As someone working in IT I always have many USB sticks with different ISO images on them for case that I would need them to re-install or to fix a specific device such as as server or laptop. A couple of weeks ago I came across a tool called Ventoy which could make life a bit easier.!
Ventoy is an open source tool which allows you to create a multi bootable USB drive where it allows you to boot from any image files you have on your USB drive.
How to install?
So for the sake of this post and since I wanted to install this but actually never took the chance to do this, let’s start installing this together.
Well, let’s start with your USB drive. Make sure you have a USB drive which is big enough to carry all the different images which you need.
Download the tool from the official website on your computer. After downloading, open & extract the content and simply run Ventoy2Disk.exe file and make sure you have your USB drive plugged in.
Before you actually install Ventoy, make sure to check “Secure Boot Support” first, Why? Because these days most of laptops/computers BIOS only allow disk and drive to run if they’re signed in a specific way. Since we’ll be having multiple bootable images we need to do this ourselves first.
Now click your USB drive correctly, in case you have multiple USB drives in your computer, as Ventoy will automatically formats your USB drive.
After a successful installation, Ventoy will create 2 partitions:
- Boot Partition: which you can only see under “Computer Management -> Disk Management” is the boot partition. You actually don’t do anything with this partition but worthwhile mentioning.
- Data partition: This is the location where you can actually place your bootable images on to. Simply drag & drop your ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files.
After copying your needed images and in case you need to use it; Simply choose Ventoy disk from the Boot Menu in BIOS option upon starting the device which needs fixing, and you can boot using the different images which you already have installed.
I haven’t gone through the documentation fully since I wanted to get the “basics” to work first. However Ventoy also offers a great documentation page where you can actually learn more about the tool, the different options it offers and even how to customize its menu. I’m actually surprised and like it already since it makes it easier for me to carry multiple images on 1 USB drive.
Are you using Ventoy as well or do you use any other tool? Let me know your thoughts!