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Ventoy: Create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI Files
- steelbrain 11mo agoLove Ventoy! I never have to flash my USBs anymore. Just keep dropping those ISO files in there. Highly recommended.
- canistel 11mo agoSame here. You can drop as many ISO files as you want and select during boot...
- fullstop 11mo agoI really like the idea of this, but I've run into several installers which are just incompatible with it. I don't remember which ones, unfortunately, but they just didn't deal with it well.
- finalarbiter 11mo agoAgreed. I have also found that some (dirt cheap) USB drives are incompatible with Ventoy entirely, being that it does not format the drive properly. I can drop ISOs all I like, but if they don't boot once I select them... Unfortunately I have resorted to using my trusty "pile o' flash drives" I've had for a decade.
- mhurron 11mo agoVentoy basically breaks openSUSE ISO's. Just mentioning that so maybe it'll show up more in searches.
- WaxProlix 11mo agoIf you have secureboot enabled and in Windows friendly mode, you can get validation failures with Ventoy until you either turn off secureboot, register the Ventoy MOK key, or change your secureboot setting to Generic OS (or whatever). Kind of a pain, I think any machine that's had windows on it will get this setting enabled.
- Liquix 11mo agoIME this can sometimes be resolved by selecting 'use grub2 mode' instead of allowing the ISO to boot normally.
- starky 11mo agoAgreed, I've run into just enough installers that don't work with Ventoy where I've just defaulted back to using etcher when I need access. The 5 minutes wait is worth it over the frustration of booting into Ventoy and finding it doesn't work with the ISO I'm trying to use.
- mbirth 11mo agoIt’s mostly obscure ISOs for e.g. ReactOS and KolibriOS that don’t work for me. But normal Linux- or Windows-based ISOs all boot fine.
- fullstop 11mo agoI wish that I could remember which Linux distribution that balked at it. It wasn't an obscure one, though.
- dspillett 11mo agoI've seen an installer get confused by the presence of an EFI partition on the stick, and not correctly create one on the target drive. There are probably ways to get around that, but I just made a separate USB stick for the installer (I had a spare stick floating around, and the tools handy (including on at least one of the live CDs on the ventoy stick)) and retried that way, which was probably faster than researching another method.
- jonbiggums22 11mo agoIs it possible to boot a full windows install from this (probably using a VHD image)? I know it would be slow but it would be nice to have something with all my utilities.
- gunalx 11mo agoShould be doable yes.
- haunter 11mo agoIt can directly boot into any VHD image https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_vhdboot.html https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_vhdboot.html
- kzshantonu 11mo agoYou don't have to store the vhd file on the ventoy device. You can keep it on an internal partition and boot from that. After that, the ventoy drive doesn't have to stay plugged in
- daeken 11mo agoVentoy is a lifesaver. I dropped a 2TB NVMe drive into a USB-C enclosure and put it on there, along with all the OS installers, distros, and test utilities I commonly use. Probably used it a few dozen times since then and it's well and truly paid for itself!
- mongrelion 11mo agoI was going to ask how this would be better than any of the other options out there (like dd, the RPi imager and similar) but after seeing the README I consider this the superior alternative because you don't have to reflash the USB stick over and over again. It supports multiple images at the same time, unlike the other solutions where one image take over the whole USB stick. Love it.
- indigodaddy 11mo agoVentoy wouldn't work for a rpi though would it?
- gunalx 11mo agoThis is real good also wfor installing win11, because it at least did the local user and requirements bypass patches last time i used it.
- fumeux_fume 11mo agoThe nice thing about Ventoy—and I didn’t fully appreciate this until I used it—is how simple it makes bootable USBs. You just drag and drop ISO images onto the drive, and it can hold as many as will fit. When you boot from the Ventoy USB, you just pick the image you want to install or run—no re-flashing, no fuss. It’s honestly wild how convenient it is. Ventoy was the only method that worked for me when I needed to install Windows alongside an existing Linux setup for dual-booting. Everything else I tried failed, but Ventoy handled it perfectly.
- nutjob2 11mo agoNotably Ventoy doesn't work with some Windows install ISOs.
- jaderobbins1 11mo agoAny specifics on which windows install ISOs don't work? That way I'll know which ones will need a dedicated USB stick.
- CapsAdmin 11mo agoLast week I tried to make a bootable usb with windows 11. I tried using dd on macos, and that seemed to work, but the windows installer errored about "not finding drivers for the hdd". This threw me off because I thought something was wrong with the nvme. Turns out you can't just dd a windows iso onto a usb drive. You have to format it to fat32, then manually copy all the files. However there is one big installer file which is above 4gb, so you have to get some tool (also provided by Microsoft) to split the file into multiple files less than 4gb. The windows installer will recognize the split files and use those instead. It's beyond me why the official windows iso just doesn't have this by default...
- nutjob2 11mo agoDon't know why you're being voted down, this was exactly my experience, and from all reports, correct. But instead of the process you describe (which some tools will do for you) I used Rufus to copy the install files onto a USB formatted as a NTFS partition, working around the 4GB limitation.
- mkesper 11mo agoThe lot of (partially scary) binary blobs is still an unsolved issue: https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/issues/3224 https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/issues/3224
- hddherman 11mo agoIf anyone is wondering, then there are Ventoy alternatives like IODD [0], but they are not perfect. Usable, but annoying in some aspects. [0]: https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2025/02/14/iodd-st400-review/ https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2025/02/14/iodd-st400-review/
- theodric 11mo agoSo far I am 0/2 on buying IODD devices and having them fail within a couple of weeks. I gave it a good 5 years between purchases and bought a different version of the unit. Perhaps I just have extremely bad luck, but my experience is that basically anything is more perfect than an IODD.
- seemaze 11mo agoAn alternative was offered here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41959908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41959908 https://github.com/thias/glim https://github.com/thias/glim
- i4qpLmoptUph3fZ 11mo ago[flagged]
- fadedsignal 11mo agoI learned about the tool very late. I wish I had known the existence of this tool earlier. I carry a USB stick with Ventoy, which includes 2-3 ISOs. It's a lifesaver.
- spiantino 11mo agoVentoy rocks
- not4uffin 11mo agoI’ve apparently already starred the repository.
- jnovacho 11mo agoHow does this differ from Rufus [0] or Balena Etcher [1]? [0] https://rufus.ie/en/ https://rufus.ie/en/ [1] https://etcher.balena.io/ https://etcher.balena.io/
- HenryMulligan 11mo agoBoth of those write a single ISO to your USB stick, while Ventoy allows you to store numerous ISOs in a folder on the stick and choose which to use at runtime. Also, you can store other files like normal with the remaining space on your stick.
- fullstop 11mo agoThose let you write one image to a USB stick. With Ventoy you write the bootable part once, and plop as many ISOs on there as you want. You get one bootable device where you can select from a list of ISOs.
- evanjrowley 11mo agoUnlike Balena Etcher, Ventoy is not a bloated Electron app that sends telemetry from your computer: https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/3784 https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/3784
- encom 11mo agoI just cannot fathom how a 450 MB dd frontend is taken seriously, instead of being the subject of relentless mockery.
- yonatan8070 11mo agoRufus and BalenaEtcher are both programs for flashing an image to a disk. Ventoy is flashed onto the disk itself (into a small EFI partition), then the rest of the disk is just a regular file system, where you drag and drop a group of ISOs, then pick between them on boot.
- fuzzfactor 11mo ago
- Fokamul 11mo agoIn perfect world, Microsoft would help to create this tool. Nope, they don't have time for this. Too much work om security through obscurity, making crap SW which eats RAM like hamburgers and disabling local accounts...
- evanjrowley 11mo agoAlso, adding Copilot to everything.
- LollipopYakuza 11mo agoMicrosoft provides a tool called "Media Creation Tool" https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows11 https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows11 But of course it’s highly simplified and designed solely for installing Windows.
- tomwojcik 11mo agoFor Windows and FROM Windows. I swear the most recommended way of creating a bootable Windows USB on Linux changes every year, and usually doesn't work. I keep an old Windows laptop just so I can create bootable Windows usbs, whenever needed.
- pxc 11mo agoMaking custom Windows install media is insanely painful, even from Windows. I went through the process of creating non-interactive install media for Windows once, and was astonished at how awful it is compared to building custom Linux live media. (Not least of all because of the churn in the XML you have to maintain that basically represents clicking through all the installer menus.)
- hnuser123456 11mo agoWAIK? I created a customized Windows install image as a 19 year old intern and presented it to the rest of the IT team...
- leosussan 11mo agoHonestly, an essential piece of kit. I've used it across a couple of different contexts & have only positive things to say about it.
- VagabundoP 11mo agoThe only issue with Ventoy is it doesn't work with secure boot turned on. Otherwise its excellent.
- 037 11mo agoOne nice thing about Ventoy is that you can still use the USB stick as a regular drive for other files — it doesn’t interfere with the ISOs you can boot from
- ChuckMcM 11mo agoFWIW, the last time I tried ventoy (early 2025) some ISOs would screw up the USB stick if you tried to boot them (and by that I mean the USB stick would no longer boot anything).
- anonymousiam 11mo agoVentoy is cool and I've used it to boot many different operating systems. The one OS that I've had issues with is FreeDOS. Ventoy will boot it, but I've been unable to access any media on the target system. I'd like to be able to access a separate USB drive, or a hard disk. Maybe there's some trick to doing this that I'm unaware of...
- fuzzfactor 11mo agoBooting to DOS you have to plug in other target drives before you power up so the BIOS will recognize them first before DOS boots. Also DOS will not recognize files on anything but well-tempered FAT32 volumes usually, and the drive device needs to be MBR layout, not GPT. Plus the motherboard needs to support legacy CSM and have it enabled unless it's an old native-BIOS-only non-UEFI PC.
- anonymousiam 11mo agoIf I boot FreeDOS without Ventoy, I can access and use the filesystems. If I boot it with Ventoy, I cannot access them. I believe Ventoy adds hooks to remap things so it can boot as though from a CD, but once booted, FreeDOS doesn't unmap, because it's using the BIOS.
- fuzzfactor 11mo agoInteresting observation, thanks for adding that. If you're using the FreeDOS ISO in Ventoy, maybe replacing it with a FreeDOS IMG that is a bitwise copy of a working "floppy" image would be a workaround? Or add a second partition on your Ventoy stick for FreeDOS to occupy on its own and choose it like bare metal dual-boot style? I actually still put MS-DOS on some sticks [0], haven't used FreeDOS in a number of years, but either way I do prefer for the stick to have a partition table and resemble a HDD, rather than the simpler non-partitioned floppy-simulating layout, even when they both work. [0] People are still not disappointed by Tetris :)
- franga2000 11mo agoVentoy is great, but what I really miss is DriveDroid from the good old days. It still exists, but it's not quite as reliable on modern Android as it was on rooted Cyanogenmod back in the day and the distro download links have rotten away. For those not familiar with it, it turns your Android phone into a USB DVD drive, meaning not only can you just download and host any distro with a few taps, you also don't need any hybrid ISOs or anything like that, the computer sees a real DVD so even old or weird machines accept it.
- fukka42 11mo agoSuch a shame Google & Apple refuse to let us use our devices to their full potential.
- winkelmann 11mo agoI've been using an IODD 2531 enclosure for many years now, and it's doing pretty much exactly that. It works with any ISO I throw at it and has no issues with Secure Boot. It’s also platform-agnostic as it acts as a USB optical disk drive. There are some shortcomings, like a bug where it doesn't remember the last selected ISO if its filename is too long, files also need to be fully sequential. These might be fixed in their newer models (the 2531 is fairly old).
- d3Xt3r 11mo agoThere's also USB Mountr (aka PhoneStick)[1], but of course YMMV with modern Android. Might be better to use a rooted Android with the DriveDroid + the Magisk compatibility module[2]. [1] https://github.com/JinbaIttai/phonestick https://github.com/JinbaIttai/phonestick [2] https://github.com/overzero-git/DriveDroid-fix-Magisk-module https://github.com/overzero-git/DriveDroid-fix-Magisk-module
- fuzzfactor 11mo agoAs far as I can tell, a great many Android phones have always been able for their SD cards to serve as read/write external storage/bootable drives for PC's when connected by USB cable. You have to format the SD card in a PC first, perhaps also repartition beforehand. Even the old Sony smartphones before there were iPhones could do it with their MemorySticks. I really do miss the non-Android non-iOS smartphones.
- dang 11mo agoRelated. Others? About the BLOBs in Ventoy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44810281 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44810281 - Aug 2025 (57 comments) Ventoy Is Saving Me Time, Money, and USB Sticks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43933664 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43933664 - May 2025 (2 comments) iVentoy installing unsafe Windows Kernel drivers? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43909824 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43909824 - May 2025 (8 comments) Ventoy: Remove BLOBs from the Source Tree - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40689629 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40689629 - June 2024 (49 comments) Ventoy – Bootable USB Solution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40619822 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40619822 - June 2024 (19 comments) Ventoy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38672112 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38672112 - Dec 2023 (111 comments) Ventoy: A New Bootable USB Solution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36055765 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36055765 - May 2023 (1 comment) Ventoy, ISO USB Solution 10/10 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32901483 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32901483 - Sept 2022 (4 comments) A New Bootable USB Solution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28889392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28889392 - Oct 2021 (47 comments) Ventoy makes making bootable USB drives easy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24273289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24273289 - Aug 2020 (11 comments) Ventoy: A new bootable USB solution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24241485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24241485 - Aug 2020 (106 comments) Ventoy – A New Bootable USB Solution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23394714 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23394714 - June 2020 (6 comments) Ventoy: Boot different ISO files from a USB stick - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23060019 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23060019 - May 2020 (1 comment)
- hei-lima 11mo agoVentoy is great bc it just works. No BS, just drag and drop your isos and BOOM! Bootable usb with MULTIPLE isos. Really great software.
- pocketman 11mo agoWonder about it working with NetBSD? Noticed it is not on their list of tested Unix distros, and can't remember if I ever tried it with Ventoy.
- nelblu 11mo agoLong time ventoy user. For someone who loves to flash or try out different Linux distros all the time, this is a godsend. I would also highly recommend iventoy, if you want to just boot using network device : https://www.iventoy.com/en/index.html https://www.iventoy.com/en/index.html. It came in very handy when I had a machine which only had a CD/DVD ROM, floppy and netboot option. I didn't want to waste a DVD-R so just booted via network.
- gamedna 11mo agoI absolutely love ventoy and iventoy. They are amazing! Now I use this device : the IODD ST400 and never looked back. https://www.iodd.shop/IODD-ST400-USB-30-External-Encrypted-Hard-Drive-Enclosure https://www.iodd.shop/IODD-ST400-USB-30-External-Encrypted-H... . The screen lets you pick, and swap the ISO on the fly, even enabling multiple to be mounted at the same time. This device even supports virtual hard drives and virtual floppy drives.
- canada_dry 11mo agoI'm curious why a GRUB based replacement for ventoy isn't popular? SSDs are ubiquitous/inexpensive. SSD+USB+GRUB with either a single GRUB partition and multiple ISO files stored in subdirectories, OR one parition per ISO/OS. Adding new ISOs would require some manual editing of the grub config but wouldn't this be a decent substitute?? Like many people I'm hesitant to use an OS installation tool that has not been thoroughly reviewed to ensure there is no malware in binary blobs.
- ac29 11mo agoI'm curious about this too. Alternatively, does anyone know if you can install Ventoy to a partition on an internal disk? The documentation says it supports booting images stored on local disks, but doesnt say if Ventoy itself can be installed on a partition as opposed to an entire disk.
- giuseony 11mo agoLong time ventoy user, here. I absolutely love this software, there's always a usb stick with ventoy and a bunch of useful isos in my pocket. The really intriguing feature is the ability to run vDisk files (as long as there's a linux distro within it) thanks to the VtoyBoot plugin[1]. I'm actually trying to build my own customized arch version with all my software (and potentially keys) installed so I can get rid of having to bring around any hardware. The only problem I'm facing is that it seems that ventoy boot does not work very well with luks containers. [1] VtoyBoot plugin: https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_vtoyboot.html https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_vtoyboot.html