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

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284 points wilsonfiifi | 3 comments | 30 Oct 25 14:23 UTC | HN request time: 0.776s | source
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anonymousiam ◴[30 Oct 25 16:38 UTC] No.45761995[source]▶
Ventoy is cool and I've used it to boot many different operating systems. The one OS that I've had issues with is FreeDOS. Ventoy will boot it, but I've been unable to access any media on the target system. I'd like to be able to access a separate USB drive, or a hard disk. Maybe there's some trick to doing this that I'm unaware of...
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1. fuzzfactor ◴[31 Oct 25 05:45 UTC] No.45768776[source]▶
Booting to DOS you have to plug in other target drives before you power up so the BIOS will recognize them first before DOS boots.

Also DOS will not recognize files on anything but well-tempered FAT32 volumes usually, and the drive device needs to be MBR layout, not GPT. Plus the motherboard needs to support legacy CSM and have it enabled unless it's an old native-BIOS-only non-UEFI PC.

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2. anonymousiam ◴[01 Nov 25 09:57 UTC] No.45780469[source]▶
If I boot FreeDOS without Ventoy, I can access and use the filesystems. If I boot it with Ventoy, I cannot access them. I believe Ventoy adds hooks to remap things so it can boot as though from a CD, but once booted, FreeDOS doesn't unmap, because it's using the BIOS.
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3. fuzzfactor ◴[01 Nov 25 19:50 UTC] No.45784733[source]▶
Interesting observation, thanks for adding that.

If you're using the FreeDOS ISO in Ventoy, maybe replacing it with a FreeDOS IMG that is a bitwise copy of a working "floppy" image would be a workaround?

Or add a second partition on your Ventoy stick for FreeDOS to occupy on its own and choose it like bare metal dual-boot style?

I actually still put MS-DOS on some sticks [0], haven't used FreeDOS in a number of years, but either way I do prefer for the stick to have a partition table and resemble a HDD, rather than the simpler non-partitioned floppy-simulating layout, even when they both work.

[0] People are still not disappointed by Tetris :)