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Ventoy: Create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI Files

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285 points wilsonfiifi | 4 comments | 30 Oct 25 14:23 UTC | HN request time: 1.163s | source
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fumeux_fume ◴[30 Oct 25 15:02 UTC] No.45760825[source]▶
The nice thing about Ventoy—and I didn’t fully appreciate this until I used it—is how simple it makes bootable USBs. You just drag and drop ISO images onto the drive, and it can hold as many as will fit. When you boot from the Ventoy USB, you just pick the image you want to install or run—no re-flashing, no fuss.

It’s honestly wild how convenient it is. Ventoy was the only method that worked for me when I needed to install Windows alongside an existing Linux setup for dual-booting. Everything else I tried failed, but Ventoy handled it perfectly.

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stavros ◴[30 Oct 25 17:19 UTC] No.45762484[source]▶
I would love it if it worked well, but it's been really flaky for me. Maybe half the ISOs work, the rest get various errors on boot and fail. These are Linux ISOS, too, which I would have expected to work.

Am I doing something wrong?

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d3Xt3r ◴[30 Oct 25 17:24 UTC] No.45762567[source]▶
How are you creating your Ventoy drive? I would recommend using GPT. Also be sure to boot your drive in UEFI mode. Finally, be sure to update Ventoy to the latest version, they release regular updates with bugfixes for compatibility issues with various ISOs.
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1. organsnyder ◴[30 Oct 25 17:34 UTC] No.45762697[source]▶
> I would recommend using GPT

Perhaps this is obvious to many in this context, but this refers to the partitioning scheme for the disk—not the LLM service.

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2. bombcar ◴[30 Oct 25 18:26 UTC] No.45763381[source]▶
ChatMBR.
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3. munchlax ◴[30 Oct 25 18:47 UTC] No.45763718[source]▶
I've replaced all my GPT disklabels with Sun disklabels because I refuse to let them talk.

UEFI still boots. Spec said it can boot from fat in an eltorito floppy image and sun disklabels sit in the second or so sector. Spec also said it abstracts the type of volume so all boot methods always work for all drives. ISO images don't use the first 4kB so it doesn't see there's disklabel at all

So now I can mount the ssd as iso9660 but there's also partitions on it of which the third spans the entire drive (of course, because that's the c partition)

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4. fuzzfactor ◴[01 Nov 25 20:05 UTC] No.45784886{3}[source]▶
I love this example.

This is pretty advanced, and who knows if anybody else is doing it exactly like this or not, but it is exactly what the hardware is supposed to be easily capable of, just as easily as what the vast mainstream users are getting out of the hardware by "default".

This type versatile performance is built-in just like the mainstream arrangement is built-in, the thing is you have to figure it out for yourself through the complex web of capabilities that have been long bypassed in order to make the default experience seem like it is actually simpler or more reliable, when it is not.