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I am trying to have multiple USB installers for different OSs, like Debian, Ubuntu, windows, etc. I have an external 2T HDD (Seagate Expansion+) with a single partition in it. What I want to do is to make a few little partitions in it, and burn the different images to those partitions, without affecting the 50 GB of data I have in the main partition, which I can't move anywhere. I just want something like this:

Drive        Size      Bootable

/dev/sdb1    1988 GB

/dev/sdb2    4 GB       *

/dev/sdb3    4 GB       * 
/dev/sdb4    4 GB       *

With the 4 GB partitions being bootable OS installers, and without formatting the big partition, because there's stuff there I can't move out that I'd like to keep

My operative systems: Grub dual-boot:

  1. ParrotSec OS 4.9 amd64
  2. Windows 7 Home Premium

I have tried:

Multibootusb -> has bugs and doesn't start

dd command -> doesn't support multiboot

Unetbootin -> doesn't support multiboot

YUMI -> it just gives me access to the live part of the ISO, losing the installer, which is part of my plan

Edit: Nevermind, YUMI did the trick, I just accidentally downloaded a live version only of ubuntu instead of the installer

Edit 2: For future reference I'd like to mention that I currently use Ventoy, which allows you to just install the tool on the drive, and then just throw ISO files in it. It will show a GRUB-like menu and allow you to choose why ISO file to boot

Ciro García
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  • Many folks use a VM like Qemu/KVM for that. Then you don't need separate partitions at all. Just a directory full of .iso files. – user535733 May 25 '20 at 20:26
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    What is your question? Where does Ubuntu come in? – mikewhatever May 25 '20 at 20:26
  • There are a few ways to burn multiple ISOs to a USB stick, can google it. Gparted can shrink your data partition and then make as many small partitions as you like if the drive is GPT. Can usually only have 4 primary partitions if it is MBR. Probably should format the small partitions as Fat32. – crip659 May 25 '20 at 20:47
  • answering to mikewhatever:My computer is running windows 7 and parrot sec os (debian based) and what i want is to have my hdd as a multiple os installer I can carry around, because sometimes I get to the point of having to reinstall on of my os. I also have an ubuntu server that has LVM cipher and I want to take it away. – Ciro García May 26 '20 at 00:34
  • answering to user535733: I'd like to be able to carry around the installers, like if I had multiple usb sticks with a single iso in each one. – Ciro García May 26 '20 at 00:35
  • answering to crip659: i have been googling ways to do that for hours, and i havent found any way of doing that. I have tried etcher (formats everything) i'd try YUMI but i cant find the place to download it, (ik it in pendrivelinux, but it doesnt say download anywhere) multibootusb is broken bc of a bug in its script, and another 2 apps i cant install bc their repos are not available for parrot os. – Ciro García May 26 '20 at 00:38
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    MultiBootUSB, (Ubuntu), worked for me today. You can download YUMI here: https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/ or you could try a hand made multiboot using the link in my answer. – C.S.Cameron May 26 '20 at 04:26
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    See also: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1025656/how-do-i-boot-an-iso-file-from-my-drive-using-grub2-on-uefi-machines You can use grub 2.04 but need rmmod tpm in boot stanza. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1851311 – oldfred May 26 '20 at 14:28
  • To start with, which Linux distro have you installed (Ubuntu server, Ubuntu desktop, Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu MATE, Mint, et al.), & which release number? Different releases have different tools for us to recommend. Please click [edit] & add that to your question, so all facts we need are in the question. Please don't use Add Comment, since that's our one-way channel to you. All facts about your PC should go in the Question with [edit] as this is a Q&A site, not a general forum, so things work differently here. – K7AAY May 26 '20 at 17:12
  • @Ciro García: UNetbootin will make a Multi Boot USB. You need to create the multiple partitions first and then install to them. See: https://askubuntu.com/questions/962536/partitioning-a-usb-and-making-separate-bootable-drives/963731#963731. YUMI is much easier. – C.S.Cameron May 27 '20 at 10:39
  • @CiroGarcía, Yes, today many people prefer Ventoy for the task of multibooting live systems and/or installers. -- But I prefer to get (download) current iso files and clone them to an SSD connected via USB. (The content of a multiboot USB drive will soon get old ...) – sudodus Jan 14 '24 at 17:53

2 Answers2

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MultiBoot using External USB HDD

You can use MultiBootUSB, http://multibootusb.org/, to install multiple OS to a specific partition on an HDD or each OS to it's own partition. Multiple persistence is also possible.

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MultiBootUSB 9.2 is working with Ubuntu up to 18.04. It will boot 'buntu 20.04 ISO's placed in the /multibootusb/iso/ folder. Persistence and UEFI boot is working with Linux versions but not with the Windows version of MBUSB.

It is easy to just install GRUB to a hard drive and use that to boot ISO files. The following was written for USB but also works on HDD: How do I create a Multiboot USB that is compatible with both BIOS and UEFI?

C.S.Cameron
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  • I have tried multiboot and i get a few errors trying to start the program – Ciro García May 27 '20 at 05:13
  • Are you using Linux or Windows MBUSB, Linux is best. What version? 9.2 can boot many OS by dropping the ISO's into the /multibootusb/iso/ folder. Do you need persistence for any of the OS or are they all installers only? Personally I would just install grub to the USB to boot ISO's kept on a NTFS partition, (so they are accessible to Windows and Linux). This can be done by adding a bios_grub partition and a boot,esp partition. The ISO's can be kept in a folder on the existing NTFS partition if there is one. You are only allowed 4 partitions if you are using a msdos partition table. – C.S.Cameron May 27 '20 at 05:38
  • The app worked on first try, but after that, it didn't work anymore. Console said NameError: name 'config' is not defined – Carlos Pinzón Oct 03 '20 at 20:31
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YUMI works just fine. I can install anything i want in a single partition and choose whatever I want at start-up.

Ciro García
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  • I am glad to see that YUMI-UEFI 0.0.2.0 has become YUMI-BIOS/UEFI.0.0.2.2. It worked for me with Ubuntu 20.04 both BIOS mode and UEFI mode. However I had to change the label of casper-rw to writable in order to make persistence work. I also tried it with Clonezilla, GParted, and UBCD. They all worked. I am disappointed with the latest MultiBootUSB. Thank you for posting your solution (+10). – C.S.Cameron May 27 '20 at 10:28