Universal Thumb Drive + Recovery Environments

[Ageeb]

Here is my goal:
To create a universal install thumb drive of sp1 installs with both recovery environments on it. If possible, I would love to get a utility or two on it as well like Parted Magic (with possible boot menu?).

I've been snooping around this afternoon looking at threads like following to get me started.
creating a 2 OS thumb drive
Windows 7 Universal Installation Disc - Create

What I have so far is both the x86/x64 sp1 iso's downloaded. Now i'm trying to figure out what steps i need to take to get both environments into the same setup before i move on.

If anyone could point me to some more definitive literature on how to set up this task, I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello mate, have a look at this one.

USB Pen Drive/External Hard Disk Using Grub4Dos

 

[Ageeb]

Will i need each ISO with that method?

 

[gregrocker]

I carry a 16gb Kingston Data Traveler flash stick in my pocket with Win7 & Vista bootable all version 32- and 64-bit installers, XP 9-in-1 ISO, plus everything I need to set up my installs including Works, 3 flavors of Office, Adobe Flash & Reader, Java, 120 Win7 national-edition backgrounds, Firefox, Chrome, IE8&9, EasyBCD, iTunes, Partition Wizard home and boot, ImgBurn, TeamViewer, CCleaner, Defraggers, PowerISO, UltraISO, WinRAR, 7zip, and another 2 dozen tools and apps.

I set this up by installing UltraISO trial version, on File tab open Win7 ISO, on Bootable Tab write DIsk Image, click Format button, click Write button. This nt60-bootsects the stick and loads Win7 files into it. I then place the Win7 files into a folder, copy all of my apps and tools into it, Vista files in their own folder.

When I want to install Win7, I spill its files out of it's folder into the root and the stick will boot Win7 installer - likewise Vista. At other times I keep them in their folder so they dont' get in the way of my other tools and apps which are constantlly being swapped in and out depending on the installs I'm doing that week.

This allows me to show up to install with only a stick in a baggie in my pocket. I sometimes forget and take it surfing with me. The same stick has lasted me 5 years. I'd like to get a new one but I can't seem to lose or kill it.

 

[SIW2]

It is for choosing one of several iso files from the grub boot menu - so yes, you could put a separate 64 bit recovery iso on there.

 

[Ageeb]

So here's where i'm at:

Derailed pretty quick, but it ends with a good note. The "Requirements" section of the guide Bare Foot Kid linked to got me stumped at step 1.

Requirements:

1. MultibootISO > Install Grub4Dos easily into USB Flash Drive/External Hard Disk
Get it here: Boot Multiple ISO from USB (MultiBoot USB) | USB Pen Drive Linux
or here: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/downloa...SOs-v1.4.8.exe

I couldn't seem to find anything called MultibootISO from those links, and even anything closely related was nowhere near v1.4.8, but it did lead me to a utility called YUMI which is pretty cool in itself, and one other very similar one called SARDU. I think this will do exactly what i was looking for.

So my question is, what is the easiest way for me to aquire the iso's for the section i have blocked off in the pic? Will it be to create the disc from each edition and then create an ISO of that? Man i hope there's an easier way

 

[SIW2]

Yep you could use Sardu.

Those are just labels, you can assign any iao to any of the windows ones.

E.g. You can Use The Windows 7 recovery disc entry for your AIO iso

Thern win7x64 entry for your 64 bit repair iso

Then use

 

[Ageeb]

Yea i gathered that SIW2, thank you!

I'm more curious how i can obtain the recovery disks in ISO form other than actually creating the disc and then making an ISO from that. Can they be extracted from the editions somehow? Hosted on technet somewhere?

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Vista, Option One

How to Create a Vista Recovery Disc


Windows 7, Option Two

How to Create a Windows 7 System Repair Disc

 

[Ageeb]

Special thanks to Bare Foot Kid for the link to the Grub4Dos guide!

Reading that led me to the final tool of choice for myself, SARDU, and I now have a selectable multiboot thumbdrive with:

AntiVirus Rescue's
- Gdata
- Kaspersky
- F-Secure
- Panda

Utilities
- Macrium Rescue
- Parted Magic
- Clonezilla

Windows
- Windows 7 SP1 x86/x64 AIO installer
- Vista 32b recovery
- Vista 64b recovery
- 7 32b recovery
- 7 64b recovery

Thanks again all! rep's on me tonight!

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Well done mate, glad I could assist you and thanks for the update

 

[mjf]

I use the Grub4Dos for a multi boot USB and find it very useful
Just swap the isos for new editions.

In addition windows system repair, Macrium etc you can consider
- Partition Wizard 4.2 (in addition to 5.2) is good to have for dynamic disk conversion.
- Hiren's Boot CD v13 (other tools + mini XP environment)
The mini XP environment lets you run most windows standalone *.exes.
- Puppy linux