Saturday, October 26, 2019

Create Live MultiBootUSB with Linux/Windows

You could create a Multiboot Live USB containing both Linux and Windows Distros using: WinSetupFromUSB Utility. This provide the following advantages

  1. You don’t need to carry, multiple installation media, but only one !

  2. The Multiboot USB holds the copy of original ISO as a single file, means you could simply remove a distro by removing the ISO file

  3. You could add any new distro, keeping existing distros intact

  4. The tools has built in Qemu emulator, by which you can test the USB without a reboot

Steps:


1. Open WinsetupfromUSB utility, and select your distros (both Linux and Windows)

Note: Select the FBInst format option, if you’re preparing the USB for the first time



2. Test your Live USB either in KVM or VirtualBox, through Virtual USB option

Below figure shows testing the Multiboot USB in VirtualBox. The USB-8GB.vmdk, is pointing to the actual Physical USB Device (/dev/sdc) prepared, created through the below commandline:

VBoxManage internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename USB-8GB.vmdk -rawdisk /dev/sdc


3. While testing it in a physical machine, you need to tweak some settings in BIOS

i.e Enabling UEFI boot, with ForceFDD option to boot Windows and Enabling Legacy (CSM) boot with Force FDD option to boot Linux Distros



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