Great USB Stick Tools

[Lazybones]

1. Multi-Boot several common boot CD ISOs from one USB Stick
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/boot-multiple-iso-from-usb-multiboot-usb/
- FYI the FreeDOS on this list can mount the USB root partition after it boots as C: allowing you to use it to Run the few remaining BIOS updates that need DOS

2. Portable Apps
http://portableapps.com/
- Still a nice easy to install set of apps that run from USB directly in windows.

I have combined both on a nice little 8GB drive that is about the size of my thumbnail on my key chain.

[Tom]

I recently used unetbootin to install the freedos base cd to my usb stick so I could flash my OCZ Vertex drive. Worked wonders

[Lazybones]

I recently used unetbootin to install the freedos base cd to my usb stick so I could flash my OCZ Vertex drive. Worked wonders

Ya that works great, however if you use the multi-boot option you can make one USB stick that does MANY things at once.

[Tom]

I recently used unetbootin to install the freedos base cd to my usb stick so I could flash my OCZ Vertex drive. Worked wonders

Ya that works great, however if you use the multi-boot option you can make one USB stick that does MANY things at once.

Well, to be more precise, I used the dos boot image itself to run a program so the OCZ tech dude knew which "special" firmware updaters to build for me. After which I stole the .img floppy images off the two iso images' boot blocks and made syslinux boot those via two new menu entries. This USB stick is set to boot dos, memtest, and two OCZ vertex firmware boot disks.

[Lazybones]

Hehe, well the link above basically does the following.
- formats the drive as bootable
- chains syslinux with grub
- has a grub config with a bunch of useful iso presets already working... Seems that some ISOs need some tweaks.

I edited out a bunch and just kept a few.

Only catch is to remember to defrag the iso images on the drive after copy or they wont boot.

[Tom]

If you start with a fresh drive, and copy each iso one at a time, they should already be defragged. I don't think fat is clever enough to do any kind of fancy allocation strategies (could be wrong, but I seriously doubt it).

But yeah looks useful. I could set the same thing up with grub2 if I tried. it may even not care if the isos are fragmented

[Lazybones]

That would be true if you never deleted anything from the drive, however once you make a delete and add new data larger than that you deleted you risk some fragmenting... http://www.mydefrag.com/ can fix that easily.

FYI the AVG boot CD includes an auto update via wired ethernet.. Not sure how good the ethernet addaptor support is but that is really much easier that downloading a new up to date ISO every time you want to do an offline virus / rootkit scan.

[Mr. Analog]

Ooh I used Pendrive Linux not too long ago to fix a RAID driver while reinstalling XP on my old rig (couldn't find my old floppy disk drive... it's around here somewhere...).

[Lazybones]

They have a new updated multi-book creating tool at pendrivelinux
YUMI ? Multiboot USB Creator (Windows)
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/

[Tom]

I've just used the system rescue cd "usb_inst.sh" script to create a fancy multi boot USB stick with all kinds of tools on it. Also added some entries for Debian, Ubuntu, and soon Windows install/rescue disks as well. I'll probably get a lot of use out of this new 16G USB stick I just bought.

[Melbosa]

Great tool, used it many time!

[Lazybones]

I think the Balder DOS img is one of the most useful for all of those USB boot capable systems that still need DOS to do firmware updates... O the joy of legacy systems.