Ventoy - The Last Bootable USB Software You'll Need?

[Deozaan]

I just discovered Ventoy, which is free, open source (GPL 3.0) software you install on a USB drive to make it bootable. What makes it special is that it also acts like a normal USB storage drive, and you can just copy any multitude of ISOs onto it. When you boot it up it shows a menu where you can choose which ISO to finish booting into. It's like a bootloader for ISOs.

In other words, you can place your bootable Linux ISOs, Windows installation ISOs, etc., all on a single USB drive (assuming it has space for all of them) with no need to reformat or reflash the drive each time you want to change or update ISOs!

Here's a video showing it off:

Main website: https://www.ventoy.net/
Github repo: https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy

[x16wda]

  Nice find, will have to try this out!

[wraith808]

Thanks! 

[Nod5]

Neat software! They have a list of tested ISOs here https://www.ventoy.net/en/isolist.html . The website also details how ISO creators can ensure compatibility. Though I'd hope support for something like what Ventoy does becomes standardized and not tied to this specific tool.

[BGM]

+1 here - or +5, even!  For ages I tried different kinds of bootable usb software and always leaned toward multi-boots.  When I found Ventoy, I stopped looking.  No, I am not advertising - I am just another user, here.

• Put as many bootable ISO files that you like on your flash drive.
• You don't need to organize them - put them whereever you want - Ventoy will find them all and build the boot menu from them.
• When you want to update them, simply replace the ISO file - there is nothing to configure with Ventoy.
• You can boot Linux Mint, and Windows, too.

When you install Ventoy on your flash drive, it creates a hidden partition for Ventoy, and that's the part that actually gets booted when you boot from the flash drive - it's the part that creates the boot menu. 

And when you update Ventoy, you don't need to worry about doing anything with the ISO files.

This is an awesome program.

[KodeZwerg]

I just discovered Ventoy

-Deozaan (August 21, 2020, 02:23 PM)

• You can boot Windows, too.

-BGM (August 23, 2020, 10:29 AM)

Crazy find, will try out ASAP, very smart tool if it holds what it claim! 

[dluby]

Nice find and thanks for sharing.

[anandcoral]

WOW! I have bookmarked this message.

I do not use multi-boot now but will come handy when I use.

Regards,

Anand

[ConstanceJill]

Hey there,

It's a very nice idea, but did you guys have any luck testing it on real hardware? I didn't :/

[Deozaan]

It's a very nice idea, but did you guys have any luck testing it on real hardware? I didn't :/

-ConstanceJill (August 24, 2020, 11:28 AM)

Yes. I've already used it on a really old 8GB thumb drive and booted into a Linux Mint ISO a couple of times from it.

[BGM]

I have used it several times.  I've booted to Linux Mint, Memdisk and Windows PE.  I love this.  I stopped looking for usb boot solutions.

[superboyac]

whoa....this is handy.

[brahman]

Woa! Great! I got sick of reformating USB stick. This may be the cure!

[brahman]

I was just checking my sticks and noticed, that I have used easy2boot.

When I checked for upgrades on their website, I saw their claim: "More versatile and compatible than Ventoy."

https://www.easy2boot.com/

You can also upgrade eas2boot without reformat and upgrade easy2boot without a reformat too just like Ventoy.

Has anybody used both and can give an opinion on Ventoy vs. easy2boot?