Many people understand that CDs and DVDs as storage media have a lot of shortcomings. The three most important shortcomings are their poor reliability (this is especially true for CDs: a disk has been lying on a shelf for a year or two, and then it turns out that it has stopped being readable. The reason for this is simple - peeling of the working layer occurred and holes formed, clearly visible in the light), low speed and the need to change disks in the drive when installing software.

In a service center setting, the last 2 points are especially relevant.
Therefore, today we will create a multiboot USB drive from which you can install operating systems or boot a Live CD build.

We will need:
1. USB drive (flash drive with a capacity of 8-16 GB or an external HDD of any size);
2. Images of operating system installers and Live CD;
3. WinSetupFromUSB program (you can download the latest version 1.0 beta 8.

If we create bootable USB flash drive, then you can skip the next section.

The hard drive must be prepared in a special way:
zero, that is, first in a row;
- The boot partition must be main;
- The boot partition must be active;
- The boot partition must be formatted as FAT32.
I shared my external HDD 500 GB as follows:

After preparing the disk, you need to unpack the images from which we will assemble the multiboot module.
- For Windows XP, specify the source where the i386 folder is located;
- For Windows 7, specify the source where the BOOT and SOURCES folders are located;
- To build a Live CD, specify the source where the i386 folder is located;
- To add a ready-made boot disk image (for example, DOS, Linux or some other multi boot disk) you must specify the appropriate ISO image. ATTENTION! Downloading from ISO can be large random access memory(depending on the size of the image)!
- For Linux, specify the source where the SYSLINUX folder is located.

Now that everything is ready, you can start creating a multiboot disk.

ATTENTION!!! BEFORE CREATING A BOOT DISK, YOU NEED TO MAKE SURE THAT THERE IS NO IMPORTANT DATA ON THE MEDIA! OTHERWISE THEY WILL BE IRREVERSIBLY LOST!

Run WinSetupFromUSB...

First of all, let's create boot sector using the built-in Bootice utility.
To do this, select the prepared partition and click the Bootice button in the main program window.
The following window will open:

Next, open Parts Manage:


If you have performed this procedure before, you can skip reformatting.
Select the desired partition or flash drive and click Reformat USB Disk.

For a flash drive or for hard drive with one partition, select USB-HDD Mode (Single Partition). If the disk is supposed to have 2 or more partitions, select USB-HDD Mode (Multi-Partitions).
Partition Alignment is set to Align To Cylinder.
Click Next.

Set partition sizes and file systems:

Click OK and agree that the disk will be formatted and the data will be lost.
Formatting is complete.

In the main Bootice window, the Process MBR button becomes available. Let's press it.


Here we leave everything as it is (GRUB4DOS), click Install/Config.

In the GRUB4DOS settings window, we don’t touch anything, just click Save To Disk:


The Master Boot Record (MBR) has been created.

Now you need to create a partition boot record (PBR - Partition Boot Record).
In the main Bootice window, click Process PBR.
The boot entry creation window will open:

Select GRUB4DOS, click Install/Config, then OK (do not change anything).
The partition boot record (PBR - Partition Boot Record) has been created.

Very often, to “treat” the computer, to reinstall the operating system, and in many other cases, the user needs to use a boot disk. It would seem that there is nothing simpler - you can buy such a disc or borrow it from friends (in general, this is not a problem). But there are situations when optical drive doesn't work, you don't have a bootable USB flash drive at hand, or you need to boot your netbook. The problem can be fixed if you have an external hard drive. But you need to take care of making it bootable in advance, without waiting for the moment when you need it.

Some experts, in order to make the hard drive bootable, recommend using a special software. But we will take a simpler route and use standard tools of the operating system itself. We will consider all operations using Windows 8.1 as an example. However, keep in mind that the process of creating a boot disk based on external hard disk via Windows operating systems of earlier versions is, in principle, similar (the differences are not too global). So, everything in order.

Preparing an external hard drive

Before you start working with your hard drive, you need to transfer all important information With of this device to another medium. After this, it is recommended to divide the used hard drive into 2 partitions. We will use one for our personal needs, and in the second we will create a boot disk.

1. First, connect the external drive to the computer and go to the control panel section - “Computer Management”.

Attention! Remember - all data recorded on the external hard drive will be deleted as a result of your actions!

If you are working with Windows 8.1, then right-click the manipulator and select Start/Disk Management.

Concerning previous versions systems, then you should use the control panel in them: Start / Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Management / Storage Devices / Disk Management.

2. Now from the list presented you need to select your external hard drive from which you plan to make a boot one. Be careful when choosing a device, because all data on it will be deleted!

In our case external drive– this is disk 1, already divided into 2 partitions (volumes).

3. Delete the partitions on the disk. To do this, right-click on each partition and select “Delete volume” in the menu that opens.

Note: If your external drive only has one partition, then you just need to format that drive.

4. Create 2 partitions on the external drive - one for the boot disk, the second for various data for your own use. To do this, right-click on the free space that is displayed by the disk and select “Create a simple volume.”

5. The Volume Creation Wizard will open in front of you, in which you need to specify the size of the new volume. For us, a volume of 4404 megabytes (4.18 GB) is suitable. Click “Next”.

We designate the disk with a letter:

We need to format the new partition. Choose file system FAT 32, click “Next” and then “Finish”.

6. Now we need to activate the created partition (this is a prerequisite and if it is not met, the computer will not be able to boot from this partition). To do this, in the context menu of the section, select the command “Make section active” and confirm by selecting the word “Yes”.

Our external drive will look like this:

7. In the same sequence, format the additional partition, choosing the NFTS file system for it. Please note that it should not be made active.

How to make an external drive bootable - the final stage

Creating a system distribution kit on an external hard drive after preparing the latter does not look so difficult.

Create a distribution from a bootable DVD:

To do this, open the contents of the installation DVD in Explorer and copy all the files to the activated partition created on external media.

Create a distribution from an ISO image:

What is an image ISO disk? This is nothing more than a special archive. And if this is an archive, this means that it can always be opened. Programs such as Daemon Tools or Total Commander. If Windows 8 (8.1) is installed on your PC, then you can even open the archive using Explorer.

You need to copy all unzipped files to an external hard drive (to its active partition).

That's probably all. You now know how to make an external hard drive bootable. In order for the computer to boot from this disk, you just need to enter the BIOS and set the boot priority for the USB HDD.

A bootable USB Flash or HDD drive is convenient because you can avoid using CD/DVD to install the OS and use diagnostic programs such as Memtest, MHDD, Acronis TI.

A “multi-boot” flash drive or HDD is good because you don’t have to format the entire disk for each program, but install everything there once necessary programs and when loading from it, select the one you need through a beautiful menu. In the case of an HDD, it is convenient to create a separate small partition for this.

There are many solutions for flash drives (for example, http://eee-pc.ru/wiki/soft:usb_multiboot), but, as a rule, they do not work with USB HDD. On Habré I only found information about installing Win7 from a USB HDD, but a year ago attempts to reproduce this were unsuccessful. For Windows installations 7 from a flash drive there is MS Win7 DVD Tool, but again it does not work with HDD. So let's create our own multiboot USB HDD using GRUB4DOS.

We will need:

• USB HDD (everything described should also work for flash drives).
• Windows OS (of course, you can do this similarly from an OS on Linux based, but I don’t currently have the opportunity to check the performance and the presence of “pitfalls”).
• Motherboard (BIOS) capable of booting from USB drives. If booting from USB is not supported, you can use Plop, more on that below.

Let's get started

1. Download HP USBFW and format our drive. Usually everyone, including me, skips this step. It may work without it, but personally, I tried all the standard formatting options from Windows 7, but booting from my 320GB Toshiba did not work (it froze immediately after selecting it in the Boot menu) before using this utility.
2. If you used HP USBFW from the previous point, you can delete the partition it created for the entire disk and create your own, smaller one (preferably FAT32, otherwise problems may arise with some programs and the OS), and leave the remaining space for “file dumping”.
3. Install the GRUB4DOS bootloader in the MBR. It is recommended to use the first option so as not to make a mistake when choosing a disk or partition.
   1. You can use the GUI: to do this, download grubinst-1.1-bin-w32-2008-01-01, run grubinst_gui.exe, select the disk, click Refresh V Part list and select the desired section. The rest of the settings can be left untouched.
   2. Or in the console with the command: grubinst.exe hd(disk number, partition number) The disk number can be found in Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc).
4. Copying files grldr And Menu.lst from the archive grub4dos-0.4.4.zip to the root of the section.

You can reboot and check the functionality of our multiboot drive.

To check the functionality of many programs, it is not necessary to reboot the computer every time. Can be used virtual machines: MobaLiveCD or VirtualBox. For VB, execute in the console: "C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage" internalcommands createrawvmdk -filename "C:\USBHDD.VDI" -rawdisk \\.\PhysicalDrive1 where the number in PhysicalDrive is the number of our boot disk, and indicate the resulting file (C:\USBHDD.VDI) as the hard drive when creating the machine. However, some operating systems (such as Windows 7) may not work this way.

Examples of installing some OS and programs

Memmers86+

Download ISO image from off. site memtest.org/download/4.20/memtest86+-4.20.iso.zip and throw it on our boot HDD (do not forget to unpack the .zip archive).

Open Menu.lst text editor, add the following there:
title Memtest find --set-root /mt420.iso map /mt420.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) chainloader ()
And let's try to figure out what these commands mean.
title Memtest - the name of the item (Memtest) that will be displayed in the menu.
map/mt420.iso (hd32) - loading an ISO image located in the root of the boot disk (CD-ROM emulation).
root(hd32) - makes the virtual CD-ROM root.
chainloader() - transfers control to another bootloader (if nothing is specified in brackets, then the root one is used, in this case hd32).

Ubuntu 10.4

We also drop the ISO image from ubuntu.com onto the HDD and write it in Menu.lst (the image is renamed ubuntu1.iso):

Title Ubuntu map /ubuntu1.iso (hd32) map --hook root (hd32) kernel /casper/vmlinuz iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu1.iso boot=casper quiet splash -- locale=ru_RU initrd /casper/initrd.lz

Windows 7

But with Win 7 it’s a little more complicated.

Method 1:

Copy all files from the Windows 7 disk (image) and add them to Menu.lst:
title Install Windows 7 find --set-root /bootmgr chainloader /bootmgr

In some cases it works, but various errors may occur during installation. In addition, this method will only work if there is only one Windows 7 on the hdd, otherwise (for example, if we want to put x86 and x64 there), the installation of the first one found will start.

Method 2:

UPD: automation of this method: rghost.ru/20467691 or greenflash.su/_fr/7/7487664.7z. The files from the archive (except for menu.lst and seven.iso) must be copied to the root of the section (or the paths in Menu.lst must be changed accordingly).

Possible problems and errors

Error 60: File for drive emulation must be in one contiguous disk area

Solution: You need to defragment the image. For example, using the Contig program from Mark Russinovich. Usage: contig.exe g:\ubuntu1.iso in the console.

BIOS does not support booting from USB, freezes, takes a long time to load and other problems associated with booting from a USB HDD

As if installing an OS is not something complicated, and my opinion is that it is enough to be friends with the computer and have two more hands in addition to your head - one right and the other left. To install the OS on your computer, you need a boot disk or bootable USB flash drive.

But what to do if you have neither one nor the other, the optical drive does not work, or you have a netbook? After thinking a little, I remembered that I have an external USB pocket for HDD and a free old HDD 2.5\’\’ I also have it. In general, if you have a pocket hard drive, you can make it bootable.

There are utilities for this purpose that can be used to do this, but I decided to use the standard ones using Windows.

There are a lot of descriptions and videos on the Internet, but, unfortunately, there is one problematic point that the authors for some reason omit. Well, okay, I'll start in order.

Before working with a disk, be sure to transfer and save the necessary information from this disk to another medium.

I will carry out all the settings standard means Windows 8.1. There may be some differences from previous Windows releases, but if there are any, they are not significant.

First of all, I want to note that making an external HDD bootable is much more convenient. I divided the disk into two partitions, one contains the Windows distribution, the other partition is for my needs.

1. We connect the USB pocket and go to Disk Management.

Attention! All data on the disk will be destroyed!

If you have Windows 8 installed on your PC,1 right-click: Start/Disk Management;

If Windows is earlier versions, open the Computer Management console: Start / Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Management / expand Storage Devices / left click Disk Management.

See screenshot:

2. Choose external HDD drive. Be extremely careful; if you select another drive by mistake, all information will be destroyed.

In my case, this is Disk 1. As you can see in the screenshot, the disk is divided into two volumes (partitions):

3. Delete disk partitions:

4. Create new disk partitions. One for the distribution, the second will remain for your needs:

Right-click on a free disk field and select the command in the context menu Create a simple volume:

5. In the Create Simple Volume Wizard window that appears, click the button Further:

Specify the volume size as 4404 megabytes and click Next. Please note that the size is indicated in megabytes. And since 1 gigabyte is equal to 1024 megabytes, then we get 1024×4.3 = 4403.2 megabytes for the distribution partition (mine weighs 4.18 GB, for example);

In this dialog, you need to format the new partition (FAT 32), click Further then Ready:

6. After this, you need to make the created partition active (don’t forget, because the computer will boot from this partition), to do this:

Right click the mouse and select the command in the context menu Make the section active.

We respond to the confirmation request YES.

The external HDD looks like this:

7. We format the second partition on the disk in the same order, preferably in NTFS, but do not make it active.

Copying Windows to the active partition of an external HDD

Copying a Windows distribution to a bootable external HDD is quite simple and easy.

From boot DVD:

Open the installation DVD in Explorer, select all folders and files, and copy to the active partition of the external HDD;

From the ISO image:

By and large, an ISO image is a kind of archive. So you can open it using any archiver. You can also open the ISO image through Total Commander or Daemon Tools. Well, if you have Windows 8 or 8.1 installed on your PC, then open it with Explorer. Select all folders and files and copy them to the active partition of the external HDD;

That's it, your external HDD can act as bootable media. Just reboot and set the boot priority to USB HDD in the BIOS (depending on the BIOS type).

• When you turn on the laptop, press F2 to enter the BIOS;
• Go to the tab Boot;
• IN Boot Priority order install USB HDD;
• Click F10, and then OK.

If that doesn't work, check out this article.

Save the changes and proceed to install Windows.

As we can see from the text, preparing an external HDD for installing Windows is quite simple. And my description will not be complete if I do not talk about one problem that for some reason is rarely written about on the Internet.

Making the hard drive partition active

When I divided the hard drive into two volumes, for some reason unknown to me, not a single partition of the disk could be made active. This function was not available in the context menu.

The active partition is the partition from which the computer boots.

There are two ways to make a section active:

1. Using the Computer Management console. We have already considered this method, but, unfortunately, for a number of reasons, the Make Partition Active command may not be available. The solution to this problem is also not difficult. Remember how to prepare a bootable USB flash drive from the Command Line.
2. Using the Command Line, through the utility diskpart. The second method is a little more complicated, but more effective. You just need to do all the operations carefully and slowly.

Setting the active partition using the command line

1. Connect external USB HDD;

2. Click Start/All Programs/Accessories/Command Prompt. Right-click and select Run as administrator.

3. In the window that opens, write the command diskpart and press the button Enter. An invitation line to work with the utility will appear – DISKPART>;

4. Enter the command list disk and press the button Enter. You will see all the disks installed on your computer;

5. We select the disk with which we will work. To do this, enter the command select disk 0, where “0” is the disk number in the list, i.e. for my external drive there will be a command select disk 1. Click the button Enter, the message Disk 1 selected will appear;

6. Next, you need to find all partitions on the selected disk. Enter the command list partition and press the button Enter.

7. We select the section we will work with. Enter the command select partition 1, where 1 is the section number in the list, i.e. for the section that we make active. Click Enter, a message will appear Section 1 selected.

8. Mark the selected partition as active, to do this, enter the command active. Click the button Enter, a message will appear DiskPart: Partition marked as active.

That's all. Good luck.

Every user sooner or later faces the need to install operating system. Even if it is configured and seems to be working properly, a critical failure can occur at any time, and often the problem cannot be solved except by reinstalling it.

A boot disk that was prepared in advance comes to the rescue. However, in some cases, a disk is not the solution. Either the problem occurred on a netbook that does not have a disk drive, or due to a failure it is impossible to boot from the disk. The flash drive can also be made bootable. But this requires a sufficiently capacious free flash card. What to do?

Try preparing a bootable external drive (hard drive). There are both specialized utilities that provide this, and the ability to do everything necessary with built-in Windows programs.

If the hard drive that you decide to adapt for this purpose contains information that is significant to you, then copy it to other media or send it to the cloud. Ideal, of course, when there is nothing on the disk.

We turn on the USB pocket and go to the disk management section, either through the start menu directly, or through the control panel and administration. Select the required disk (extremely carefully, if there is an error, all data on the media will be irretrievably destroyed!), delete all partitions, create new ones.

Let's say one for the operating system, the other for your own special purposes. You can split it into at least 10-12 parts, if you see the need, or you can make only one section, which is essentially the whole disk - a matter of taste. Please note that the partition size must be specified in megabytes. Next, you will need to specify the partition letter and tell the system to make it active.

Then we copy all the files and folders from the root directory of the boot DVD (with all attachments, of course), or open the ISO image in any unpacker and do the same with its contents. Now, in case of any serious failure, you can simply reboot and specify an external hard drive in the BIOS settings.

Everything seems to be simple. But in practice, sometimes there is a strange problem that arises for an unknown reason. Namely, none of the disk partitions wants to become active (system), the context menu appears, but this command is not available in it. You can log into the console over and over again for a long time and persistently, and still not achieve anything.

Or you can run the “dispart” utility via command line and, after performing several simple operations, still solve the problem. Run the command diskpart4, then list disk and you will see a list of all installed disks. Then - “select disk number” (and the number is the number of the required external screw in the list). Fix your choice with enter.

Next is the list partition command and selecting a partition for the desired disk, with whom we will work. To make the selected block active, enter an order... active, of course.