Not sure if this is the right category to post into, but I have done some homework on this issue....help! ok.
I need a bootable menu for a usb device holding all bootable[only] applications, like OSs et al.
Please advise of ~ easiest solution to this. I have problems with command lines and using cmd lines trying to set this up. Looked at Grub4dos, but, still no better.
hopefully, Thanks
keetoe
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I think I understand you, I believe you wish to achieve a menu at boot time that allows you to run bootable OSes that you can run off your thumbdrive?
I do not think this can be achieved without a bit of code, but I hope for your sake that I am wrong. It would be interesting to tamper with that sort of stuff
Good luck with this
Shane Thompson
Shane Thompson
shanet[at]people[dot]net[dot]au
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Ta Shane...I came across ''Novicorp's WinToFLash'' beta, which can put XP, vista et al onto a thumb drive and one can then install the OS to the Disk of choice. Only problem, there's only one available install per memory stick.
It would be useful indeed, to be where one can have multiple applications as well as OS bits n pieces on one flash drive. As these drives are becoming bigger, and bigger, the 'more the merrier' :).
keetoe
PenDriveLinux looks to be quite easy to use and free:
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/boot-multiple-iso-from-usb-multiboot-usb/
It's all GRUB4DOS based and the menu can be manually tweaked to add other OSs such as BartPE.
Ed
Hey Ed, thanks...difficulty with this one is it won't recognise or 'see' the .ISO files I am trying to load. These are on my desktop.
One of these .ISOs is windows 7 and this IS one of the choices on the prenamed/predetermined menu. I don't know if one can put ONES'S own ISO into this application or what...like I said, moi et cmd-lines are not a fav of mine.
Also, it appears one can't place one's own choice of name or even a differently named or [different distro] ISO except what's already in the menu.
Anyone else had a go at this 'pendrivelinux' app?
Cheers,
keetoe
Do you actually expect to be able to use these OS's once you've got them booted? Just curious, because I have a suspicion that Win 7 booted from a USB flash drive will be about as usable as a paper paddle at a canoe convention in Atlantis.
I'm not knocking what you're doing, I just hope you aren't disappointed if you are able to get it working.
could be an external harddrive though. Not sure how much real difference it makes, though, since I've never had one.
That will make a substantial difference. I can understand trying to boot say Puppy Linux, Slitaz, TinyCore or one of those other lightweight linux distros off of a USB Flash drive, but not Windows 7! Ubuntu LiveCD can be painful even on modest hardware and that's comparable in terms of resource usage to something like Windows 7. Using an external hard drive though might just do it.
At least, when you extract to RAM and then run.
The new version Ubuntu runs well inside 2GB of RAM on a PC designed for Vista.
Puppy runs well for me on my 256 MB RAM laptop when run live and so does Backtrack 3. One Laptop per Child... well thats another story
I think I realise what's wrong...I have an application called NoviCorp's WinToFlash which allows me to put onto a usb stick one of many windows OSs[XP, Vista & 7]. I can then install any of them [that are loaded] onto a fresh hdd. Already done this and done successfully.
I think that the .ISO file created with the above app. is seen incorrectly by the pendrivelinux app.
I was hoping to be able to put a few different .ISO files to a usb drive and then have a bootup or boot-time menu to allow me to choose and then use[or install] one of the .ISOs onto the hard drive. I have a feeling one can do the same with Linux distros, but not sure.
All that I really need is a boot-time[or boot up menu] that would work with the WinToFlash app.
...so far anyways, seems I'm not being lucky, so far
Thanks for help with this,
keetoe
http://revision3.com/hak5/usbmultipass
edit: My bad. GRUB2 is required for direct ISO usage http://revision3.com/hak5/grub2andvmfu
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
wouldn't it take a long time to install the iso from the USB? At least in my office, installing the win 7 iso took an hour or so.
Don't be an uberPr∅. They are stinky.
you'ld be surprised. It's very very quick. about 8 mins[complete] for 7 and about the same for XP on the system I have here. It's a direct feed, I suppose. USB 2.0 has a high read rate capacity as you know. It must come into it's own in this situation. Only explanation for the speed I can think of.
keetoe
CD read speeds are slower then USB speeds.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
...By a VERY BIG margin!
Has anyone ideas as to why the grub4dos app. doesn't recognise the .ISO files I have made and are available?
They are or have the ISO extension...and are seen by other apps[ultra iso] and also have the icon[appropriate] attached.
grub4dos won't. You need to use GRUB2 and then you can.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
I can boot BartPE & Parted Magic ISOs using GRUB4DOS's grldr.
Ed
Ed,
what did you make the .ISO files[BArt & Parted Magic] with?
For Parted Magic I downloaded the ISO from their website, for BartPE I created it using mkisofs.exe which comes with PEBuilder.
The 1st step is to make the USB drive bootable. There are several means to do that such as RMPrepUSB (http://sites.google.com/site/rmprepusb/home) but I use a utility called PEtoUSB.
I then copy to it NTLDR, NTDETECT.com, grldr, a boot.ini and a menu.lst. The boot.ini invokes grldr when booting and menu.lst gives me the menu to select which OS to boot.
A shortcoming to booting ISOs is they run in RAM which means they require modern machines with lots of RAM, especially true for Windows based ISOs.
This link might interest you: Guide for MultiBoot USB-stick with boot.ini Menu
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20089
Ed
I think there's some confusion, at least on my part, on exactly what these Windows ISOs are that you have. It sounds like they are just standard Windows setup/installer ISO. BartPE is different, that actually boots in a usable (albeit trimmed down) version of Windows. AFAIK, there is no "LiveCD" for standard Windows OS, which would explain why things like PenDriveLinux choke on your ISOs. I'm wondering if the ISOs it expects are some kind of home-grown, hacked Windows "LiveCD" (Working on the assumption that it does indeed list Windows as supported).
I have a standard XP Pro & a standard Windows 7 install set of files[as ISOs] and then use Novicorp's 'WinToFLash' to put one or the other to the USB drive which then is booted onto a 'clean' h-disk. Looks like WTF is a dedicated software for OS booting only. I looked at the files on the USB. There is a very different set of folders on the USB than on the original ISO or cd/dvd.
These ISOs are not changed or modified.
Only have one 'setup' per usb drive. Using the 'Wintoflash', it delivers the ISO as a bootable cd/dvd and provides booability to the OS setup. I don't think I can use 'another' application as a 'boot-menu' using WTF which only provides for one install set.
from what I remember, WinToFlash takes a windows install ISO as its input, and generates a bootable flash drive as its output.
A bootable flash drive is not an ISO.
So, to be clear, are you creating ISO files here or not?
the ISO images I created were made by PowerIso.
I used these ISOs when trying PenDriveLinux and not the Wintoflash images.
So then yes, I don't think that is going to work because the boot loaders like Grub are probably expecting a kernel but there is no kernel just a setup. I don't really know much about the Windows installers but I'm sure there is no real OS at setup time.
Perhaps someone with more intimate knowledge of Windows installers can confirm this.
I'm sure there's a solution though, you can't be the first person on the planet that wants to install Windows from a Flash drive.
I can install windows with no problem.
My original request was for a
Boot-time/bootable menu for a USB.
But I think it was hard for people to visualize what you needed because they (I) didn't understand exactly what you were trying to do.
The Main reason for this post and my query:
I Have a 16gig USB flash drive.
I am hoping to find software that will allow me or will create for me,
a BOOT-TIME menu for the list of applications that are located on that USB drive and thus to boot from those applications.
And can you define "applications"? Because in a standard sense, an application is a program and must be run from within an operating system. It's my understanding that you mean "Windows installers" or do you have other "applications" that you want to run?
If you're talking about running multiple operating systems from a USB flash drive then you run into other problems. You'd need to partition the USB drive and that's a whole other mess (don't expect to be able to use the flash drive in Windows, at least not reliably).
Furthermore, are you intending to run this configuration from one (the same) computer all the time? I have to wonder how "portable" this kind of solution would be. I wouldn't expect it to work from every computer you come into contact with. (if nothing else because of booting from USB devices isn't always guaranteed)
All-in-all, it sounds like what you want to do is a fairly reasonable and logical action, but in reality it's very complicated and not really possible. Perhaps somebody out there has a solution.
this link might help
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/boot-multiple-iso-from-usb-multiboot-usb/
Ok, I have had a try of the pendrivelinux. It's says alot[?] in the title of the app...as mentioned, the ISO files created[eg. XP Pro] aren't recognised or seen by the pendrive app. I used Power ISO to create them. An iso is an iso, I would have thought
?
and if so, what boot image are you using, and where are you sourcing it from?
the ISOs are created using PowerISO. from the original cd[XP] dvd[7]disks.
The installation kernel within the standard windows distribution disks (both XP and 7) does not contain drivers for USB mass storage. In other words, even should you get the boot menu to see it, you will not be able to boot one of these isos, as it will not be able to find the drive it is booting off to continue the boot.
If you want to be able to install multiple versions of windows from a single flash drive, you'll have to take a look at how WinToFlash builds a boot system, and expand on that to incorporate multiple boot options. One of the things that WinToFlash does is to insert the drivers needed for USB devices so that the booting kernel can actually access the drive.
I think we're getting somewhere. It sounds like what you need is something like "Daemon Tools", a virtual CD (mounting ISO files and emulating a CD drive), however, you need this at boot time. I'm not familiar with such a tool.
Surely the tool you're describing (WintoFlash) should not create an ISO but actually unpack the ISO and put the files directly on the flash drive, so as Jimbo said it's basically a version of the CD as a straight file structure on a bootable flash drive. This makes much more sense. Putting it back into an ISO format, does not. Only downside is, you're going to need one flash drive per Windows OS.
I don't really know of any way to achieve what you're trying to do. Not that I'm saying it can't be done, just that it seems like you're making more work for yourself. In the time it's taken to have this discussion thread you could have installed 6 XPs, 3 Vistas and 4.5 Windows 7s.
One thing you could try is to tell Grub that it is booting into DOS, not Windows. I assume Windows installers are in fact DOS based but I could be wrong.
Wintoflash takes the ISO and '?'.
An original 'XP' or '7' OS disc is an ISO correct?
ISO is the format of the CD used to store the data on the CD (the "file system"). You can rip that directly from a CD and access it like a CD. However, my understanding of WintoFlash is that it copies the files from the Setup CD and puts them directly onto the Flash Drive (using the file system of the Flash Drive which is probably FAT32) but perhaps my understanding is wrong. Are you saying that you have ISO files? E.g. files that have an ISO extension and are probably quite large (i.e. ~600MB or so)?
yes the XP file is ~650MB in size.
Hiren's boot cd would be a good example of what I mean, except I am hoping to have the boot menu on a USB.
Hiren's is a bootable[with a boot-time menu] set of appl. that can be accessed in a boot-up situation. It can also be used from within the OS.
But the problem is you want to emulate a CD at boot time, and boot from it. So it's two actions in one. I don't know of any way to do that. If you do a Google search most responses seem to say the same thing; set up the flash drive as bootable with the straight file structure, not an ISO image. Unfortunately, as I said earlier, I would think this would mean that you'd have a limitation of one install per flash drive, so no possibility of having different OS installs on one flash drive.
I guess the answer to your original question is that there is no easy way to do it, period. Somebody else please prove me wrong.
Ok, Am stuck now, but a good journey. Must wait, I guess. Perhaps one person more versed or clued in will find a solution. A good wait may be necessary
Thanks DarkBee and everyone else as well.
For the time being,
keetoe
You can boot a Windows OS' iso image on a USB, fine (I do it all the time using unetbootin)... but all you can do with that is install Windows in a computer.
I understand that you want to run a life Windows session with persistence (which means that the iso remembers any change you do) just as we can do with Linux, the problem is that Microsoft doesn't distribute Windows' lifeCDs... legally...
Ask Google and you'll find a lot of entries of windows hackings to make it liveCD, you can take the risk and try those... and "the risk" doesn't mean police, it means trojans and virus preloaded...
I sincerely think that you don't have to take the risk, just switch to Linux, there are many distros that really looks and feel like Windows XP or seven, with persistence, and whit Wine you can take almost any Windows program with you... instructions to do that can be found at pendrivelinux.com
I also think that I have to suggest you to look at PUbuntu (portable Ubuntu) at http://sourceforge.net/projects/portableubuntu/ which is a complete Linux distribution with persistence that can be run on a USB and INSIDE Windows... I use it a lot to play in front of my friends, I like to see them acting like those green 3 eyes' ETs at Toy Story when they see "Linux runing inside Windows"...
If a packet hits a pocket on a socket on a port,
and the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,
and the address of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,
then the socket packet pocket has an error to report
No, I do not want to run a windows session, entirely, though this sounds promising, thanks.
I DO need a 'bootable' menu for multiple 'bootable images'[*.iso] on a USB stick. At least that is what I was and am hoping for.
There is an post[entry below] by Acigo[I think, am writing now so am not sure of his name, sorry]edit['ed P'[apologies ed] is the author of this particular post and it is a ways up in the postings, near the top]--- which explains about using boot.ini files et al, which I am looking at now...there's a light at the end of this convoluted tunnel, ta-ta
keetoe.
you want a menu like this? (see screenshot)
http://ultilex.linux-bg.org/
Note that this does not require partitioning your USB drive (well at least it didn't on a CD)
I suppose you can contact the developers to make one for you.
what you have here, with things like windows not easy to make, usb drivers, boot sectors, all that has to be build into the iso files.
Have a look at SARDU
http://www.sarducd.it/
it works with some iso by itself, for others it might be possible to be modified.
I did not test the recent version, tried it abt a year ago, got some kind of multiboot version then, but not for all distros it was supposed to work with.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland