How do i mount an iso on a usb pen

[guinness_1864]

hi guy

 

i need to mount an iso on a usb pen and this needs to be bootable from startup.

thanks for your help

 

Guinness:)

[Domino]

With a view to what...?

[RabbieBurns]

you will need to extract the files from the iso, put then on the usb disk, and make the usb disk bootable

[ccs]

I, like you thought this would be a simple project.

Not all USB pen drives are bootable, HP and Kingston

work( I have DOS on both of them). I had to download and install 2 programs from HP's website. They are cp006049.exe and SP27608.exe. You should also do a search on

the internet for directions on making a USB drive bootable. I do not have those directions

here at work. I will try to remeber to post them tonight or tommorow. Most of the directions on the internet do not work, but there are some that do.

Keep posting your progress and I will try to help.

Steve

[AngryTechnician]

I've had some success doing this using Grub4DOS which allows you to boot some ISOs from USB without having to extract them.

 

Grub4Dos allows you to install a Grub-derived bootloader from within Windows. This is particularly useful for creating bootable USB flash drives.

 

Official pages:

• SourceForge Downloads
  
• Newer GNA Downloads
  
• Documentation Wiki
  

 

Grub4Dos is a 2-part package: the MBR and the Bootloader. The grubinst package includes a boot loader and a Windows GUI to install the MBR to any compatible drive. The included boot loader is not the latest and doesn't support ISO mounting, so also download the newest package from the GNA website (currently grub4dos-0.4.3-2008-05-02.zip).

 

You only really need 2 files from the grubinst zip file:

• grubinst.exe
  
• grubinst_gui.exe
  

and one file from the grub4dos zip file:

• grldr
  

Run the grubinst_gui.exe and install the bootloader to the required drive (usually NOT hd0 in the list!). Then copy the grldr file to the root of the same drive.

 

Now you have to write a menu.lst file which resides in the root of the USB drive and defines the different boot options. If you've had any experience with GRUB on Linux then you'll already know how to do this, otherwise check out the wiki. If you're feeling lazy, here's a sample one that I use to boot various images, including an Acronis ISO (which demonstrates mounting as a high logical drive number which seemed to do the trick when I first had problems with this one). Not all ISOs work in my experience but have a tinker and see if yours will work for you.

 

Also on the list is the Memtest86+ pre-compiled floppy image (which counter-intuitively doesn't require floppy emulation), the PXE image that can be created with the newer Dell Diagnostic downloads, and a straight floppy disk image of a Seagate diagnostic.

 

title Acronis TrueImage 11.8101
map (hd0,0)/Acronis-11.8101.iso (hd32)
map --hook
chainloader (hd32)

title Memtest86+ 2.10
root (hd0,0)
kernel (hd0,0)/memtestp.bin
quiet

title Dell Diagnostics A1348
map --mem (hd0,0)/A1348.img (hd0)
map (hd0) (hd1)
map --hook
chainloader (hd0,0)+1
rootnoverify (hd0,0)

title SeaTools 1.0.9
map (hd0,0)/SeaTools.img (fd0)
map --hook
chainloader (fd0)+1
rootnoverify (fd0)

[CyberNerd]

Ubuntu (and probably a host of other distros) now come with a 'live usb creator'

It is gui based, simply point the iso at a usb disk and the usb creator will install it.

 

http://klik.atekon.de/liveusb/

 

SourceForge.net: UNetbootin, Universal Netboot Installer

[guinness_1864]

well we have teachers machines at the school, and we decided to use a Norton ghost program to image all the teachers new school laptops and stand alone machines when they were first built and ready to be given to them with all there software and drivers working. we would then fix any of the critical problems by restoring the machine from a ghost image burnt to a disk.

 

however the Norton ghost program also has other techy related software on it, we have to be able to have Norton ghost v 8.0 on the usb pen to boot after the bios, and then we can add a ISO of the disk (Or disks) and boot it strait from the usb pen. this means we do not have to go through sub menus and have stock piles of CD's and DVD's to go through and store and then take and watch over until the job is finished which takes around 1h 30mins.

 

hope this help those who were wondering why we needed to do this

 

thanks

 

Guinness

 

[tmcd35]

At a loss as to the need for ISO's? Booting Ghost from USB is fairly straight forward. HP have a USB formating tool that will format the USB with system files to make it bootable. As for ghost, make bootable ghost floppy and copy all the files from the floppy to the formatted pen drive. Then there's the ghost image files. Can't see why you'd need them as an ISO? Just copy the .gho files into a directory on the pen drive. I think this will give you what you want.

 

HP Drive Key Boot Utility - HP Business Support Center

[jamesb]

Slightly off-topic I know, but have you considered going with something like Windows SteadyState instead? It'll protect the hard drive for you.

 

Alternatively do you have to use ISOs, or could you perhaps have a small bootable Windows system on the USB key, using BartPE, and then load the image from an NTFS share or even a larger USB drive?

[ICT_GUY]

UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads

 

This works a treat, Iso or other image to a usb drive. Ubuntu works a treat.

[LeMarchand]

Alternatively do you have to use ISOs, or could you perhaps have a small bootable Windows system on the USB key, using BartPE, and then load the image from an NTFS share or even a larger USB drive?

 

Seconded.

 

I tend to use UBCD4Win with Ghost added in on a stick compiled with PEtoUSB (it's old, but reliable). Never put the images on the same stick, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.

[Wu-than-klan]

Hi all,

 

I registered in this forum just to say thanks (few years after his post) to @AngryTechnician who helped me run an iso from a usb stick.

 

Thanks a lot dude