Create a muilti boot flash drive (XP & Vista)

ns400r · 9 Jun 2012 at 17:16

mrbell1984 said:
That looks a messy way to do it.

Yes but it appears to work.
Took me years to find.

tribz · 9 Jun 2012 at 17:25

Guys, get one of the these

Copy all your ISO's onto it and use it as a virtual CD/DVD. BIOS sees it as a USB DVD Drive with whichever ISO you have selected. You can use it as a USB HD also.

I would be lost without this!

Deleted member 77746 · 9 Jun 2012 at 17:33

bah if it does work then wow, about time I saw something working.

I don't require it any more I just decided.

ns400r · 9 Jun 2012 at 17:35

Something like that is too big to fit in my pocket. I'd rather have a bunch of USB pen drives that can be easily carried around all the time.

Swordfish · 9 Jun 2012 at 20:00

Just tried with a new program called X boot - superb.

Drag ISO into the prog and it even has a virtual tester.

Works a treat

Deleted member 77746 · 9 Jun 2012 at 20:06

Swordfish said:
Just tried with a new program called X boot - superb.

Drag ISO into the prog and it even has a virtual tester.

Works a treat

This works with windows multi boot ?

Swordfish · 9 Jun 2012 at 20:17

mrbell1984 said:
This works with windows multi boot ?

Yes - I have just created a flash drive with

XP Home (OEM)
XP Pro (OEM)
XP Prop VL
Vista x86
Vista x64
Windows 7 All In One

14.4 GB

Superb.

One thing XBoot needs to be told that ISO emulation if Grub4dos.

Deleted member 77746 · 9 Jun 2012 at 20:19

I never thought it was possible! Do they all boot via a menu?

Swordfish · 9 Jun 2012 at 20:37

mrbell1984 said:
I never thought it was possible! Do they all boot via a menu?

Yes.

However I might have been a bit quick with the xboot as my test system (one of my own laptops 100% OK) BSOD after the file copy section.

Further testing required methinks.

Might be an issue with XP only though, so will use Xboot for Vitsa & 7 and WinSetupFromUSB for XP (screenshots to follow)

Deleted member 77746 · 9 Jun 2012 at 21:12

That is not windows 7 / xp / vista e.t.c. Multi boot would be windows xp / vista / windows 7 properly working. Even thought the menu is there it needs to boot all.

Swordfish · 9 Jun 2012 at 21:24

mrbell1984 said:
That is not windows 7 / xp / vista e.t.c. Multi boot would be windows xp / vista / windows 7 properly working. Even thought the menu is there it needs to boot all.

Post the wrong screengrab.

This is the 14GB one

They all boot fine, but do suffer (XP ones) from BSOD after copying the files.

I'm gonna keep playing with it though.

Swordfish · 11 Jun 2012 at 09:57

Got the XP side of things working using win to USB.

Six versions of XP on one flash drive.

Now to find a way of fitting Vista and 7 into the mix maybe !!

KIA · 11 Jun 2012 at 11:01

Good work, Swordfish.

sithlord · 12 Jun 2012 at 22:58

Have you tried WInAIO Maker Pro ?

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/th...ssional-The-All-in-One-Windows-Setup-Solution

The only thing at the moment is it cant add XP.

Swordfish · 13 Jun 2012 at 11:33

sithlord said:
Have you tried WInAIO Maker Pro ?

http://forums.mydigitallife.info/th...ssional-The-All-in-One-Windows-Setup-Solution

The only thing at the moment is it cant add XP.

Will have a look at that for merging my Vista x86 & x64 installs.

Swordfish · 16 Jun 2012 at 10:41

Swordfish said:
Yes.

However I might have been a bit quick with the xboot as my test system (one of my own laptops 100% OK) BSOD after the file copy section.

Further testing required methinks.

Might be an issue with XP only though, so will use Xboot for Vitsa & 7 and WinSetupFromUSB for XP (screenshots to follow)

Ran further tests using this method and can now get every OS install to the point of selecting the hard drive for install, only for it not to find any drives !!!

Gonna nlite,vlite and 7 lite the mass storage packs into the images and see if that helps.

The flash drives made using WintoUSB software works perfectly.

eXor · 16 Jun 2012 at 10:50

Grub no good? Each installer on its own partition. Grub boot menu.

Maybe hide the other partitions on boot ( Grub can do all this ), so that they don't interfere with each other.

I've multibooted various Linux LiveCDs, Windows 7 installer and various AV Live CDS, on a single flash drive, with this method.

No reason why multiple Windows installers cannot co-exist peacefully.

I'll see if I can find my grub config file for the above and post it here later.

( No promises, though. I may have deleted it! )

Deleted member 77746 · 16 Jun 2012 at 11:44

Swordfish said:
Ran further tests using this method and can now get every OS install to the point of selecting the hard drive for install, only for it not to find any drives !!!

Gonna nlite,vlite and 7 lite the mass storage packs into the images and see if that helps.

The flash drives made using WintoUSB software works perfectly.

That is why I said it was messy. I can't find a decent one. Never have, never will.

Swordfish · 16 Jun 2012 at 16:57

eXor said:
Grub no good? Each installer on its own partition. Grub boot menu.

Maybe hide the other partitions on boot ( Grub can do all this ), so that they don't interfere with each other.

I've multibooted various Linux LiveCDs, Windows 7 installer and various AV Live CDS, on a single flash drive, with this method.

No reason why multiple Windows installers cannot co-exist peacefully.

I'll see if I can find my grub config file for the above and post it here later.

( No promises, though. I may have deleted it! )

Problem lies with the partitions - on 4 primary partitions can be made on a drive and I have more than 4 versions of XP alone.

mrbell1984 said:
That is why I said it was messy. I can't find a decent one. Never have, never will.

I'm not going to give up. will probably get things set up by the times Win 8 comes along and screws me over !!!