How to program a bootloader..? Want a USB Flash Drive with Windows 7, XP, Vista, and perhaps 98 SE on it to use for installs

windows-7 windows-vista windows-xp usb-drive bootloader
Sootah picture Sootah · Jun 20, 2010 · Viewed 12.2k times · Source

Hello again my fellow StackOverflow friends!

What I would very much like to do is copy the contents of my Windows 7, Windows XP (Pro and Home SP3), Windows Vista, and assuming I have space left for it my most updated copy of 98 SE installation CDs onto a flash drive so that I can use that for any OS installs that I need to perform.

Obviously I am going to need a boot loader that will allow me to select which OS install we're going to boot into; so I'm curious if this is possible at all.

So - A) is my little project even doable?

B) Would I have to program my own custom boot loader to do this, or would it be possible to modify the loader that the Windows CDs already use by default (or even hack LiLo or Grub to do it)

C) Do any of you know of a good place to learn how to program bootloaders, or is this completely out of my league? I am ..decent.. at programming, but am by no stretch of the term an expert.

The reason that I want it on a flash drive is simply because the read speeds from them tend to be FAR faster than from a DVD or CD-ROM - ESPECIALLY if the computer is a bit older and the optical drive is flithy.

As always, thank you for your help!!

-Sootah

Answer

Ahmed Suror picture Ahmed Suror · Dec 30, 2013

You can use Easyboot and it will automatically create the specific bootloader and make an ISO file contains the boot and the data files. Then you can move your ISO on your USB flash and make it bootable using third-party software like "Win To Flash".

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