Multiboot flash drive win 7 with additional programs. Five programs for creating a bootable USB drive

We remind you that attempts to repeat the actions of the author may lead to the loss of the warranty for the equipment and even to its failure. The material is provided for informational purposes only. If you are going to reproduce the steps described below, we strongly advise you to carefully read the article to the end at least once. 3DNews editors are not responsible for any possible consequences.

Remember the wonderful discs with the title in the spirit of "Reanimator" or " Ambulance for your PC ”, which could easily be found in a nearby tent selling well-licensed software and movies with music? Sometimes they really helped to quickly deal with computer problems or, at worst, find out what exactly was wrong. Sometimes, of course, the quality of these collections left much to be desired. Nowadays, not every computer can be found optical drive- people have either finally gone to the Web and the clouds, or use USB flash drives and external hard drives to quickly transfer data. And they just can be used for self-creation of the very "first aid kit".

The word is right, the process is not complicated at all - with the help of special utilities this is done in just a couple of clicks. The basic idea is simple: we combine several Live-CDs at once with various utilities or OS, write them in a special way to the drive and add a bootloader that will help start all this economy when the computer is turned on. By the way, in the same way, we can create a universal flash drive with several installers of various OS at once. Let's look at some programs that will help us in this matter.

The easiest to use utility for creating multiboot removable drives is called XBoot. You can download it on the official website or on many other mirrors that are listed there. For the program to work correctly, it is imperative to install the .NET Framework at least version 4. Working in XBoot is elementary - just drag the ISO images of the required distributions or utilities into the main program window, and it will extract all necessary information and adds to the download list. In the plate, you can edit the fields Name (name), Category (for more convenient navigation, you can scatter utilities by category) and Help Text ( short description to each loading point).

XBoot is "familiar" with many distributions, but sometimes it is still mistaken or simply cannot recognize that you slipped it into something. In this case, the utility will clarify this question with the user. If you, for example, are trying to add a Linux distribution, then it would be nice to know who was its progenitor. For example, Linux Mint is actually a variation on Ubuntu. Otherwise, you can try selecting Grub4dos emulation for ISO, floppy or hard disk images. By the way, you can add to the USB flash drive the Live version of Windows 7, the creation of which we considered earlier. In WinBuilder, you need to choose to create an ISO image, and in XBoot - the item "PE, MSDART, ERD" when adding it to the boot list. But the installation Windows images, starting with XP, are unlikely to work correctly. For them it is better to use utilities like Windows 7 USB / DVD download tool.

The choice of software for installation on a USB flash drive is yours. We can recommend as the most minimal set such utilities as Memtest86 + and MHDD for diagnosing memory and hard drive, some Live-CD with antivirus (almost every developer of antivirus solutions has those), the GParted partition editor, Ultimate Boot CD and Inquisitor Live for testing hardware, as well as software for logging into OS without a password like Kon-Boot or Offline NT Password & Registry Editor. Most of these programs are actually based on either Linux or good old DOS. So there shouldn't be any problems downloading them. In XBoot, under File → Download, you can quickly get download links for popular applications of this type.

As soon as the set of utilities is formed, you can start creating the assembly - just click Create ISO or Create USB. In the first case, an image will be created that can be written to disk. In the second, you will need to select a USB drive, where all this stuff will be recorded. It is better to use the recommended syslinux as a bootloader. The speed of creating an assembly depends on the total volume of the selected utilities and the speed of the flash drive.

After everything is ready, XBoot will offer to test the build in the embedded QEMU virtual machine. You should not refuse - you can see how it all will look in real life, and at the same time check the performance (well, at least the ability to run) the utilities.

An example of KolibriOS running in the emulator from a flash drive

In the future, to launch QEMU and then test the assembly, you will need to go to the tab with the appropriate name and either drag the ISO image or select the USB drive and click the Boot button. For testing, you can also use the MobaLiveCD program, which is essentially a nice graphical shell for QEMU.

Finally, it is worth noting a couple of important nuances. First, in order to avoid compatibility problems, you must format the removable storage device in the FAT32 system. The creators of XBoot recommend using the RMPrepUSB program to format large disks or flash drives. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine who might need a collection of distributions and utilities with a total volume of several tens or even hundreds of gigabytes. Secondly, even if the check of the finished flash drive in QEMU failed, try booting from it on a real machine anyway. Thirdly, carefully keep track of what kind of drive you are going to work with now. It is not even an hour, you will accidentally overwrite some data on another external HDD... In general, be careful and careful. True, then you will hardly ever need a USB "first aid kit". Good luck!

Hello everyone, I continue my series of articles on bootable usb media. In the last episode, I told and showed in four different ways.

There will be a lot of interesting things, so read the article to the end, repeat all the simple steps and you will have your own multiboot usb device. At the end of the article, I wrote down and posted a detailed video lesson on this topic.

It may seem to some of you that the information is very chewed, but not all people understand computers, and even more so in matters of creating such portable usb devices.

In today's review:

• Preparation
• Creation bootable flash drive
• Adding Windows XP and Windows 7
• Copying files and utilities
• Adding required programs
• Kaspersky Rescue Disk
• Dr. Web Live CD
• Working with a graphical boot list
• Changing and creating a background image

The last item is optional, since the image will already be the default.

Preparation

The whole process will take a different amount of time for each person. If all the distributions of the programs and the image are already at your fingertips, then you will need it much less. If you are making a bootable or multiboot flash drive for the first time, then it can take a lot of time. So get ready and be patient, we will need it today.

The first question that you may have is: What kind of flash drive to take in terms of volume? To create a regular multiboot flash drive with a minimum set of programs, 1 Gigabyte should be enough.

If you want to add distributions of operating systems to it, programs for working with hard disk, bootable shells, utilities for changing passwords and programs for treating your computer from viruses. It is advisable to have at hand a usb medium with a volume of 8 Gigabytes and above.

In the examples, I will have an 8 GB flash drive, you may have a different volume, or even a portable USB HDD.

If you have any data on your usb device, please save it elsewhere, as we will format our usb media.

Create a bootable USB flash drive

To create a multiboot flash drive, we need additional software. There are many programs for creating multiboot devices, but unfortunately most of them on English language.

I decided to use the MultiBoot USB program, which is in Russian. It is more pleasant to work with it, those who get confused or do not understand something can use the instructions for use.

To unpack this archive you will need the 7Zip program. Perhaps your archiver programs will not be able to open some of the archives presented in this review, then I recommend using 7Zip.

After downloading the program, install it on your computer. A “MultiBoot USB” shortcut should appear on the desktop.

We go into it and a small menu opens in front of us with a characteristic welcome sound like on Windows, with 7 seven tabs.

Formatting a flash drive

We connect the previously prepared USB flash drive to the computer and format it. We go to the first item of the HP USB Disk menu Storage format Tool.

The utility for formatting is launched, under the word Device we indicate our USB flash drive. I have this Chipsbnk UDisk, volume (7800 MB), you may have a different designation and size.

We choose file system... If you have a flash drive up to 4 gigabytes, then you can put , if the flash drive is more than 4 GB, then I recommend using the file system ... I have 8 GB, so I chose the second option.

In the formatting options (Format options), put a checkmark in front of Quick Format, thereby, we indicate quick format and click Start.

We are asked if you really want to start the formatting process, we answer Yes. This process shouldn't take long.

After the program formats the USB flash drive, the next HPUSBFW window will appear, in which we click OK.

If an error appears - the device is being used by another program, use the usual formatting.

Also, a portable usb device can be formatted using Windows tools. Go to My Computer >>> Right-click on the USB flash drive >>> Format >>> Quick (clear the table of contents) >>> Start.

Warning window - click OK.

The following window may appear - This disk is in use by another program or process. Click Yes to format it.

Such a message may appear after the USB flash drive is already bootable. In the first steps of creating a multi bootable usb the device should not have such a window.

Installing the bootloader

The Grub4Dos Installer 1.1 window appears. In the upper Disk Name tab, put a dot next to Disk, indicate the usb device and click Install.

I have two disks on my computer, this is a 2 terabyte main hard drive and an 8 GB flash drive, choose the second one. This program will install the bootloader on our device.

When choosing a disk, do not make a mistake and specify exactly your USB flash drive, if you are mistaken and select the main hard disk on which the operating system is installed, then the next time you turn on Windows computer will not start.

Upon completion of the operation, the The MBR / BS has been successfully installed window should appear. To continue please click .

Adding distributions of operating systems

Let's move on to the fourth item WinSetup From USB.

I will add two OS Windows XP and Windows 7. You can add others by clicking on the corresponding items.

Windows XP

If you do not have a disk image with the operating system distribution kit, you can find it yourself on the Internet. I can suggest to download the licensed product Windows XP Prof SP3.

Then we mount the operating system disk image into a virtual drive, I will use the program Daemon tools, you may have another one.

Mount Windows XP Home, you can use Windows XP Professional.

Click on WinSetup From USB, which will help us copy the distribution files of the required operating systems.

In the window that appears, select the desired usb portable device and put a checkmark in front of Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 Setup.

Press the browse button (three dots) and select the disk image prepared in advance and already mounted in the virtual drive. I have this BD-rom drive (H :), you may have a different one.

We are waiting for completion, at the end a small window should appear with the inscription Job done - the work is done.

This process took me about 20 minutes.

Windows 7

If you do not have a disk or an image of the seven, then you can download Windows 7 from the link below:

In order to add Windows 7 or Windows 8 to our flash drive, you need to do almost everything the same as for Windows XP, only when you select Add to USB disk: you need to check the box next to Vista / 7 / Server - 2008 Setup / PE / Recovery ISO ...

Select the mounted disk image, start the process and wait for it to complete.

Making a multiboot flash drive

We return to MultiBoot USB and go to the fifth point: Copying files and utilities.

The multiboot flash drive window opens, press the browse button.

Select our portable usb device and click OK.

Then click on the Extract button to start the process of copying files.

A small window appears to confirm the replacement of files, replace the existing file usbdrive.tag, click Yes for all.

We perform the same action for all subsequent files that we will be offered to replace.

If you want to see what came of it, then go to the fourth item WinSetup From USB, click the button , check the box next to and press .

Here is boot menu you should be able to do it.

There are points here that need to be slightly edited, and some to be removed altogether.

Add the necessary program images

I decided to remove Symantec Ghost and Windows XPE - full version, since I don't need them, but we'll come back to this later.

First of all, let's add an image of the following programs that are on the list, namely Acronis, Windows XPE - mini version and Windows 7PE - mini version. Images of these three programs can be downloaded from the links below:

Here you have downloaded all three images, now we need to replace empty files on working images. To do this, you need to go to the multiboot flash drive, in the folder , delete the image files, where it says 0 KB and insert the three image files that you downloaded earlier.

Alternatively, you can not delete them, but simply replace them with working images, but for this the downloaded Acronis file Disk Director 11 Acronis Home 2011 - LiveUSB, you need to rename to Acronis.iso.

I put these three images in a separate folder in advance, so that later you can copy and paste them on a USB flash drive in the folder .

You can also check the box below - Do this for the next two conflicts, thereby all three image files will be replaced with working ones.

ERD Commander

Now I propose to add to the multiboot usb device useful program ERD Commander, for changing passwords in Windows operating systems.

Why does she need you ask me? I will answer you. ERD Commander can be used if you forget the password for your account Windows. Boot with this utility, select the required operating system and change the password.

Especially for you, I found on the Internet a set of ERD Commander programs that work in Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8.

After downloading the image of the program, copy it and paste it on the USB flash drive in the folder .

Boot disk from Doctor Web

Surely each of you or your acquaintances has encountered the problem of viruses, various banners and similar hacker tricks. So, if your operating system does not load or you cannot enter Windows, then I recommend using boot disk from Doctor Web.

With it, you can boot and check your computer for viruses, even if the normal login to Windows is not possible.

To do this, we need to go to the official website of the Web (I call it Doctor IOM), go to the Download section >>> Treatment utilities >>> Dr.Web Live CD and download the image to our computer. The anti-virus databases are updated daily.

Downloaded the image, ok, now you need to rename it from v .

Then we also copy the renamed image to the USB flash drive into the folder .

Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10

Everyone has heard that there is Kaspersky Anti-Virus, some of you have used it or are still using it. I like this antivirus and are quite happy with it, so I have been using it for over 5 years now.

Kaspersky also has a disk for emergency Windows recovery like Doctor Web. It is called Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10, its anti-virus databases are updated regularly, so Kaspersky can help you if viruses start on your computer, and you will not be able to log in to the system.

Downloaded the image, rename it from v .

We go to the root of the flash drive, create in it new folder and call it .

Then copy the renamed image to the created folder .

That's not all. We return to the root of our portable usb device and create a new text document in it.

Rename<Новый текстовый документ.txt>v .

Removing the extension<.txt>and press enter.

We are warned that after changing the extension, the file may not be available, click<Да>.

Working with a graphical boot menu

Now we have finally added all the necessary programs and file images to our bootable USB flash drive. Now you need to edit the graphical boot menu that appears when you select our distributions, programs and utilities.

We go to the USB flash drive, to the root, find the file , open it with Notepad, WordPad or , to whom it is more convenient.

Just in case, I'll show you how to open the sheet menu using notepad if you don't have Notpad ++. Right click on the file , choose Open.

Failed to open window appears this file... We put a point near<Выбор программы из списка установленных программ>and press .

If it is not there, then you need to double-click on Other programs or on the right on the small pointer down.

In the list that appears, find Notepad or WordPad, select it and click OK.

I'm used to working through a comfortable , so I will carry out all editing work in it.

Before us appears a list of all items, which is displayed in the graphical menu of our bootable usb device.

First of all, I propose to remove (delete) unnecessary and unnecessary items mentioned earlier, Symantec Ghost and Windows XPE - full version.

The superfluous have been removed, now I propose to edit our list in accordance with the contents of our flash drive. Depending on the name of the images on the usb device, you need to rename these names in the list menu, that is, make them the same for everything to work.

I will write the names of my images, you may have others, but remember one thing, if you make a mistake in at least one letter, the required distribution kit or program will not start.

Previously, we added distributions of Windows XP and Windows 7 operating systems through the WinSetup From USB utility. We find the corresponding items in our menu and change their names to new ones.

Windows 7 all

In my case, I take away and I enter .

Windows XP Home

Then rename the name of the Windows XP boot loader. At the moment in the menu sheet<Установка Microsoft Windows XP SP3 x86 — Русская версия>.

In order to see the name of your image, just go to the USB flash drive in the folder .

There will be a disk image and its name, which we registered above in the list menu.

ERD Commander

We also inserted an image of the ERD Commander program, you need to add an entry about it to our download list.

To do this, copy the recording from Acronis, change the name to ERD Commander and two paths of the image file to .

Doctor Web

With Doctor Web, things will be a little more complicated. Insert the following text into the sheet menu:

title Dr.Web LiveCD - Anti-Virus Utility
partnew (% @ root: ~ 1.3%, 3) 0x00 /Boot/drweb.iso
map /Boot/drweb.iso (0xff)
map —hook
cat —skip = 85 (0xff) / boot / config | set ID =
kernel (0xff) / boot / vmlinuz% ID% root = / dev / ram0 init = / linuxrc init_opts = 4 quiet vga = 791 splash = silent, theme: drweb CONSOLE = / dev / tty1 BOOT_LANG = ru_RU.UTF-8
initrd (0xff) / boot / initrd

And place it wherever you like on our download list.

Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10

In order for the utility from Kaspersky to work, you also need to insert special text, which I posted below:

title Downloading Kav Rescue 10 - Disaster Recovery Utility
map (hd0,0) /rescue/rescue.iso (hd32) || map —mem (hd0,0) /rescue/rescue.iso (hd32)
map —hook
root (hd32)
chainloader (hd32)

We also place it in any place we like in the list of the menu sheet.

Thus, we have edited the file , according to the added programs and images to our multiboot flash drive.

If you want to change the name of the items to your own, then in the line