto a USB disk. All of them have long been outdated and I think few people will need this item today.
Windows Vista / 7 / 8 / Server 2008 / 2012 / Based ISO.
This choice will allow you to write the installer of more modern Windows systems, for example 7 or 8, onto a USB disk. This is already relevant today and I think it will be useful to many!
UBCD4Win / WinBuilder / Windows FLPC setup / Bart PE.
This item is needed if you want to burn a boot program created based on WinPE to a USB disk. But most boot software is based on Linux, so many will never need this feature, or very rarely.
Linux ISO / Other Grub4dos compatible ISO.
Current feature! Allows you to burn a Linux-based boot program to your USB drive. Nowadays, most programs are created this way. For example, bootable versions of antivirus products, a bootable version of the famous backup and recovery program Acronis, a program for resetting Windows user passwords.
SysLinuxbootsector / Linux Distribution using SysLinux / ISO Linux.
This item is likely to be of little use to anyone. The option allows you to write programs with the Syslinux bootloader to a USB drive. If the program image contains a Syslinux folder, then most likely you will need to use this option to write it to USB.
So, now that you at least roughly know the purpose of each item in the program, you can start adding programs.
Let's say we want to put the Windows 8.1 installer, a program for creating backups and restoring them - Acronis, and a program for resetting the password onto a flash drive. Let this be an example.
So, check the “WindowsVista / 7 / 8 / Server 2008 / 2012 / BasedISO” item and click the “…” button to the right, intended for selecting an image with the desired Windows:
Click “OK” in the next window:
A standard Windows Explorer will open, where you need to select the ISO file (image) of the system you need and click “Open”. In my example, I select Windows 8.1:
Now I add the Acronis program. I select the item “LinuxISO / OtherGrub4doscompatibleISO” and in the same way, by clicking “…”, I select the image of the bootable version of Acronis in the form of an ISO file:
After selecting the program image, you will be asked to specify the name of the menu item, by clicking on which you will open the added program:
You can mentally ask the question: “how did I know that the bootable version of Acronis is based on Linux, on the basis of which I chose the “LinuxISO / OtherGrub4doscompatibleISO” item?” In fact, no way, purely intuitively and based on the fact that now most boot programs are built on Linux-like systems. However, you can try to find out this on the official websites of the programs themselves. But it’s even easier to take and write the program directly through the “LinuxISO / OtherGrub4doscompatibleISO” item and if it suddenly doesn’t work, then rewrite the flash drive again, choosing a different option :) Fortunately, all this doesn’t take long.
So, I prepared 2 programs for writing to a flash drive: Windows 8.1 installer and Acronis:
And here, since there is only one option for selecting each type of program to be recorded, another question arises: “How then can you add 2-3 or more boot programs of the same type (for example, Linux-based) or 2-3 Windows installation programs?”
The question is correct! The program allows you to record as many programs as you like onto a flash drive. Everything is limited only by its volume :) But this needs to be done in several approaches.
At the moment, I have already indicated 1 Acronis program based on Linux, and I need to write down another one - password reset, which is also built on Linux. So, you will have to add the password reset program to the flash drive on the second run.
But first, let's write down the 2 programs that I added. To do this, just click the “Go” button at the very bottom of the window:
The program will give 2 warnings that the data will be 100% deleted, the disk will be repartitioned and recovery will probably be impossible. I already warned you about deleting data before starting to work with the program, so I hope you understood all this and made a copy of the files located on your USB drive, if necessary :)
Click “Yes” in each warning window:
The process of writing the specified programs to the flash drive will begin. The recording duration depends on the amount of data and the speed of the flash drive. The recording process is shown at the bottom of the window:
For example, for this example, I recorded Windows 8.1 3.85 GB in size and Acronis 355 MB in size onto an 8 GB USB 2.0 flash drive and it took me about 15 minutes. If the flash drive were USB 3.0, the process would most likely be reduced to 5 minutes or even less. Nowadays flash drives and external USB hard drives are mostly in USB 3.0 format, which gives a very high speed of information transfer.
The end of recording will be indicated by a window with the inscription “Jobdone”, where you just need to click “OK”:
After the first 2 programs are written, we can run WinSetupFromUSB again and add more programs to the flash drive, without having to format it anymore!
When you run WinSetupFromUSB a second time to add new programs, do not check the “AutoformatitwithFBinst” checkbox! All that remains is to select new programs and press the “Go” button again to record:
As a result, new programs will be added to the flash drive. If you need to add more, then do the 3rd launch of the program and again add what you need :)
That's actually the whole recording process. Now our USB drive is ready and all we have to do is boot from it!
To configure the computer to boot from a USB drive (it doesn’t matter whether it’s a flash drive or an external USB hard drive), most often you have to go into the BIOS and make some settings there. I’m going to talk about important BIOS features, including boot order from various devices, in a separate article:
Now I will briefly show how to do this using the example of one of the BIOS versions - AmiBios:
There are many versions of BIOS and each of them has a slightly different interface and capabilities, but the principle is still the same and each has a device priority menu similar to that described above.
After saving the settings, the computer will reboot and boot from the flash drive will begin, since it was set as the first boot device.
You will need to wait a few seconds and the boot menu will appear, where all the programs we recorded via “WinSetupFromUSB” will be listed:
By selecting the desired program using the arrow keys on the keyboard (because the mouse will not work in such boot programs) and pressing the “Enter” key, it will begin to launch.
That's all!
I think that the article will be useful for those who want to have installation versions of Windows and various utilities on a flash drive for recovery, partitioning a hard drive, resetting a password, and various other purposes.
As you can see, such multiboot flash drives are very easy to write!
Have a nice day and good luck! Bye;)
