
Ventoy: A new bootable USB solution - mmphosis
https://www.ventoy.net/
======
tabiskabis
IODD is a korean manufacturer of special harddrive enclosures. They have an
LCD and controls to navigate through the files/folders stored on NTFS/FAT. By
selecting an ISO file, the drive announces itself to the computer as a
CD/DVD/BD drive containing the ISO. It can also do this to emulate a floppy
disk drive, and up to 4 non-/removable USB drives. No need to hope for GRUB
magic to maybe work.

Their website and documentation sucks, but the product makes you giggle at the
idea of using yumi/rufus/easy2boot/looking for empty/erasable thumbdrives. The
latest iteration is the IODD-MINI. Though it looks like the crowdfunding
campaign botched, i just bought myself the 512 GB version off Amazon Germany
this week.

~~~
phlhar
I wonder if you could build something like that with the Raspi 4 and it's
usb-c OTG support.

~~~
roderickm
Yes. I backed a Kickstarter for the pISO that did this with the Pi Zero.
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/178023282/piso-the-
most...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/178023282/piso-the-most-
versatile-flash-drive-yet)

Open source hardware and software published at
[https://github.com/ALSchwalm/pISO](https://github.com/ALSchwalm/pISO)

~~~
Operyl
Did you actually receive yours? I had a few friends back for one and they
never got them :(.

~~~
roderickm
Yes. It's disappointing to hear your friends didn't receive theirs. If they're
still interested, there are comments on that Kickstarter organizing an
independent production run of the open source design.

------
rgovostes
I have a sacred USB thumb drive with the Windows 10 installer on it. It is
sacred because it took me hours to figure out how to make it bootable. If I
recall, Microsoft's own tool for _expressly this purpose_ did not work (after
having to set up a virtual machine to use it, etc. etc.), and was apparently a
known problem.

I think it was WoeUSB that finally worked for me, not plain dd or Rufus or
Apple's Boot Camp utility. Ventoy looks impressive, but unfortunately too many
tools don't work.

~~~
asutekku
The easiest way to make USB portable is to just copy the contents of the .iso
to the stick. That’s basically all that needs to be done.

~~~
GranPC
That only works if the system you're trying to boot the drive from has NTFS
UEFI drivers, or if you format your drive as FAT32. Recent versions of Windows
10 cannot be copied and pasted to FAT32 drives because the system image is
bigger than 4 GB.

~~~
Matthias247
Right - things got a lot more tricky due to this.

When I built my new PC I also spent a couple of hours on it, because most of
the old documented and simple solutions did not work.

When I had a big partition that could hold the image the system wouldn't want
to boot from it. On the small Fat32 partition the image didn't fit.

I think in the end I had to create 2 paritions, a Fat32 and an ExFat one. Then
I had most of the boot files on both, but the big windows image only on the
ExFat one.

That actually works - when the installer can't find the big image on the
original partition you can point it to the other one and the installation will
continue.

------
abdusco
I've been using YUMI[0] for years to create bootable drives with multiple
ISOs. A version with UEFI support was recently released.

I should try this one too.

[0]: [https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-
creator/](https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/)

~~~
smichel17
I've used YUMI in the past too.. But it's Windows-only, and I only keep a
Windows install around on my desktop, not laptop. Also, this tool's ability to
just copy isos over to the drive looks amazing. Haven't tried it yet so I hope
it works!

~~~
sp332
There are instructions to make a bootable drive from Linux (without the Yumi
software) and create a folder where you can drop ISOs.
[https://www.pendrivelinux.com/boot-multiple-iso-from-usb-
via...](https://www.pendrivelinux.com/boot-multiple-iso-from-usb-via-
grub2-using-linux/)

------
phlhar
Finally I don't need 20 8GB USB drives for different operating systems
anymore. This is awesome!

~~~
josteink
Yeah. This genuinely looks like it offers something more than previous USB
boot solutions.

Wonder if it can somehow be combined with or run in conjunction with iPXE :D

------
albertzeyer
How does that work?

I once asked about how to boot an ISO (in Grub) here:
[https://superuser.com/questions/154133/grub-boot-from-
iso](https://superuser.com/questions/154133/grub-boot-from-iso)

And one quote from there:

> GRUB can read ISO9660 (”iso”) images. It can for example load the first few
> sectors and boot it. But most people do not realize is “what then?”. What
> would the loaded operating system do? It will most likely look for a CDROM,
> which it won’t find, and fail.

~~~
Macha
I wonder how true that is nowadays - that answer is 10 years old and I
remember some Linux distro those days having seperate images for
liveusb/livecd/netinstall etc., But most distros these days have a single
image for both usb boot and cd boot.

~~~
jaclaz
Those are normally iso-hybrid files.

I.e. files that are at the same time a valid .iso and a valid disk image.

Basically you can add to a normal bootable .iso a MBR taking advantage of the
fact that the MBR is first absolute (512 bytes) sector of the device whilst
the CD/DVD bootsector is the 17th sector (2048 bytes).

A BIOS will chainload the MBR on hd-like devices (including USB sticks) or the
CD/DVD bootsectors (on optical media), then Syslinux/Isolinux, or grub4dos or
GRUB2 (among others) will do the rest (chainloading the kernel and initrd and
boot the Linux.

------
pixxel
I’ve been using this for a few months. Once it’s setup you simply drag and
drop distros onto it. I’ve tested the following and it works fine: Kali,
Pop_OS, Elementary, Ubuntu and Mint.

~~~
DangitBobby
What is the use case? Why boot from many distros?

~~~
peterburkimsher
I have a multi-boot MacBook Pro 2007 with Mac OS 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, 10.7, 10.8,
10.9, 10.10, 10.11, Windows Tiny7, Windows XP, and Ubuntu.

It's been useful to boot into WinXP to play AoE or WoW, or Mac OS 10.9 to run
p0sixspwn to jailbreak an iPhone 4S. The laptop has a 2 TB drive, and a lot of
legacy software just in case I need to open some obscure file (e.g.
AppleWorks).

I regularly find old laptops in the trash, and friends like it very much when
I repair them and give them away. Some only boot Win10, others only Win7 (x64
or x32), and the oldest only XP. As for why you'd want various Linux distros,
I imagine it's a similar platform-sensitivity issue.

I wish there were a bundle pack of USB drives with installers for all Windows
and Mac OS versions, so I could just pick out the right installer and install.
And another bundle of live USBs. Carrying around lots of USB sticks would be
bulky, but somehow I expect it to be more reliable than Ventoy - my experience
with the Zalman ZM-VE350 has never been reliable enough to replace an external
CD drive.

~~~
Haemm0r
I have a late 2007 MBP too (superdrive removed) and was never able to boot and
install an OS straight from USB(tried refit and refind too) , be it
clonezilla, Win 7 32/64Bit; only OS X works via USB. (Windows via superdrive
worked flawlessly). Luckily I had an old winclone backup I could use, when I
replaced the SSD last year.

Is the EFI in newer MBP still that picky?

Did you have success with this tool?

~~~
morganvachon
It sounds like you have one of the last of the early 64-bit Macs that had a
32-bit EFI. They were difficult beasts to get working with anything other than
officially supported macOS versions. You can follow the guide linked below but
basically you need to create a 32/64 hybrid EFI boot image. There were some
Windows machines (mainly BayTrail and similar vintage tablets) that also had
this issue and the solution is very similar.

[https://ldx.ca/notes/intel-mac-efi32-linux.html](https://ldx.ca/notes/intel-
mac-efi32-linux.html)

~~~
Haemm0r
Thanks for the hint ("beast" descibes it perfectly :) ), seems mine is
castrated: "Furthermore, it appears that although subsequently released
MacBook, MacBook Air, and pre-"Mid-2010" Mac mini models all are equipped with
"Core 2 Duo" 64-bit processors and 64-bit EFIs, Apple has blocked these
"consumer-targeted" Macs from booting in 64-bit mode. iMac and MacBook Pro
models released in 2007 with 64-bit EFIs seem to have been blocked as well."

Found @ [https://everymac.com/mac-answers/snow-leopard-mac-os-x-
faq/m...](https://everymac.com/mac-answers/snow-leopard-mac-os-x-faq/mac-os-x-
snow-leopard-64-bit-macs-64-bit-efi-boot-in-64-bit-mode.html)

~~~
morganvachon
Ouch, I had forgotten about those specific devices. I had a Mac Mini Core Duo
that I had upgraded to a Core2 Duo and was never able to get Snow Leopard to
boot into 64-bit mode. I was able to get Linux and even OpenBSD installed on
it using the previously mentioned bootia32.efi method.

Also, you may be able to boot 64-bit macOS on your system if you follow the
netkas.org link from your everymac.com link:

[http://netkas.org/?p=189](http://netkas.org/?p=189)

~~~
Haemm0r
Thanks, but no tampering with this system anymore until I have a replacement
on the desk...

Remember: Never touch a working boot setup an old Mac with a crippled EFI. ;)

------
mehrdadn
Previously it was rather disappointing [1]; has it improved?

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23394714](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23394714)

~~~
boredpenguin
> has it improved?

I discovered it a few days ago and used the latest (1.0.19) version to boot
the Linux Mint 20 iso and install it to my laptop without problems. Looks like
there's also a "Tested ISO" page[0] on the official site.

[0] [https://ventoy.net/en/isolist.html](https://ventoy.net/en/isolist.html)

~~~
blindm
> Looks like there's also a "Tested ISO" page on the official site

Yeah and it has a whos-who of hacked and cracked Windows10 'WinPE' /
preinstalled environments which I find amusing, like for example:

    
    
        Gandalf's-Win10PEx64-19H2.iso
        Gandalf_s_Windows_10PEx64_Redstone_5_build_17763.iso
        Bob.Ombs.Modified.Win10PEx64.v4.8.iso
        WinPE10_8_Sergei_Strelec_x86_x64_2020.06.09_English.iso

------
kohtatsu
I've always thought about this being possible! Thank god it exists now and I
know its name, I'm going to have a cosy weekend with this.

------
0x76
This is one of the few multi boot USB programs that worked flawlessly first
try. Would definitely recommend.

------
maxnoe
This tool is simple and simply awesome.

I used this to fix a broken windows system recently while visting my "in-
laws".

Probably a bodged update, booting windows resulted in "Boot device not found".

I had created the stick a couple of weeks earlier and put some ISOs on there,
including windows 10 and ubuntu. Just have it with my leys now.

Used the Ubuntu stick to assess the situation, run smartmontools on the disk,
backup data to an external hard drive and then used the windows stick to
restore a recovery point which fixed the system.

~~~
maxnoe
stick -> iso, this is the point of the tool. One stick, several isos.

------
divingdragon
I have been using a rooted Android phone with DriveDroid which mounts images
as a USB drive for a PC. It works pretty well too. (Except for Windows setup
ISOs. Those does not support direct booting from a USB drive and I had to
mount a blank image and use Rufus to properly write it as a bootable non-
optical disk.)

This seems to be a fine alternative that I will have to try. The problem is
that I don't really have large USB sticks for this anymore...

~~~
moonchild
> Windows setup ISOs

You can't dd them. Format a USB drive, make a fat32 or ntfs[1] partition.
Extract all the files from the ISO (mount -o loop to an intermediate directory
and copy the files out, 7z can also do it) onto said partition. Set the
bootable and ESP (EFI System Partition flag) flags. Works like a charm every
time.

(You can also try the woeusb[2] tool, but it's not doing anything
fundamentally different to or better than that.)

1\. Fat may be problematic; iirc install.wim is >4gb lately. But ntfs-3g is
adequate if lacklustre.

2\. [https://github.com/slacka/WoeUSB](https://github.com/slacka/WoeUSB)

~~~
divingdragon
> make a [...] ntfs partition

I think it would only work if your UEFI firmware happen to contain a driver
for reading NTFS partitions. UEFI firmwares are only required to read
FAT12/FAT16/FAT32. Rufus solves this by making an extra FAT partition with a
UEFI:NTFS [1] binary which loads its own NTFS driver to boot the Windows
`bootmgfw` EFI binary.

[1]: [https://github.com/pbatard/uefi-ntfs](https://github.com/pbatard/uefi-
ntfs)

------
andrewflnr
I wish I'd known about this six months ago. I never had time to sort out
Windows boot USBs in my last role (always other priorities), but if this made
it easy enough I could have snuck it on.

~~~
jaclaz
Well, six months ago it didn't exist:

>Project started on 2020-04-05

[http://reboot.pro/topic/22277-ventoy-open-source-usb-boot-
ut...](http://reboot.pro/topic/22277-ventoy-open-source-usb-boot-utility-for-
both-bios-and-uefi/)

~~~
iforgotpassword
Holy shit this is some fast progress. I've had to fiddle with EFI and iPXE
recently and the experience was horrible. Basically you try ten different
systems and they all have ten different issues. Very recent systems are
somewhat ok but running a machine from four years ago in efi mode is a
clusterfuck if you try anything more involved than "boot Windows or Linux from
disk".

The compatibility matrix of this tool right here is impressive.

~~~
jaclaz
>I've had to fiddle with EFI

Actually you most probably had to fiddle with so-called UEFI, i.e. Universal
EFI which should really-really be called UUEFI (Unlike Universal Extended
Firmaware Interface).

------
GekkePrutser
Is there any way to install this on Mac? I'm traveling and this would be great
to have but I only got that Mac with me. Typical

------
charlesdaniels
This seems very similar to Easy2Boot[0] which I’ve used for several years with
mixed success. Some systems don’t like booting from weird embedded GRUB
variants. Some systems don’t boot it at all. I would assume Ventoy is based on
a similar approach, I wonder if they have managed to solve some of E2Bs
problems?

0 - [https://www.easy2boot.com/](https://www.easy2boot.com/)

------
ed25519FUUU
This is an excellent tool. One of those things I didn’t know I needed until I
saw it!

I’m usually juggling different images for different experiments and this
should simplify things greatly.

------
amelius
> With ventoy, you don't need to format the disk over and over, you just need
> to copy the ISO/WIM/IMG/EFI files to the USB drive and boot them directly.

But isn't copying the ISO file about as much work?

Instead, I suspect a better solution would be to have a bootable file system
on the USB drive (instead of an ISO file), which you can rsync new versions
to.

~~~
fermienrico
Why is copying ISO file the same amount of work as launching Rufus and going
through menus?

> which you can rsync new versions to

Both cases, it is more work than what you're objecting.

"you just need to copy the ISO/WIM/IMG/EFI files to the USB drive and boot
them directly" \- Can you explain what specifically is painful about this
process?

~~~
rblatz
With Windows you just copy paste the contents of the iso over to the usb. I
just completed a ryzen build last week and expected to need special software
to build a bootable usb. Microsoft’s documentation told me that I didn’t and
to just format as NTFS, mark the partition active and copy/paste the iso.

That’s all it takes today.

~~~
fermienrico
Sure, that makes sense. What I don't understand is why is it _more_ difficult
than dragging a single .iso file to the usb drive?

~~~
rblatz
Well the tricky part is knowing about this tool. Both are relatively easy, and
both are easier than finding a custom tool that burns the iso to a usb.

------
mrjin
This tool is fantastic. It saves me from writing different images to a usb
stick when need different boot media, especially when working on windows as
windows disk manage seems to have problems cleaning usb sticks with some
particular iso images.

~~~
morganvachon
This is the first I've heard of it and I'm definitely keen to try it out. I
can keep one 128GB USB3 flash drive rather than a handful of smaller drives
that need to be labeled or color coded so I don't forget which one boots a
particular OS.

The Windows WIM support is especially nice for work where most of our machines
are Windows based and again I can carry just one flash drive to cover several
different builds of Windows plus HBCD.

------
akavel
I assume the iso files are mounted readonly, yes? Or no? Esp. if no, how does
it work?

~~~
quietbritishjim
It appears to be read only be default but supports persistence, according to
that page:

> Persistence supported (1.0.11+)

There's a link to more info [1] which says how to configure it: there's a JSON
file with config info, in which you specify a file on the USB stick for it to
save the data.

[1]
[https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html](https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_persistence.html)

~~~
necovek
Ah, then this might be exactly what I am looking for for my 128gb flash drive:
I want a persistent Ubuntu image with all my software, and an encrypted
dmcrypt (cryptsetup makes this easy) partition to hold my backups.

------
wizzwizz4
If the link doesn't work because you haven't got JavaScript, see
[https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html](https://www.ventoy.net/en/index.html)
instead.

------
jz_
See also: [https://www.easy2boot.com/add-payload-
files/wizard/primer/](https://www.easy2boot.com/add-payload-
files/wizard/primer/)

~~~
dwheeler
One distinction is that ventoy is straight open source software. easy2boot is
free (no cost), but appears to be a mix of open source and closed source
software.

------
kstenerud
Bleh... Doesn't boot ubuntu desktop 20.04.1 CD on a Thinkpad.

This is the problem with these multiboot systems... They're flakey and tend to
fail for your particular use case, no matter how common :(

Back to one-iso-per-usb-stick

------
limeblack
This reminds me of tonymacx86 bootable cd iso's if you have created a
hackintosh before. Similar idea if you interested in a mac(although I don't
believe the iso's are bootable anymore).

------
savant_a
I prefer USBboot Installer++
[https://www.usbdev.ru/files/usbbootinstaller/](https://www.usbdev.ru/files/usbbootinstaller/)

------
rudolph9
There is also [http://multibootusb.org/](http://multibootusb.org/) I stumbled
across it while looking for a NixOS package for this one.

------
rudolph9
Yes! I’ve been searching for a way to have multiple bootable images from a
single flash drive. This would suffice my need!

------
LockAndLol
I remember there was a multiboot USB written by a French dude, but it was
freeware IIRC. Glad that this one is opensource!

------
ComputerGuru
EasyBCD can create a bootable USB with a menu that lets you directly boot into
unextracted ISO files, fyi.

------
Brajeshwar
This may be a stupid question but will this work (creating the boot flash-
drive) on macOS?

------
appleflaxen
This looks seriously awesome.

And it's GPL3, which is awesome.

But i can't find the link to the source repo.

Does anyone see one?

~~~
appleflaxen
Disregard: I found it with a google search rather than scanning the home page:

For others' convenience:

[https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy](https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy)

(it's also on the download page, but I was looking for it in homepage, FAQ,
and licensing page)

------
unixhero
This is amazing

