How do I create a utility USB?

Question

I do a lot of work with many different bootable images all on different flash drives. However, it gets annoying to search for a specific drive, plug it in, and use it. Is there a way I can consolidate all of my tools on to one large USB drive? I should be able to select what tool.

Because some of you were bound to ask. My tools are:

• Kali Linux
• Hiren's Boot CD
• Ubuntu Installer (with persistent partiton)
• Kon-Boot
• Other various little tools

I would like all of the above on one flash drive with a relatively simple way to swap between them. Is this even possible? If possible, I would like to have EFI support (preferably with a digital signature, but this is not required)

Answer 1

I do the same and because I rebuild my tool drive (added/removed/updated tools/ISOs) quite often, I'm using (http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/YUMI (Your Universal Multiboot Integrator))

It allows you to add/remove various distro's and tools to a usb flash drive. It's rather easy. The result will look something like this on boot:

No clue about EFI support/digital signature though

edit: you don't have to fiddle around with GRUB config files if you don't want to modify the boot menu - very rarely had a problem with a tool/image.

Answer 2

Yes, it's possible - I have a USB flash drive with several bootable .iso images on it, using Grub4Dos (which is what Hirens uses, IIRC). I don't know the details of doing this with EFI support, but a quick Googling suggests that there are various possibilities.

But it might be a good idea to try to integrate some of your tools under one OS, so you don't need to reboot and switch OS to use a different tool.

Answer 3

Easy2Boot may do what you want. You can make a FAT32 or NTFS USB drive and place bootable ISOs on it. To make a UEFI-bootable payload though, you need to run a Windows script to convert the ISO to a partition image. Also, you need to make all the files on the USB drive contiguous and under linux the only tool seems to be defragfs which only works on FAT32 volumes. Under Windows you can make FAT32\exFAT\NTFS volumes contiguous. Your selection of payloads are all supported and many more.