Get the top HN stories in your inbox every day.
fumeux_fume
stavros
I would love it if it worked well, but it's been really flaky for me. Maybe half the ISOs work, the rest get various errors on boot and fail. These are Linux ISOS, too, which I would have expected to work.
Am I doing something wrong?
toast0
Probably not, UEFI boot is terribly fussy and I haven't seen any sort of UEFI image loader similar to memdisk that works for BIOS boot. There's an optional standard for loading images, but I don't think any of my firmwares support it; and I'm not sure if the loaded image is available after boot services terminate anyway.
Linux images have to be processed to pull the kernel and initramfs images out, rather than booting an image, and then if the image used a filesystem after boot, hope it finds it. (This is even messier for PXE, at least with USB, you have a fighting chance)
d3Xt3r
How are you creating your Ventoy drive? I would recommend using GPT. Also be sure to boot your drive in UEFI mode. Finally, be sure to update Ventoy to the latest version, they release regular updates with bugfixes for compatibility issues with various ISOs.
organsnyder
> I would recommend using GPT
Perhaps this is obvious to many in this context, but this refers to the partitioning scheme for the disk—not the LLM service.
stavros
Hm yeah, I think I used MBR with BIOS. I do upgrade Ventoy regularly, but I think you may be right, I think the issue was with something about the BIOS. I'll try that, thanks!
zamadatix
I don't think I've run into a Linux ISO that hasn't worked. I've done many versions of Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, Alpine, Proxmox, Debian, Gparted, and others without issue across dozens of different machine builds. Same with various versions of Windows or ESXi.
That said, I'm not very sure what you could be doing wrong. Make sure the drive is GPT (not MBR) and isn't starting to fail perhaps. If you've been running into this on a specific machine only it could just be that machine's UEFI is buggy.
stavros
I'll try a few things, thanks. I think last time it was Debian that wasn't working, so it's not even anything that out there. I'll try a few things, thanks!
estimator7292
90% of the time i have failures is because Linux did not correctly finish writing the ISO to disk.
The progress bar that your file manager gives you is an absolute fiction. You must eject the drive through your file manager or run 'sync' in a terminal.
The other 10% is because UEFI decided it hates me today
stavros
I always eject/sync the drive, but I'll triple check next time, thank you.
m-p-3
I used it but I had various amount of success. I bought an HDD enclosure that would mount the ISO/VHD/FDD image at the hardware level (IODD is the brand), and that worked mostly consistently.
A bit expensive, but when you rely on it for work it's worth investing a bit of money.
Keyframe
It's truly special. I haven't seen that before. It doesn't work always, with all OS' though, but when it does - it's great.
PaulKeeble
I used to have a pile of USB drives for this purpose, with various different images on them. I had a windows, linux and memory tester 86 plus and occasionally needed to flash something like clonezilla or gparted. Nowadays I have a fast USB4 capable flash drive which just does all this faster and a whole bunch more ISOs on it and does bios duty too.
One other small advantage is with secure boot you only need to register Ventoy once with a machine and then all the ISOs will boot, whereas with different USB sticks and images each has to be registered individually and some of them don't work with secure boot so you have to turn it off. Just another convenience.
nutjob2
Notably Ventoy doesn't work with some Windows install ISOs.
guilamu
Never had this issue.
Tested isos: Windows 10 x64 (Pro, LTSC), Windows 11 (Pro, LTSC). I've installed windows on hundreds of computers with Ventoy and it never failed me.
nutjob2
Lucky you. I'm not sure why it happened to me and not you, but it's a real problem and others have had it too.
It manifests itself as the dreaded "a media driver your computer needs is missing" error message when trying to start the install.
d3Xt3r
You should be able to boot those using the "wimboot" mode.
jaderobbins1
Any specifics on which windows install ISOs don't work? That way I'll know which ones will need a dedicated USB stick.
CapsAdmin
Last week I tried to make a bootable usb with windows 11. I tried using dd on macos, and that seemed to work, but the windows installer errored about "not finding drivers for the hdd". This threw me off because I thought something was wrong with the nvme.
Turns out you can't just dd a windows iso onto a usb drive.
You have to format it to fat32, then manually copy all the files. However there is one big installer file which is above 4gb, so you have to get some tool (also provided by Microsoft) to split the file into multiple files less than 4gb. The windows installer will recognize the split files and use those instead.
It's beyond me why the official windows iso just doesn't have this by default...
Frenchgeek
It sure make it easy to boot a 64bits OS on a 32bits UEFI machine...
mkesper
The lot of (partially scary) binary blobs is still an unsolved issue: https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/issues/3224
AnotherGoodName
I am actually happy reading that though. As in it's literally the authors of the tool stating "hey we have a lot of binary blob drivers, what can we do to replace these?". He then audits them and links to build instructions.
As in yeah there's precompiled binaries in this. But it's audited and each binary itself has a link to build instructions. What they are not doing is actually building everything from scratch in their build process. Ok that's a pain to do and i get it. But... i don't see anyone slipping in an unaccounted for binary here right? If every binary itself has a "here's how to build this from scratch" documentation and source it seems ok to me.
graton
The binary blob issue has been brought up since back in 2020. And since then very little real progress has happened from what I can tell.
I am not willing to use the software due to that issue. It just seems suspicious.
AnotherGoodName
Just to be clear do you understand that all of these are built from source with documentation so you can recreate the binaries yourself?
As in it's completely source buildable with no unknown binaries. They just don't have a single 'build' that pulls all of these in and builds them at once. Instead you're following the build instructions for each part, creating libraries that you then link together at the end. This is due to the pain in the ass of cross-compiling Linux/Windows/UEFI binaries all in the one project. It's pretty reasonable.
mort96
And crucially, since each blob is from an open source project with build instructions, it seems like you can build Ventoy completely from source if you really want.
seemaze
An alternative was offered here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41959908
hddherman
If anyone is wondering, then there are Ventoy alternatives like IODD [0], but they are not perfect. Usable, but annoying in some aspects.
theodric
So far I am 0/2 on buying IODD devices and having them fail within a couple of weeks. I gave it a good 5 years between purchases and bought a different version of the unit. Perhaps I just have extremely bad luck, but my experience is that basically anything is more perfect than an IODD.
dataflow
I don't see the problem with grabbing binary blobs from other trusted projects. Isn't it sufficient just to be able to prove the hashes match what you'd get directly from the origin? If you got your blob from (say) Debian, and their blobs were backdoored, the world has... much bigger problems to worry about. Feels like trying to verify that your pharmacy is making your medication from scratch, lest their supplier had contaminated it.
i4qpLmoptUph3fZ
[flagged]
AnotherGoodName
From the linked thread
"I have updated a new 1.0.21 release and removed the unused sig driver file. And I also add a README document about the httpdisk driver https://github.com/ventoy/PXE/tree/master"
So he fixed the issue, noted the use of WKDTestCert and links to it and he also has a post explaining why this happened.
That doesn't seem lackluster or negligent to me?
i4qpLmoptUph3fZ
Echoing similar comments on this thread. The action in itself is mildly concerning, but the lack of foresight to see this as an issue people would want to know about, and ultimately be able to make their own decision on if they want to accept that risk or not.
"So I thought that maybe user don't want to care about this intermediate process"
Choosing to include an unverified build from a third party in a project like this introduces significant risk.
Also.. anyone know why my original comment got flagged?
murphyslaw
All of it is built from source, it's just that the current build process is not easy to audit. The build by definition needs to happen on multiple platforms or cross compiled, a root cert needs to be setup in the windows installer at boot time, and so on.
I agree that this is not an ideal way to boot an ISO, but the general public is unlikely to ever need a multiboot USB stick. I like this project enough to perhaps contribute.
zettabomb
I don't see the linked issue as a valid reason to stop using Ventoy, especially since the repo you linked is for a different piece of software made by the same people. Do we have any evidence of Ventoy itself being in any way malicious?
protimewaster
I think it's a valid reason unless you view "this person can't be trusted follow safe practices on Project A so it makes sense to assume they also won't follow safe practices on Project B" as invalid logic.
junon
The rationale for needing a random driver makes some sense. The statement that they found a random build that was signed by some randy is a horrifying prospect.
fukka42
Someone compared hashes of the sectors of both drivers and they are identical except for the signature.
You don't know what due diligence was done.
dang
Related. Others?
About the BLOBs in Ventoy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44810281 - Aug 2025 (57 comments)
Ventoy Is Saving Me Time, Money, and USB Sticks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43933664 - May 2025 (2 comments)
iVentoy installing unsafe Windows Kernel drivers? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43909824 - May 2025 (8 comments)
Ventoy: Remove BLOBs from the Source Tree - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40689629 - June 2024 (49 comments)
Ventoy – Bootable USB Solution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40619822 - June 2024 (19 comments)
Ventoy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38672112 - Dec 2023 (111 comments)
Ventoy: A New Bootable USB Solution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36055765 - May 2023 (1 comment)
Ventoy, ISO USB Solution 10/10 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32901483 - Sept 2022 (4 comments)
A New Bootable USB Solution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28889392 - Oct 2021 (47 comments)
Ventoy makes making bootable USB drives easy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24273289 - Aug 2020 (11 comments)
Ventoy: A new bootable USB solution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24241485 - Aug 2020 (106 comments)
Ventoy – A New Bootable USB Solution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23394714 - June 2020 (6 comments)
Ventoy: Boot different ISO files from a USB stick - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23060019 - May 2020 (1 comment)
steelbrain
Love Ventoy! I never have to flash my USBs anymore. Just keep dropping those ISO files in there. Highly recommended.
canistel
Same here. You can drop as many ISO files as you want and select during boot...
fullstop
I really like the idea of this, but I've run into several installers which are just incompatible with it. I don't remember which ones, unfortunately, but they just didn't deal with it well.
WaxProlix
If you have secureboot enabled and in Windows friendly mode, you can get validation failures with Ventoy until you either turn off secureboot, register the Ventoy MOK key, or change your secureboot setting to Generic OS (or whatever).
Kind of a pain, I think any machine that's had windows on it will get this setting enabled.
starky
Agreed, I've run into just enough installers that don't work with Ventoy where I've just defaulted back to using etcher when I need access. The 5 minutes wait is worth it over the frustration of booting into Ventoy and finding it doesn't work with the ISO I'm trying to use.
mhurron
Ventoy basically breaks openSUSE ISO's. Just mentioning that so maybe it'll show up more in searches.
rombert
Adding an official source: https://fosstodon.org/@opensuse/115451506225628859
zettabomb
First I've heard of it, I just installed an openSUSE variant through Ventoy a week or so ago.
dspillett
I've seen an installer get confused by the presence of an EFI partition on the stick, and not correctly create one on the target drive. There are probably ways to get around that, but I just made a separate USB stick for the installer (I had a spare stick floating around, and the tools handy (including on at least one of the live CDs on the ventoy stick)) and retried that way, which was probably faster than researching another method.
finalarbiter
Agreed. I have also found that some (dirt cheap) USB drives are incompatible with Ventoy entirely, being that it does not format the drive properly. I can drop ISOs all I like, but if they don't boot once I select them... Unfortunately I have resorted to using my trusty "pile o' flash drives" I've had for a decade.
Liquix
IME this can sometimes be resolved by selecting 'use grub2 mode' instead of allowing the ISO to boot normally.
mongrelion
I was going to ask how this would be better than any of the other options out there (like dd, the RPi imager and similar) but after seeing the README I consider this the superior alternative because you don't have to reflash the USB stick over and over again.
It supports multiple images at the same time, unlike the other solutions where one image take over the whole USB stick.
Love it.
indigodaddy
Ventoy wouldn't work for a rpi though would it?
jnovacho
How does this differ from Rufus [0] or Balena Etcher [1]? [0] https://rufus.ie/en/ [1] https://etcher.balena.io/
HenryMulligan
Both of those write a single ISO to your USB stick, while Ventoy allows you to store numerous ISOs in a folder on the stick and choose which to use at runtime. Also, you can store other files like normal with the remaining space on your stick.
evanjrowley
Unlike Balena Etcher, Ventoy is not a bloated Electron app that sends telemetry from your computer: https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/3784
encom
I just cannot fathom how a 450 MB dd frontend is taken seriously, instead of being the subject of relentless mockery.
yonatan8070
Rufus and BalenaEtcher are both programs for flashing an image to a disk. Ventoy is flashed onto the disk itself (into a small EFI partition), then the rest of the disk is just a regular file system, where you drag and drop a group of ISOs, then pick between them on boot.
fuzzfactor
Rufus does more than just flash an image, it's actually quite sophisticated and completely different in ways that copying images with Balena is not.
And Rufus is the product of continuous improvement, maintained brilliantly.
fullstop
Those let you write one image to a USB stick. With Ventoy you write the bootable part once, and plop as many ISOs on there as you want. You get one bootable device where you can select from a list of ISOs.
gamedna
I absolutely love ventoy and iventoy. They are amazing! Now I use this device : the IODD ST400 and never looked back. https://www.iodd.shop/IODD-ST400-USB-30-External-Encrypted-H... . The screen lets you pick, and swap the ISO on the fly, even enabling multiple to be mounted at the same time. This device even supports virtual hard drives and virtual floppy drives.
canada_dry
I'm curious why a GRUB based replacement for ventoy isn't popular? SSDs are ubiquitous/inexpensive.
SSD+USB+GRUB with either a single GRUB partition and multiple ISO files stored in subdirectories, OR one parition per ISO/OS.
Adding new ISOs would require some manual editing of the grub config but wouldn't this be a decent substitute??
Like many people I'm hesitant to use an OS installation tool that has not been thoroughly reviewed to ensure there is no malware in binary blobs.
ac29
I'm curious about this too.
Alternatively, does anyone know if you can install Ventoy to a partition on an internal disk? The documentation says it supports booting images stored on local disks, but doesnt say if Ventoy itself can be installed on a partition as opposed to an entire disk.
037
One nice thing about Ventoy is that you can still use the USB stick as a regular drive for other files — it doesn’t interfere with the ISOs you can boot from
giuseony
Long time ventoy user, here. I absolutely love this software, there's always a usb stick with ventoy and a bunch of useful isos in my pocket.
The really intriguing feature is the ability to run vDisk files (as long as there's a linux distro within it) thanks to the VtoyBoot plugin[1]. I'm actually trying to build my own customized arch version with all my software (and potentially keys) installed so I can get rid of having to bring around any hardware. The only problem I'm facing is that it seems that ventoy boot does not work very well with luks containers.
[1] VtoyBoot plugin: https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_vtoyboot.html
franga2000
Ventoy is great, but what I really miss is DriveDroid from the good old days. It still exists, but it's not quite as reliable on modern Android as it was on rooted Cyanogenmod back in the day and the distro download links have rotten away.
For those not familiar with it, it turns your Android phone into a USB DVD drive, meaning not only can you just download and host any distro with a few taps, you also don't need any hybrid ISOs or anything like that, the computer sees a real DVD so even old or weird machines accept it.
chenxiaolong
I wrote https://github.com/chenxiaolong/MSD for exactly that. It's a small wrapper around the Linux kernel's mass storage emulation support (CONFIG_USB_CONFIGFS_MASS_STORAGE). It can emulate a read-only optical drive, a readable disk, or a writable disk.
It is compatible with both older devices that configure USB via init scripts and newer devices that use Android's USB gadget HAL, but it does require Android 11+.
franga2000
Looks cool, bookmarking for when I finally have a rooted phone again
winkelmann
I've been using an IODD 2531 enclosure for many years now, and it's doing pretty much exactly that. It works with any ISO I throw at it and has no issues with Secure Boot. It’s also platform-agnostic as it acts as a USB optical disk drive.
There are some shortcomings, like a bug where it doesn't remember the last selected ISO if its filename is too long, files also need to be fully sequential. These might be fixed in their newer models (the 2531 is fairly old).
d3Xt3r
There's also USB Mountr (aka PhoneStick)[1], but of course YMMV with modern Android. Might be better to use a rooted Android with the DriveDroid + the Magisk compatibility module[2].
[1] https://github.com/JinbaIttai/phonestick
[2] https://github.com/overzero-git/DriveDroid-fix-Magisk-module
fuzzfactor
As far as I can tell, a great many Android phones have always been able for their SD cards to serve as read/write external storage/bootable drives for PC's when connected by USB cable.
You have to format the SD card in a PC first, perhaps also repartition beforehand.
Even the old Sony smartphones before there were iPhones could do it with their MemorySticks. I really do miss the non-Android non-iOS smartphones.
fukka42
Such a shame Google & Apple refuse to let us use our devices to their full potential.
Get the top HN stories in your inbox every day.
The nice thing about Ventoy—and I didn’t fully appreciate this until I used it—is how simple it makes bootable USBs. You just drag and drop ISO images onto the drive, and it can hold as many as will fit. When you boot from the Ventoy USB, you just pick the image you want to install or run—no re-flashing, no fuss.
It’s honestly wild how convenient it is. Ventoy was the only method that worked for me when I needed to install Windows alongside an existing Linux setup for dual-booting. Everything else I tried failed, but Ventoy handled it perfectly.