Ventoy — The Complete Guide: One USB Drive for All Your ISO Files
Ventoy solves the drawer full of USB sticks, one per system. You install it on the drive once, and from then on you copy ISO, WIM, IMG or VHD files to it like any other file and pick one from a menu at boot. Its code is under GPL-3.0 and use is free, including commercial. The project is developed mainly by a single developer.
Ventoy
longpanda (Ventoy project)
One USB drive that boots many ISO files: copy the images to the drive and pick one from a menu, with no reformatting.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Multi-boot — a Windows installer, several Linux distributions and rescue tools on one drive.
- Copy instead of flash — add or replace an ISO without reformatting.
- Space for files — the rest of the drive stays available for normal files.
- UEFI, BIOS and Secure Boot — works on most computers, including files over 4 GB.
- Persistence and automated installs — keep changes in a live Linux system and use install scripts.
A first install without surprises
The first Ventoy install erases the whole drive, so back up whatever is on it first. Later version upgrades keep your files, but it is still unwise to keep the only copy of an important file on the drive. If a rare image will not boot from the menu, write it on its own with Rufus.
Related tools
To write a single system, including cases Ventoy does not handle — Rufus. Rescue tools worth keeping on the drive — GParted and Clonezilla.
Rufus
Pete Batard
Creates bootable USB drives from Windows or Linux ISO images, in a small program that runs without installation.
Get it from the vendor
GParted
GParted project (GNOME)
A graphical partition editor to create, resize, move and copy partitions, also as a live system booted from USB on any PC.
Get it from the vendor
Clonezilla
NCHC Free Software Labs
Disk and partition imaging and cloning from boot media, including deployment to dozens of machines at once over a network.
Get it from the vendorRescuezilla
Rescuezilla project
Disk backup, restore and cloning in a simple graphical interface from a USB stick, compatible with Clonezilla images.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
The last USB stick you will need to prepare: a portable toolbox of install and rescue systems that you update by dragging a file.