How to make bootable USB with LOTS of stuff on it -not just OS install

[glnz]

I bought a nice PNY USB 3.0 stick at Best Buy for $30± but I don't know how to turn it into a bootable USB with lots of stuff on it.

My fantasy is that it will be a bootable USB

(a) that will boot in
EITHER my old Optiplex 755 machine with XP Pro SP3 32-bit (with a classic MBR BIOS boot and only USB 2)
OR my newer Optiplex 7010 machine that now dual-boots Win 7 Pro SP1 64-bit and Win 10 Pro 64-bit (with UEFI but NOT Secure Boot, and with USB 3 as well as 2), and

(b) will have lots of useful stuff on it - not only install/repair of XP Pro SP3 32-bit and Win 7 Pro 64-bit and Win 10 Pro 64-bit, but also tools like the "Create Media" versions of AOMEI Backupper, AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro, Macrium Reflect Free, EaseUS Backup, EaseUS Partition Master, etc., and

(c) as I find more tools, I can add them to this bootable USB without wiping what's already there.
​

Ideally its "background" OS will be a Win PE version of Win 7 32-bit with as many useful features of Win 7 as possible, like Disk Management. That would be better for me than Linux, which I have hardly ever used.

My fantasy is that I plug it into either of my two PCs, it boots, and after the Win PE 7 is running, it gives me a menu of which useful thing I want to do. (Or maybe it gives me an initial menu as to whether I want to install/repair XP, 7 or 10 or go to the second menu with tools, and if I go to the second menu, it boots into its Win PE 7 background and offers me those tools. Just guessing.)

But I haven't a clue how to get started. The more basic websites (like HowToGeek) seem to describe how to set up the USB for ONE purpose, like installing Win 7, but not as a complete bootable toolkit that gives me lots of choices. And most of the more advanced websites are too advanced. Pendrive[something].com assumes I already know about Linux, Ubuntu and how to cook roast pig, and I just ... DON'T.

Also, I have previously used this PNY stick for something (a fresh install of Win 10), found that for some reason its only usable partition was 32GB± instead of its complete 128GB, then I used it for something else, then I "hid" that small partition and then reformatted the PNY in Disk Management, so right now it is one confused sick puppy. It is NOT recognized by my XP machine at all although it does appear in Disk Management in my Win 7 machine. This means I should completely re-clean or re-format it and/or re-partition it first, and again I have no idea what I am talking about or how to get started. If I reformat it, what format? Disk Management in Win 7 gives me way too many choices, and I have no idea which to use.

Please point me to the beginning of this education, and the next step, and the next.

Thanks.

 

[Wandering one]

Put YUMI in the search box above and read all about what you want to do.
Art.

 

[glnz]

WanderingOne - Thanks for this lead. I also found Easy2Boot and Aomei PE Builder.

But these web sites are still way ahead of me. Never used Linux, so the lingo and many steps in Yumi and Easy2Boot are daunting. Their videos are NOT clear, unfortunately.

Is Aomei PE Builder the only one that does this in Win PE? Does Aomei PE Builder use Win 7 32-bit that will load in NON-UEFI machines? If I make a USB stick with Aomei PE Builder, can I add things to the USB stick later?

Also, how do I first clean up my used, abused schizo existing USB stick? What are the precise steps?

EDIT - Aomei PE Builder is NOT as universal as I thought. It won't take any existing .iso and turn it into a bootable USB stick. It;'s a lot more picky than I thought.

Thanks.

 

[Ztruker]

I don't think you can have a MBR boot and a UEFI boot on the same flash drive.

Wrong, see below.

 

[SIW2]

Yes you can.

I don't think you can have a MBR boot and a UEFI boot on the same flash drive.

 

[SIW2]

Your best bet is to create win7 x64 pe and include all the tools you want in the wim.

It will need to be x64 so you can boot it up on both bios and efi machine. Format the flash drive FAT32 of course.

You can add bootable wims of the other os (win10 you mentioned) . Just plonk them in a folder and point at it with bcd entry.

 

[SIW2]

An example of the bcd entries. I cretad a folder on the flash drive callled MYsources, and put the wims in there. Then point at them with bcd entries:

 

[Ztruker]

How would you access them? Would it depend on how you are booting, UEFI or BIOS?