

- #Grub on usb drive how to
- #Grub on usb drive install
- #Grub on usb drive zip file
- #Grub on usb drive trial
- #Grub on usb drive windows
#Grub on usb drive windows
Extract to “C:” or another location of your choice on a Windows computer.
#Grub on usb drive trial
Although creating multi-boot USBs can be accomplished in many other ways, after much trial and error, the method here may be one of the easier ways to boot several popular distros and apps from the same partition and/or from multiple partitions for USB drives.
#Grub on usb drive how to
This guide is an extension of an earlier one, Booting DSL (Damn Small Linux) from a Multiboot USB Drive, which demonstrated how to add DSL to a working bootable (either single or multi-boot) single partition USB drive with SYSLINUX. Using SYSLINUX to automatically boot dedicated partitions provides the advantage of being able to use the boot options in the default syslinux.cfg files that otherwise wouldn’t be available using a single boot-loader and without manually creating, editing and maintaining complex and excessively large syslinux.cfg and/or menu.lst files.
#Grub on usb drive install
It’s important to note that all the applications and distros installed to the dedicated partitions for this guide are already designed to boot with SYSLINUX, so all that’s necessary is to copy their files to a partition, install SYSLINUX to the partition’s boot sector, and setup GRUB4DOS to boot the partition in order to use the SYSLINUX default menu options included in the syslinux.cfg files. Once control is passed from GRUB4DOS, the dedicated partition automatically boots the application or app with SYSLINUX, which is installed to the partition’s boot sector. So essentially, as used here, GRUB4DOS is used to boot ISOs and a few other apps on the active partition and to control (chainload) dedicated partitions containing a single app or distro. However, when GRUB4DOS and SYSLINUX are used together, this greatly expands the booting options for USB drives.


It’s also important to note that Syslinux is limited in that it can’t access files outside of its own partition. Usually, anything that will boot with GRUB can also boot with GRUB4DOS, as long as it’s installed to a FAT formatted partition (either FAT16 or FAT32). Also, some applications (like ISOs) can boot easily with GRUB (or GRUB4DOS), but not always with SYSLINUX. The advantage of GRUB4DOS is that currently, it’s MUCH easier to chainload partitions and to boot ISOs using GRUB4DOS than with SYSLINUX, which is really designed to chainload hard drive partitions rather than USB drive partitions. In this case, GRUB4DOS is used to pass control (chainload) to Syslinux installed on the dedicated partitions’ boot sectors (except for the active partition, which is directly booted with SYSLINUX). GRUB4DOS is used as a secondary boot-loader to chainload partitions (Chain-loading is a process where control passes from the boot manager to the boot sector) and to boot ISOs and other apps in the active partition. By following this guide, it should become apparent how to install other apps and distros or updated versions of those that are included here.įor this guide, SYSLINUX is used as the primary boot loader. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, this guide covers selected apps and distros that were tested to work. However, more often it’s not always so simple especially when attempting to install apps or distros to a partition already cluttered with multiple ISOs, image files, compressed files, system files, configuration files and various folders.
#Grub on usb drive zip file
Sometimes it’s as easy as extracting files and folders from a zip file to the USB and installing a boot-loader. To get around this limitation, this guide demonstrates how to setup a USB drive to enable booting several apps and distros from a single partition and from multiple dedicated partitions.Īlmost any distro or app can be made to boot from a USB, with some being easier than others. Seldom, if ever, are directions provided for installation to an existing multi-boot environment, or how to create a multi-boot USB in the first place. Thus, while many apps and distros state they are bootable from USBs, often this means they are bootable from single-purpose (and single partition) USB drives, often using UNetbootin or similar utilities. Because many apps and Linux distros are coded and/or organized in a way intended to operate from dedicated single partition USB drives, they are often notoriously difficult to boot from multi-boot USBs. This guide illustrates how to manually create a multi-boot multi-partition USB drive using both SYSLINUX and GRUB4DOS.
