When we need to install an ISO image on a bootable or bootable USB, it is common to use programs like Rufus either WinSetupFromUSB.
What these types of applications do is Extract the ISO image to the USB and then they prepare the device to be bootable and start automatically when we turn on the PC.
However, Ventoy works differently. Instead of extracting the content of the image, With Ventoy you can copy the ISO directly on the flash drive, which speeds up and simplifies the process.
Ventoy is also open source, free and cross-platform. It’s available for both Windows and Linux, so it offers a lot of versatility in that regard. Let’s see how it works!
How to burn one or more ISOs to a bootable USB stick with Ventoy
Another advantage of Ventoy is that you can copy one or more ISO images on a USB stick without this being a problem or requiring any additional action from the user
To do this, use the multiboot loader. GROWING (GNU Grand Unified Bootloader) that allows you to choose which OS to boot from all the OS installed on the USB.
In this way, after creating the file structure in Ventoy, we can transfer multiple operating systems, e.g. B. different versions of Windows or Linux, and update existing ISO images much easier.
Its operation is as follows:
- Download Ventoy from its official website or from Your repository on GitHub. Note: Downloads on GitHub are usually faster.
- Open the application (Ventoy2Disk.exe).
- In the main window of Ventoy, Select the USB flash drive from the Devices drop-down list.
- Then click on “Install” so that Ventoy creates the file system. Please note that this process formats the USB and erases all of its contents.
- Two warning messages will appear on the screen. Click Yes to continue.
- If everything went well, you will see a new message stating that Ventoy was successfully installed on the selected USB device.
Once the installation is complete, Ventoy will have created two partitions on the flash drive: one FAT partition and another partition in exFAT format.
At this point, simply open the USB drive from Windows File Explorer (you’ll see the drive is now named “Ventoy”) and drag and drop the ISO images you want to use onto the USB drive.
And that’s it! If we have copied more than one ISO image when booting the PC, the system will offer us a selection screen where we can choose which operating system we want to load.
It’s that simple. The truth is that compared to other programs of the likes of Rufus and the like, it makes things really easy for us. Especially when we have to constantly change and update the ISO images of the USB, with Ventoy this process is as clean and transparent as possible.
ISO images compatible with Ventoy
As stated by the developer of Ventoy, each manufacturer’s BIOS firmware is different, and in some cases the application may not work properly on our computer.
In any case, we can find a list of all tested operating systems on the Ventoy website, which in principle work without any problems. Among them we can find all versions of Windows, starting from Windows 7, as well as dozens of Linux distributions such as Debian, Ubuntu or CentOS and many others.
We can see the full list of compatible ISOs below SHORTCUT.
If you are having trouble getting your PC to recognize the Ventoy pendrive, also check that your BIOS is compatible with the application:
- Supported BIOS: x86 Legacy BIOS, IA32 UEFI, x86_64 UEFI, ARM64 UEFI and MIPS64EL UEFI
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See you in the next post!