A program for a bootable USB flash drive for windows 7. Easy recording of an image to a USB flash drive
In the articles on how to install Windows from a USB flash drive, I have already described some of the ways to create a bootable USB flash drive, but not all. Below in the list are individual instructions on this topic, but I recommend that you first read the article itself under the list - in it you will find new, simple and interesting ways make a bootable USB flash drive, sometimes even unique.
In this review, we will consider free utilities that allow you to create a bootable USB drive for Windows installations or Linux, as well as programs for writing a multiboot USB flash drive. There are also options for creating a USB drive to run Windows 10 and 8 without installing and using Linux in Live mode without restarting your computer. All download links in the article lead to the official sites of the programs.
Update 2016. Since writing this review of programs for creating a bootable flash drive, there have been several new options for preparing a USB drive for installing Windows, which I consider it necessary to add here. The next two sections are these new methods, and then the "old" methods that have not lost their relevance are described (first about multiboot drives, then - specifically about creating bootable Windows flash drives of various versions, as well as a description of several auxiliary useful programs).
Bootable USB flash drive Windows 10 and Windows 8.1 without programs
Those who have a modern computer equipped with a motherboard with UEFI software (a novice user can identify UEFI by the graphical interface when entering BIOS), and who need to make a bootable USB flash drive to install Windows 10 or Windows 8.1 on this computer, can generally do not use any third-party programs to create a bootable USB drive.
Everything you need to use this method: support for EFI booting, a USB drive formatted in FAT32 and preferably an original ISO image or a disk with the specified versions of Windows OS (for non-original ones, it is safer to use the creation of a UEFI flash drive using the command line, which is described later in this material).
Microsoft Windows Installation Media Creation Tool
For a long time, Windows 7 USB / DVD Download Tool was the only official Microsoft utility for creating a bootable USB flash drive (originally intended for Windows 7, described later in this article).
More than a year after the release of Windows 8, the following was released. official program- Windows Installation Media Creation Tool to burn the installation USB drive with the Windows 8.1 distribution kit of the version you need. And now a similar Microsoft utility has been released for recording a bootable USB flash drive for Windows 10.
With this free program, you can easily make a bootable USB or ISO image by choosing professional, for one language or basic version of Windows 8.1, as well as the installation language, including Russian. At the same time, the official distribution kit is downloaded from the Microsoft website, which can be important for those who need the original Windows.
Multiboot flash drives
First of all, I'll tell you about two tools designed to create a multiboot flash drive - an indispensable tool for any computer repair technician and, if you have the skills, a great thing for the average computer user. As the name implies, a multiboot flash drive allows you to boot in different modes and for different purposes, for example, on one flash drive there can be:
- Installing Windows 8
- Kaspersky Rescue Disk
- Hiren's Boot CD
- Installing Ubuntu Linux
This is just an example, in fact, the set can be completely different, depending on the goals and preferences of the owner of such a flash drive.
WinSetupFromUSB
WinsetupFromUSB 1.6 main window
On my personal view, one of the most convenient utilities for creating a bootable USB flash drive. The functions of the program are wide - in the program you can prepare a USB drive for its subsequent transformation into a bootable one, format it in a variety of ways and create the necessary boot record, check the bootable USB flash drive in QEMU.
The main function, which is also implemented quite simply and clearly, is recording a bootable USB flash drive from Linux installation images, disks with utilities, as well as installations of Windows 10, 8, Windows 7 and XP (Server versions are also supported). The use is not as easy as with some of the other programs in this review, but nevertheless, if you more or less understand how this kind of media is made, it will not be difficult for you to figure it out.
Free SARDU program for creating a multiboot flash drive
SARDU is one of the most functional and simple, despite the lack of a Russian-language interface, programs that allow you to easily record a multiboot USB flash drive with:
- Windows 10, 8, Windows 7 and XP images
- Win PE images
- Linux distributions
- Anti-virus boot disks and boot drives with utilities for reanimating the system, setting up partitions on disks, etc.
At the same time, for many images, the program has a built-in loader from the Internet. If all the methods of creating a USB flash drive with multiboot that have been tried so far have not worked for you, I highly recommend trying: Multiboot flash drive in SARDU.
Easy2Boot and Butler (Boutler)
The programs for creating bootable and multiboot flash drives Easy2Boot and Butler are very similar to each other in their principle of operation. In general terms, this principle is as follows:
- You prepare the USB storage device in a special way
- Copy the bootable ISO images to the created folder structure on the USB flash drive
As a result, you get a bootable drive with images of Windows distributions (8.1, 8, 7 or XP), Ubuntu and other Linux distributions, utilities for computer recovery or virus treatment. In fact, the amount of ISO you can use is limited only by the size of the drive, which is very convenient, especially for professionals who really need it.
Of the shortcomings of both programs for novice users, we can note the need to understand what you are doing and be able to manually make changes to the disk, if necessary (everything does not always work the right way by default). At the same time, Easy2Boot, given the availability of help only for English language and the lack of a graphical interface, somewhat more complex than Boutler.
XBoot
XBoot is a free utility for creating a multiboot flash drive or ISO image of a disk with several versions of Linux, utilities, antivirus kits (for example, Kaspersky Rescue), Live CD (Hiren's Boot CD). Windows is not supported. Nevertheless, if we need a very functional multiboot flash drive, then we can first create an ISO in XBoot, and then use the resulting image in the WinSetupFromUSB utility. Thus, combining these two programs, we can get a multi-boot USB flash drive for Windows 8 (or 7), Windows XP, and everything that we recorded in XBoot. You can download it on the official website https://sites.google.com/site/shamurxboot/
Creating bootable media in this program is done by simply dragging and dropping the necessary ISO files into the main window. Then it remains to click "Create ISO" or "Create USB".
Another possibility provided in the program is to download the necessary disk images by selecting them from a fairly extensive list.
Bootable Windows flash drives
In this part, programs are presented, the purpose of which is to transfer the installation files operating system Windows to a USB flash drive for convenient installation on netbooks or other computers not equipped with optical CD drives (does anyone say that?).
Microsoft Windows 7 USB / DVD Download Tool
The Windows 7 USB / DVD Download Tool is an official free program from Microsoft designed to burn a bootable USB flash drive with Windows 7 or Windows 8. Despite the fact that the program was released for the previous version of the operating system, it also works fine with Windows 8 and Windows 10 ... You can download it on the official Microsoft website
Selecting Windows ISO image in a utility from Microsoft
Usage does not present any difficulties - after installation, you will need to specify the path to the Windows disk image file (.iso), specify which USB drive to write to (all data will be deleted) and wait for the operation to complete. That's all, a bootable USB flash drive with Windows 10, 8 or Windows 7 is ready.
Bootable USB drive in Windows command line
If you need a USB flash drive to install Windows 8, 8.1 or Windows 7, then you do not need to use any third-party programs to create it. Moreover, some of these programs are simply a graphical interface, doing all the same that you can do yourself using the command line.
The process of creating a bootable USB flash drive in the Windows command line (including those with UEFI support) looks like this:
- You prepare your USB stick using diskpart at the command line.
- Copy all operating system installation files to the drive.
- Make some changes as needed (for example, if you need UEFI support when installing Windows 7).
There is nothing complicated in such a procedure, and even a novice user can cope with following the instructions.
USB flash drive with Windows 10 and 8 in WinToUSB Free
The WinToUSB Free program allows you to make a bootable USB flash drive not for installing Windows 10 and 8, but for directly launching them from a USB drive without installation. At the same time, in my experience, it copes with this task better than analogues.
An ISO image, a CD with Windows, or even an OS already installed on the computer can be used as a source for a system written to USB (although the latter option, if I'm not mistaken, is not available in the free version).
WiNToBootic
Another free and perfectly working utility for creating a bootable USB flash drive with Windows 8 or Windows 7. A rather little-known, but, in my opinion, a program worthy of attention.
Advantages of WiNTBootic over Windows 7 USB / DVD Download Tool:
- Supports Windows ISO images, unzipped OS folder or DVD
- No need to install on a computer
- High speed of work
The use of the program is as simple as that of the previous utility - we indicate the location of the files for installing Windows and on which USB flash drive to write them, after which we wait for the program to finish.
WinToFlash utility
This free portable program allows you to create a bootable USB flash drive from the installation CD of Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows Vista, as well as Windows Server 2003 and 2008. And not only that: if you need a bootable MS DOS or Win PE flash drive, you can also make it using WinToFlash. Another feature of the program is to create a flash drive to remove a banner from the desktop.
Rufus
Rufus - free utility, allowing you to create a bootable USB flash drive Windows or Linux. The program works on all relevant this moment versions of Windows and, among its other functions, can check the USB flash drive for bad sectors, bad blocks. It is also possible to place various utilities on a USB flash drive, such as Hiren's Boot CD, Win PE and others. Another important advantage of this program in its latest versions is the easy creation of a bootable UEFI GPT or MBR flash drive.
The program itself is very easy to use, and in the latest versions, among other things, it can make a Windows To Go drive to run Windows from a USB flash drive without installation.
Considering the fact that many users in Russia do not pay very much for programs, the use of UltraISO to create bootable flash drives is quite common. Unlike all the other programs described here, UltraISO costs money, and allows, among other functions in the program, to create a bootable Windows USB flash drive. The creation process is not entirely obvious, so I will describe it here.
- With a USB flash drive connected to your computer, launch UltraISO.
- Select the menu item (above) Bootstrapping.
- Specify the path to the bootable distribution image that you want to write to the USB flash drive.
- If necessary, format the USB flash drive (done in the same window), then click "write".
That's all, a bootable Windows or Linux USB flash drive created with the UltraISO program is ready.
Other utilities related to bootable USB drives
Below are collected additional programs that can help in creating a bootable USB flash drive (including with Linux), and also offer some features that are not available in the utilities already mentioned.
Linux Live USB Creator
Distinctive features programs for creating bootable flash drives Linux Live USB Creator are:
- The ability to download the required Linux image using the program itself from a fairly good list distributions, including all popular variants of Ubuntu and Linux Mint.
- The ability to run Linux from the created USB drive in Live mode in Windows using VirtualBox Portable, which is also automatically installed by Linux Live USB Creator on the drive.
Of course, the ability to simply boot a computer or laptop from a Linux Live USB Creator flash drive and install the system is also present.
Windows Bootable Image Creator - Create Bootable ISO
WBI Creator is somewhat out of the general range of programs. It does not create a bootable USB flash drive, but a bootable ISO image from the folder with files for installing Windows 8, Windows 7 or Windows XP. All you need to do is select the folder where the installation files are located, select the version of the operating system (for Windows 8, specify Windows 7), specify the desired DVD label (the disc label is present in the ISO file) and click the "Go" button. After that, you can create a bootable USB flash drive with other utilities from this list.
Universal USB Installer window
This program allows you to choose one of several available Linux distributions (as well as download it) and create a USB flash drive with it on board. The process is very simple: select the version of the distribution kit, specify the path to the location of the file with this distribution kit, specify the path to the USB flash drive pre-formatted in FAT or NTFS and click Create. That's all, you just have to wait.
These are not all programs designed for these purposes, there are many others for various platforms and purposes. For most common and not quite tasks, the listed utilities should be sufficient. Let me remind you that a bootable USB flash drive with Windows 10, 8 or Windows 7 is quite simple to create without using any additional utilities - just using the command line, which I wrote about in detail in the relevant articles.
Earlier, before writing windows to a USB flash drive, every time I searched new program... There are millions of them, and zero sense. Every time I managed to do it any, but every single one brought inconvenience. Some have too many settings, while the other takes a very long time to record. Paid programs also often skipped, but if I wanted to pay, I would have a disc with the original operating system.
The other day, I again needed to write down Windows and randomly stumbled upon the "Rufus" program. Probably, as you may have guessed, Rufus touched me and became my favorite program. Yes, it is her that I have been looking for for many years. There is no simpler program than Rufus. It has a minimum of functions, and, in comparison, they are no more than the formatting menu of a flash drive.
Everything that you see in the screenshot is all, there is nothing else there. In addition, it is completely free, you can download it and use it without restrictions.
I was also surprised by one moment: when I started recording a bootable USB flash drive from an old OS image, the recording was completed indecently and not as quickly as usual. Truth, it was the fastest recordingwindows to a USB flash drive! Earlier, on the same flash drive, the same image was recorded for 30-50 minutes. and this time 10 minutes - Lightning fast.
What canRufus:
I have already said about the fast recording of the system, let's now see all the features of the program.
What can be written by the Rufus program:
NT Password Registry Editor
Ubuntu, Ultimate Boot CD
Download Rufus
https://yadi.sk/d/DUW30yh93RLmZq - Version 2.18
Download torrent - Version 2.8
No installation required. Just run the program and use it.
Support for many languages. By default, the program is in Russian. Get on any version of windows OS.
The program is completely free. You can also redistribute it on your own behalf, subject to GPLv3.
How to write windows to a USB flash drive
Awesome subtitle that I have nothing to say to you because of the simplicity of this program. Just insert the flash drive into USB, select all the options as above and click on the floppy disk icon to select the image to burn. All that remains is to press start.
Program name: set for creating a multiboot flash drive
Software version: 2.0 (04.2016)
Release date: April 2016
Build author: OVGorskiy®
Interface language: Russian (Russia)
To create a multiboot flash drive, you will need:
- this package for creating a multiboot flash drive;
- a flash drive with a size of at least 4 GB ( right size depends on your needs);
- iso images of the operating system Windows vista / 7/8 / 8.1 / 10 ... (how many and which ones depend on your needs);
- a computer with a recommended RAM size of 1 GB or more;
- display device with a resolution of 800x600 or more.
This collection for creating a multiboot flash drive was developed for "myself" in order to create a USB flash drive with which you can check and, if you need to fix errors in the operating system and computer equipment, install different OS versions and bits from it, and all this, having the ability to easily and just place the OS images on a USB flash drive and, if you need to replace and update them, remove and add. The collection is intended to be downloaded from BIOS. On computers with UEFI, it is proposed to disable this mode or boot in BIOS compatibility mode.
This package contains
- a set of utilities for preparing a bootable USB flash drive;
- a set of files for copying to a USB flash drive;
- kit additional programs and utilities.
Note: you can put as many OS images on a USB flash drive as its volume allows. You can download images of the operating system yourself from this resource or from any other available resources.
List of programs and utilities that will be integrated on the USB flash drive
- Active Boot Disk Suite 9.1.0 Ru - a huge package of utilities for working with the OS and computer;
- AntiWinBlock 3.1 FINAL Win8.1PE Upd 03.2016 - a software package designed to treat an infected Windows system from all kinds of viruses. It will help in system recovery, both a beginner and an advanced user. As part of the disc best programs to fight viruses: AntiSMS, AntlWInLocker, uVS, Dr.Web, ResetWindowsPassword, TotalCommander ....
- Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 Pro 10.1.25.813 ru - a well-known set of utilities for working with hard drives;
- Acronis Media 2016 (Acronis True Image 2016 and Disk Director 12.3270) - a new set of utilities for working with hard drives;
- Win7 Live CD x86-x64 by Xemom1 - mini OS launched from a USB flash drive based on Win7;
- Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 Upd 03.2016 - Kaspersky Anti-Virus for checking the OS for viruses;
- AntiSMS 8.3 PE4 - unlocking the OS after being infected with Trojans, blockers, etc.;
- AntiWinLocker LiveCD 4.1.5 WinPE4 - unlocking the OS after being infected with Trojans, blockers, etc .;
- Reset Windows Password 5.1.5.567 - reset user passwords for the forgetful;
- Active Password Changer 6.0 DOS program helps to quickly and easily reset Windows password!
- HWINFO-AIDA - obtaining complete information about the PC (DOS);
- Victoria 3.52 - best utility to work with a hard disk (DOS);
- Memtest86 + 5.01 is the best utility for checking random access memory(DOS);
- GoldMemory 7.85 - utility for checking RAM (DOS);
- MHDD 4.6 - testing and recovery of HDD (DOS);
- Volkov Commander (NTFS +) - file manager for DOS;
- FixNTLDR - restore Windows boot loader (NTLDR is missing Press ...);
- Kon-Boot 2.1 Commercial - utility for bypassing the password when entering the system (for specialists!);
Note: if you are not satisfied with the set of programs and OS, as well as the design of the menu, you can painlessly replace everything with your own, having of course little skills in this.
Description of the process of creating a bootable USB flash drive
Introduction. I think we all have a few favorite CD / DVDs with operating systems, programs, utilities for restoring and checking OS and hardware, etc., which we constantly carry with us - just in case. But CD / DVD is bulky and not reliable media. If you are tired of carrying around a bunch of CD / DVDs, I suggest you burn it all to a USB flash drive. And why not make them a bootable USB flash drive with the required OS distributions? This can be great when installing / reinstalling operating systems on netbooks without optical media drives. It can also speed up the installation process and make it much quieter and easier on a computer where the drive is. A bit of theory. Initially, the bulk of flash drives do not have the ability to boot from it, and the computer's BIOS does not even have such a function. You will not find it in BootMenu, there are many, and usb-floppy, and usb-cd, and usb-hdd, but there is no pure flash drive. It is necessary to trick the computer and present our flash drive as a supported device. Usually, the boot area of the USB HDD is taken as a basis, i.e. We represent a USB flash drive as a bootable hard drive. How can this be done? Let's apply specialized utilities for this. So, let's use a simple and intuitive method that works on most flash drives ...
Warning: all data on the flash drive will be deleted, take care of saving the necessary data from it to another medium!
Instruction. Part 1.
- Unpack the archive of this assembly to your hard drive.
- Insert the USB flash drive.
- Open the "Tools" folder.
- Run HP USB Disk.EXE to format the flash drive (see Fig. 1).
- Using the BOOTICE program, install the bootloader (see Fig. 2, 3, 4).
After this procedure, a bootable USB flash drive will be created, now we need to put the files we need on it. Open the "Files_for_flash" folder, select all the files and copy them to the root of the flash drive. To check that everything has been done correctly, you need to run the "Moba LiveUSB 0.2" program from the flash drive. This is a miniature virtual machine emulator designed specifically for testing bootable flash drives. After starting, a boot menu with working commands for starting programs should appear. True, not all programs are launched from under the emulator, but you can evaluate the performance of the menu. You can and should also check a USB flash drive when actually booting from it by restarting the computer. Now the flash drive is ready for use as a resuscitation and test drive.
Differences from previous versions
- Support for integration to a USB flash drive of WinXP OS has been discontinued;
- updated almost all programs and utilities for the flash drive;
- changed the way of integrating the OS to a USB flash drive;
- completely changed the interface of the boot menu;
- now you can integrate as many OS images on a USB flash drive as it will fit on it, without combining them into one image in advance.
Additional material on a USB stick
FiraDisk_integrator - utility for integrating FiraDisk into OS images;
GFX-Boot Customizer - a program for creating your own boot menus;
Moba_LiveUSB_0.2, MobaLiveCD_v2.1 - virtual machine emulators for checking the boot menu;
WContig is a program for defragmenting files on a USB flash drive.
Brief description of programs
Multifunctional multi-boot flash drive.
OVGorskiy editorial board.
Active Boot Disk Suite 9.1.0 Ru
Active Boot Disk Suite is a real operating system on CD / DVD / USB disk. To boot this rescue disk, which contains many tools for working with disks, you just need to write the image to disk or USB stick and restart your computer. To the disk distribution [email protected] Boot Disk includes tools to recover data, reset Windows passwords, create system backups, securely erase information, and more. [email protected] Boot Disk Suite allows you to create images in Windows (based on Windows 7) and DOS shells, you can also add additional files to the image using the Boot Disk Builder. After that, the program will write the created image directly to a disk, USB flash drive, or create an ISO image file of a bootable disk.
AntiWinBlock 3.1 FINAL Win8.1PE Upd 03.2016 is a software package designed to treat an infected Windows system from all kinds of viruses. It will help in system recovery, both a beginner and an advanced user. The disc contains the best anti-virus programs: AntiSMS, AntlWInLocker, uVS, Dr.Web, ResetWindowsPassword, TotalCommander ....
Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 Pro 10.1.25.813 en - Everything you need for professional hard disk maintenance! Unique protection and recovery tools for physical and virtual machines. Market-leading partitioning technologies for hard drives, solid state SSDs and USB drives. Support for all types of migration scenarios for physical and virtual environments. Agentless protection of MS Hyper-V guest machines. Full Windows 10 support!
Why not have the best? Hard Disk Manager 15 Professional contains all the tools you need to manage your data and storage devices like a pro. Never before has the home user had such powerful tools at their disposal: comprehensive data exclusion filters to streamline backup and recovery operations, the fastest and most secure storage partitioning technologies on the market, and agentless protection for Hyper-V guests.
Acronis Media 2016 (Acronis True Image 2016 and Disk Director 12.3270)
Acronis Rescue Media Full - An all-purpose bootable disk containing a full backup software package that allows you to create accurate images of the hard disk and its individual partitions, manage partitions - create, move, merge, divide. In the distribution there are two versions of the disc: Russian and British. The disks are complete collections of Acronis' favorite utilities. The "native" boot menu is used.
Win7 Live CD x86 & x64 by Xemom1
Win7Live by Xemom1 is a special edition of Win7Live, with a classic interface and support for networking and SCSI / SATA devices. There is no multimedia support. The kernel has a built-in ERD-Commander 6.5 to restore a fallen 7-ki, there is also a standard W7 recovery function. It is possible to install 7 in the classic way (from a CD or from the SOURCES folder on any disk), i.e., W7PE can completely replace the PE-installer of the 7. You can also install any version of Windows from 2000 to 2008 from any media / folder using the WinNtsetup2 program.
Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 with updated databases for March 2016.
Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10 is a special program designed to scan and disinfect infected x86 and x64-compatible computers. The application is used when the level of infection is such that it is not possible to disinfect the computer using anti-virus programs or disinfection utilities (for example, Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool) that are run under the operating system. At the same time, the effectiveness of treatment is increased due to the fact that the malicious programs in the system do not receive control during the operating system bootup. In the emergency recovery mode, only the tasks of scanning objects and updating databases are available, as well as rolling back updates and viewing statistics.
AntiSMS 8.3 PE4
AntiSMS boot disk is designed to automatically cure Trojan.Winlock ransomware, blockers and Trojans that block Windows OS, requiring the user to send SMS to unlock the system. Allows even inexperienced users to unblock Windows in the event of a system infection with blockers (ransomware, advertising and porn banners) or Trojan.Winlock Trojans. When you start the computer from the boot disk, AntiSMS will automatically execute all necessary actions to treat an infected system. The Windows Registry Editor is available in manual mode.
AntiWinLocker LiveCD 4.1.5 WinPE4
AntiWinLocker LiveCDs are designed to unlock and treat an already infected (locked) Windows OS, in case of infection with a WinLocker (Trojan.Winlock. Trojan ransomware), which is a banner that blocks the system's operation: the launch of the task manager, the registry editor, and the boot of Windows. v safe mode and after that, the attackers extort money, for example, demanding to send an SMS message to a paid number to unlock Windows.
Reset Windows Password 5.1.5.567
Reset Windows Password is the best professional program to reset, change or recover passwords for all types of Windows accounts. The utility supports all versions of Windows, works with local and domain accounts, almost instantly recovers passwords for accounts, in addition, there is a Russian interface and Russian-language tech. support. Reset Windows Password is required when you lose the Administrator password, if you forget your Windows password, it is not possible to activate the account. The program is loaded from a bootable CD or USB disk. The application interface is made in the form of a wizard. Therefore, the operation process does not seem difficult even to an inexperienced user. Unlike other similar utilities, Reset Windows Password is the ONLY program that CORRECTLY works with all types of Windows accounts.
Active Password Changer 6.0 DOS program helps to quickly and easily reset Windows password!
ASTRA 5.52
ASTRA - Advanced Sysinfo Tool 5.52 A program for analyzing the configuration of a computer. It is very undemanding to resources and works even on very old computers, including those that cannot even dream of Windows
Victoria 3.52
Victoria is a program for testing, diagnostics and minor repairs of hard drives with IDE or SATA interfaces. The program is free and is intended mainly for employees of specialized service centers. At the same time, Victoria is very popular among wide range computer users, as it allows at home: to identify faulty areas of the hard disk surface; determine the average access time; control the noise level; delete information from the hard drive, without the possibility of recovery; set User and Master passwords.
Memtest86 + 5.01
A key update to Memtest86 +, a robust RAM benchmark. In the first beta version, support for all modern platforms was added and a number of major internal changes were made, including support for multithreading, an increased speed of detecting failures, and displaying the processor temperature.
GoldMemory 7.85
The program is a comprehensive test for checking the RAM for errors. Supports almost any type of module, as well as any PC-compatible platform in various configurations. Allows you to scan all available modules and determine the presence of errors, which, as a rule, affect the instability of the system as a whole. The utility is designed to work in the environment of DOS-compatible operating systems, there are a number of command parameters for batch operation and functions for creating reports on the results of testing.
MHDD 4.6
MHDD is a software package for accurate diagnostics and minor repair of drives (HDD). Allows you to work with drives at a low level, directly through the ports of the IDE controller. Performs very fast and accurate diagnostics of the entire surface of the drive (unlike programs such as NDD, ScanDisk, which address only logical partitions), regardless of the data that is on the drive being diagnosed. Allows to get rid of the so-called “soft” -bad sectors as quickly as possible.
Volkov Commander (NTFS +)
The famous shell for DOS. VC allows you to mark, copy, move and delete directories with all subdirectories nested in the same way as regular files. When copying, you can split and glue files. The functionality is extremely rich.
FixNTLDR
The Fix NTLDR is missing utility restores the Windows bootloader, correcting the situation when the message "NTLDR is missing Press CTRL + ALT + DEL to restart ..." appears on the screen when the computer boots.
Kon-Boot 2.1 Commercial
Kon-Boot is an application that modifies the contents of the Windows kernel on the fly / at boot time, bypassing the Windows authorization system and allowing you to log into a password-protected account without entering a password. This does not overwrite your favorite password, and when you restart Windows, the original contents of its kernel and the authorization procedure are restored.
Hello everyone, I continue my series of articles on bootable usb media. In the last episode, I told and showed in four different ways.
There will be a lot of interesting things, so read the article to the end, repeat all the simple steps and you will have your own multiboot usb device. At the end of the article I wrote down and posted detailed video lesson on this topic.
It may seem to some of you that the information is very chewed, but not all people understand computers, and even more so in matters of creating such portable usb devices.
In today's review:
- Preparation
- Creating a bootable USB drive
- Adding Windows XP and Windows 7
- Copying files and utilities
- Adding required programs
- Kaspersky Rescue Disk
- Dr. Web Live CD
- Working with a graphical boot list
- Changing and creating a background image
The last item is optional, since the image will already be the default.
Preparation
The whole process will take each person a different amount of time. If all the distributions of the programs and the image are already at your fingertips, then you will need it much less. If you are making a bootable or multiboot flash drive for the first time, then it can take a lot of time. So get ready and be patient, we will need it today.
The first question that you may have is: What kind of flash drive to take in terms of volume? To create a regular multiboot flash drive with a minimum set of programs, 1 Gigabyte should be enough.
If you want to add distributions of operating systems, programs for working with a hard disk, bootable shells, utilities for changing passwords and programs for treating your computer from viruses. It is advisable to have at hand a usb medium with a volume of 8 Gigabytes and above.
In the examples, I will have an 8 GB flash drive, you may have a different volume, or even a portable USB HDD.
If you have any data on your usb device, please save it elsewhere, as we will format our usb media.
Create a bootable USB flash drive
To create a multiboot flash drive, we need additional software. There are many programs for creating multiboot devices, but unfortunately most of them are in English.
I decided to use the MultiBoot USB program, which is in Russian. It is more pleasant to work with it, those who get confused or do not understand something can use the instructions for use.
To unpack this archive you will need the 7Zip program. Perhaps your archiver programs will not be able to open some of the archives presented in this review, then I recommend using 7Zip.
After downloading the program, install it on your computer. A “MultiBoot USB” shortcut should appear on the desktop.
We go into it and a small menu opens in front of us with a characteristic welcome sound like on Windows, with 7 seven tabs.
Formatting a USB flash drive
We connect the previously prepared USB flash drive to the computer and format it. Go to the first menu item of the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool.
The utility for formatting is launched, under the word Device we indicate our USB flash drive. I have this Chipsbnk UDisk, volume (7800 MB), you may have a different designation and size.
We select the file system. If you have a flash drive up to 4 gigabytes, then you can put
In the formatting options (Format options) put a checkmark in front of Quick Format, thereby, we indicate quick formatting and click Start.
We are asked if you really want to start the formatting process, we answer Yes. This process shouldn't take long.
After the program formats the USB flash drive, the next HPUSBFW window will appear, in which we click OK.
If an error appears - the device is being used by another program, use the usual formatting.
Also, a portable usb device can be formatted using Windows tools. Go to My Computer >>> Right-click on the USB flash drive >>> Format >>> Quick (clear the table of contents) >>> Start.
Warning window - click OK.
The following window may appear - This disk is in use by another program or process. Click Yes to format it.
Such a message may appear after the USB flash drive is already bootable. At the first steps of creating a multiboot usb device, there should not be such a window.
Installing the bootloader
The Grub4Dos Installer 1.1 window appears. In the upper Disk Name tab, put a dot next to Disk, indicate the usb device and click Install.
I have two disks on my computer, this is the main 2 terabyte hard drive and an 8 GB flash drive, choose the second one. This program will install the bootloader on our device.
When choosing a disk, do not make a mistake and specify exactly your USB flash drive, if you are mistaken and select the main hard disk on which the operating system is installed, then the next time you turn on the computer, Windows will not start.
Upon completion of the operation, the The MBR / BS has been successfully installed window should appear. To continue please click
Adding distributions of operating systems
Let's move on to the fourth item WinSetup From USB.
I will add two operating systems Windows XP and Windows 7 to the USB flash drive. You can add others by clicking on the corresponding items.
Windows XP
If you do not have a disk image with the operating system distribution kit, you can find it yourself on the Internet. I can suggest to download the licensed product Windows XP Prof SP3.
Then we mount the operating system disk image into a virtual drive, I will use the Daemon Tools program, you may have another one.
Mount Windows XP Home, you can use Windows XP Professional.
Click on WinSetup From USB, which will help us copy the distribution files of the required operating systems.
In the window that appears, select the desired usb portable device and put a checkmark in front of Windows 2000 / XP / 2003 Setup.
Press the browse button (three dots) and select the disk image prepared in advance and already mounted in the virtual drive. I have this BD-rom drive (H :), you may have a different one.
We are waiting for completion, at the end a small window should appear with the inscription Job done - the work is done.
This process took me about 20 minutes.
Windows 7
If you do not have a disk or an image of the seven, then you can download Windows 7 from the link below:
In order to add Windows 7 or Windows 8 to our flash drive, you need to do almost everything the same as for Windows XP, only when you select Add to USB disk: you need to check the box next to Vista / 7 / Server - 2008 Setup / PE / Recovery ISO ...
Select the mounted disk image, start the process and wait for it to complete.
Making a multiboot flash drive
We return to MultiBoot USB and go to the fifth point: Copying files and utilities.
The multiboot flash drive window opens, press the browse button.
Select our portable usb device and click OK.
Then click on the Extract button to start the process of copying files.
It turns out small window confirm the replacement of files, replace the existing file usbdrive.tag, click Yes for all.
We perform the same action for all subsequent files that we will be offered to replace.
If you want to see what came of it, then go to the fourth item WinSetup From USB, click the button
This is the boot menu you should get about.
There are points here that need to be edited a little, and some to be removed altogether.
Add the necessary program images
I decided to remove Symantec Ghost and Windows XPE - full version, since I don't need them, but we'll come back to this later.
First of all, let's add an image of the following programs that are on the list, namely Acronis, Windows XPE - mini version and Windows 7PE - mini version. Images of these three programs can be downloaded from the links below:
Now you have downloaded all three images, now we need to replace empty files with working images. To do this, you need to go to the multiboot flash drive, in the folder
Alternatively, you can not delete them, but simply replace them with working images, but for this the downloaded Acronis Disk Director 11 Acronis Home 2011 - LiveUSB file must be renamed to Acronis.iso.
I put these three images in a separate folder in advance, so that later you can copy and paste them on a USB flash drive in the folder
You can also check the box below - Do this for the next two conflicts, thereby all three image files will be replaced with working ones.
ERD Commander
Now I propose to add to the multiboot usb device useful program ERD Commander, for changing passwords in Windows operating systems.
Why does she need you ask me? I will answer you. ERD Commander can be used if you forget your Windows account password. Boot with this utility, select the required operating system and change the password.
Especially for you, I found on the Internet a set of ERD Commander programs that work in Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8.
After downloading the image of the program, copy it and paste it on the USB flash drive in the folder
Boot disk from Doctor Web
Surely each of you or your acquaintances has encountered the problem of viruses, various banners and similar hacker tricks. So, if your operating system does not load or you cannot enter Windows, then I recommend using the boot disk from Doctor Web.
With it, you can boot and check your computer for viruses, even if the normal login to Windows is not possible.
To do this, we need to go to the official website of the Web (I call it Doctor MOM), go to the section Download >>> Treatment utilities >>> Dr.Web Live CD and download the image to our computer. The anti-virus databases are updated daily.
Downloaded the image, ok, now you need to rename it from
Then we also copy the renamed image to the USB flash drive into the folder
Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10
Everyone has heard that there is Kaspersky Anti-Virus, some of you have used it or are still using it. I like this antivirus and are quite happy with it, so I have been using it for over 5 years.
Kaspersky also has a Windows rescue disk, like Doctor Web. It is called Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10, and its anti-virus databases are updated regularly, so Kaspersky can help you if viruses start on your computer and you cannot log in to the system.
Downloaded the image, rename it from
We go to the root of the flash drive, create a new folder in it and name it
Then copy the renamed image
That's not all. We return to the root of our portable usb device and create a new text document in it.
Rename<Новый текстовый документ.txt>v
Removing the extension<.txt>and press enter.
We are warned that after changing the extension, the file may not be available, click<Да>.
Working with a graphical boot menu
Now we have finally added everything required programs and images of files on our bootable USB stick. Now you need to edit the graphical boot menu that appears when you select our distributions, programs and utilities.
We go to the USB flash drive, to the root, we find the file
Just in case, I'll show you how to open the sheet menu using notepad if you don't have Notpad ++. Right click on the file
The Failed to open this file window appears. We put a point near<Выбор программы из списка установленных программ>and press
If it is not there, then you need to double-click on Other programs or on the right on the small pointer down.
In the list that appears, find Notepad or WordPad, select it and click OK.
I'm used to working through a comfortable
Before us appears a list of all items, which is displayed in the graphical menu of our bootable usb device.
First of all, I propose to remove (delete) unnecessary and unnecessary items mentioned earlier, Symantec Ghost and Windows XPE - full version.
The superfluous have been removed, now I propose to edit our list in accordance with the contents of our flash drive. Depending on the name of the images on the usb device, you need to rename these names in the list menu, that is, make them the same for everything to work.
I will write the names of my images, you may have others, but remember one thing, if you make a mistake in at least one letter, the required distribution kit or program will not start.
Previously, we added distributions of Windows XP and Windows 7 operating systems through the WinSetup From USB utility. We find the corresponding items in our menu and change their names to new ones.
Windows 7 all
In my case, I take away
Windows XP Home
Then we will rename the name of the Windows XP boot loader. At the moment in the menu sheet<Установка Microsoft Windows XP SP3 x86 — Русская версия>.
In order to see the name of your image, just go to the USB flash drive in the folder
There will be a disk image and its name, which we registered above in the list menu.
ERD Commander
We also inserted an image of the ERD Commander program, you need to add an entry about it to our download list.
To do this, copy the recording from Acronis, change the name to ERD Commander and two paths of the image file to
Doctor Web
With Doctor Web, things will be a little more complicated. Insert the following text into the sheet menu:
title Dr.Web LiveCD - Anti-Virus Utility
partnew (% @ root: ~ 1.3%, 3) 0x00 /Boot/drweb.iso
map /Boot/drweb.iso (0xff)
map —hook
cat —skip = 85 (0xff) / boot / config | set ID =
kernel (0xff) / boot / vmlinuz% ID% root = / dev / ram0 init = / linuxrc init_opts = 4 quiet vga = 791 splash = silent, theme: drweb CONSOLE = / dev / tty1 BOOT_LANG = ru_RU.UTF-8
initrd (0xff) / boot / initrd
And place it wherever you like on our download list.
Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10
In order for the utility from Kaspersky to work, you also need to insert a special text, which I posted below:
title Downloading Kav Rescue 10 - Disaster Recovery Utility
map (hd0,0) /rescue/rescue.iso (hd32) || map —mem (hd0,0) /rescue/rescue.iso (hd32)
map —hook
root (hd32)
chainloader (hd32)
We also place it in any place we like in the list of the menu sheet.
Thus, we have edited the file
If you want to change the name of the items to your own, then in the line