Is it possible to create a bootable USB from my Android phone?

Shashman · 4 Feb 2023 at 08:35

Morning all.

Yesterday after putting my new upgrade together, I went to boot from what I thought was a bootable flash drive... Nothing.

Probably should have checked it before formatting my system RIP

What can I do? I don't have access to another PC.

Edit: I tried an app called ISO2USB yesterday and after taking about an hour to do it's thing, it didn't work. As soon as the system booted up it gave me an error about a missing file

Semple · 4 Feb 2023 at 09:23

Have you got friends/family with a PC?

Can't think of an alternative way unless you purchase a pre-loaded USB with the OS on it.

Murphy · 4 Feb 2023 at 09:35

Is the PC using traditional BIOS or UEFI, if it's the latter you can just format the USB drive as FAT32, or if it's supported by the UEFI you can use NTFS, and simply copy what i assume is the content of an ISO, CD, DVD.

All UEFI needs to boot is a FAT32 partition (NTFS if it's supported) with a particular folder/file layout. UEFI looks for a file called bootx64.efi in a /EFI/BOOT folder in the root of each partition and will pass the booting process to that file.

Essentially if you have a /EFI/BOOT/bootx64.efi on a partition it should show up in UEFI as an available boot option.

joey1211 · 4 Feb 2023 at 09:53

My old Asus motherboard had a browser built into the motherboard. You had to enable it in the BIOS. Whether it will allow you to download software to burn an iso image I can't tell you.

"ASUS Express Gate is technology developed by ASUS and introduced with their P5E3 series of motherboards. It utilizes Splashtop, a Linux environment that is integrated into the motherboard. With this technology, users can turn on their computer and within five seconds, access the Internet using Firefox, online e-mail, Skype, and the Splashtop desktop. These programs and features are available while their operating system is still loading."

Shashman · 4 Feb 2023 at 12:31

Thanks for the replies guys. I've gone to a mate's and used Media Creation Tool to create a boot USB. About to try it now, fingers crossed.

I say fingers crossed because the Chrome Restore Utility attempt didn't work (neighbour has a Chromebook).

AthlonXP1800 · 4 Feb 2023 at 18:34

Yes you can create bootable USB stick from android phone with 2 apps and a £1.50 USB-C to USB adapter. I tried 5 years ago and it worked.

Ventoy

Ventoy (Unofficial) - Apps on Google Play

Ventoy is a tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO WIM IMG VHD(x) EFI files.

play.google.com

Rufus

DROFUS - Apps on Google Play

DROFUS is an android tool to burn iso file to usb pen drive.

play.google.com

Shashman · 4 Feb 2023 at 23:38

AthlonXP1800 said:
Yes you can create bootable USB stick from android phone with 2 apps and a £1.50 USB-C to USB adapter. I tried 5 years ago and it worked.

Ventoy

Ventoy (Unofficial) - Apps on Google Play

Ventoy is a tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO WIM IMG VHD(x) EFI files.

play.google.com

Rufus

DROFUS - Apps on Google Play

DROFUS is an android tool to burn iso file to usb pen drive.

play.google.com

Cheers, I did triy Ventoy but it was awful. Looked like it was created by scammers, covered with ads for slots. It didn't work anyway.

I couldn't use Rufus on my phone as it's an executable file.

Managed to create a bootable USB at a mate's in the end and all is well!

AthlonXP1800 · 16 Feb 2023 at 00:47

Shashman said:
Cheers, I did triy Ventoy but it was awful. Looked like it was created by scammers, covered with ads for slots. It didn't work anyway.

I couldn't use Rufus on my phone as it's an executable file.

Managed to create a bootable USB at a mate's in the end and all is well!

That really very weird, it made no sense, both apps are not made by scammers, Norton 360 confirmed both apps did not contained malware and it are genuine. I downloaded windows 11 iso on my phone from https://files.rg-adguard.net/ and retested both Ventoy and Rufus app after last used it 5 years ago and I can confirmed both apps worked fine after earned coins after watched adverts and tested booted from usb on VirtualBox and VMWare Workstation. Ventoy worked fine on VirtualBox, Rufus tried to booted but circle loading took forever so it didnt worked. So tried it on VMWare Workstation and it successfully booted to setup. I like Ventoy, it much faster took just 6 mins to created bootable usb stick and only need to drop iso file in it. Rufus is rubbish took 38 mins to created bootable usb stick and extracted files from iso to usb stick.

Ventoy Android version 1.0.88-51 updated on 22 Jan 2023

Rufus Android version 1.0.25 updated on 22 Jan 2023