Installing Multiple Bootable Operating Systems on a USB Stick Is Easier Than You Think

David MaxwellNovember 10, 2021

4 minutes read

How to Install Multiple Bootable Operating Systems on a USB Stick

Installing Multiple Bootable Operating Systems on a USB Stick Can Be Easier Than You Think — **Installing Multiple Bootable Operating Systems**

Installing Multiple Bootable Operating Systems on a USB Stick; trying to get your head around it if you can or cannot, the answer is yes you can.

You can install multiple Bootable Operating Systems on a single USB Stick in a few minutes we will be looking at how to do so.

Normally, a USB drive which can also be referred to as a memory stick is a small and portable device that is used for external storage – outside your computer.

These device(s) also plays the role of data backups and moving files between devices.

They are being plugged into the USB port of your computer before they can be used or have access to.

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On the other hand, while it can be a bit confusing about the two, Multiboot USB drives seen as installers – allow users to install multiple Live Linux Distros into a single USB or Flash drive.

Multiboot USB drives always have the future and abilities to horde live Linux distributions and installation media for windows. That is a small portion of an external OS built to provide computer maintenance.

In this article, we will be focusing on free windows programs that are able to create multi-boot and dual-boot.

Before we dive in, we highly recommend you use a drive with enough space for a glitch-free operation/process. (16GB and above will do).

WinSetupFromUSB

This tool WinSetupFromUSB works best in Windows XP and later versions of windows and as well as Linux and BSD.

It is a highly recommended software if you wish to install Windows using a USB or multi-boot USBs.

How to use Winsetupfromusb

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These are the steps for using:

First of all you will need to install the software
Upon installation, open the software and then select your USB disk from the dropdown menu on your screen.
The click/check the button close to your preferred operating systems.
Brows the volume containing the OS you wish to install on your multi-boot USB and then click on the Go Button and you are all set.
Upon completion of installation you will see a message that reads Job Done.

MultiBootUSB

The MultiBootUSB is a very friendly and flexible tool for when it comes to creating a multi-OS or Bootable flash drive.

This one runs from your USB drive without a need for installation making it a highly flexible tool for you to use.

Multibootusb is easy to use with few steps to accomplish.

Under the select image section, choose your ISO
Once this is done, select your preferred amount of persistence if you still want to save files on the partition, and click install distro.

Browse under Select image and choose your ISO. Note that while MutiBootUSB runs on Windows and Linux, you can only create Linux Live USB systems.

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One of the astonishing features you will not want to miss out on the Multibootusb is the addition of the QEMU virtualization software.

This software makes it possible for you to test both individual Linus ISOs and your USB stick without needing to restart your pc.

XBoot

XBoot is another easy-to-use tool with little and easy-to-understand documentation. Its installation is straight forward unlike many other tools out there.

After downloading from XBoot, open the downloaded file – open the file and it is easy to start up from there.

Add your ISOs by simply dragging and dropping them into the main box.

After completing the above steps, click on the create button a dialog box will pop up on your screen asking you to select a USB drive you wish to install the ISOs on including a preferred bootloader of your choice.

It is worthy of note that if your USB stick is formatted to FAT32, XBoot recommends Syslinux. If the USB stick is formatted to NTFS, Grub4DOS is recommended.

You can also select the do not install any Bootloader option (Not Recommended) since you will need the device to be bootable ignore and click ok and you are good.

Get: XBoot (Free)

Universal Multiboot Installer (YUMI)

YUMI is in its own way also a perfect choice when it comes to creating multiboot USB drives even dough it is not as outstanding as others previously discussed in this article.

This tool has a slightly different way it works. First thing first, you have to select the distro you want from the list before browsing to the ISO on your hard drive.

Also, note that the YUMI Legacy works with NTFS or FAT32 format for BIOS USB boot only.

YUMI UEFI: Supports FAT32 only, as well as BIOS and UEFI USB booting via GRUB2 (although this is distro dependent).

If you are booting any recent version of windows like windows 10 or 11 you will have to select the YUMI UEFI version except you running your Bios in CMS Legacy mode).

To begin with,

Select your distro, in this case, Lubuntu, locate the ISO on your hard drive. Or you can as well decide to go the other way round by selecting the Download link option.

This will take you to the page for the selected operating system.

On successful completing the steps above, click on the create button wait for a few minutes and that is it.

You can take the same procedures the next time.

Download: YUMI (Free)

One USB for All Your Operating Systems

To have a smooth workflow knowing how to use the USB drives you to create is necessary as these allow you to know how to which one to boot from each time.

Before you boot into the OS, it is worth noting that you have to choose the operating system you want to use during the boot process.

This is important because once you boot into the OS, you can no longer navigate between operating systems.

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Installing Multiple Bootable Operating Systems