Ventoy: Create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI Files • Hacker News Board

Re: Ventoy: Create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI Files

#91

Post by d3Xt3r » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:09 PM UTC

franga2000 wrote: post #68

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 an…

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

Re: Ventoy: Create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI Files

#92

Post by encom » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:13 PM UTC

evanjrowley wrote: post #31

jnovacho wrote: post #25

How does this differ from Rufus [0] or Balena Etcher [1]? [0] https://rufus.ie/en/ [1] https://etcher.balena.io/

Unlike Balena Etcher, Ventoy is not a bloated Electron app that sends telemetry from your computer: https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/3784

I just cannot fathom how a 450 MB dd frontend is taken seriously, instead of being the subject of relentless mockery.

Re: Ventoy: Create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI Files

#93

Post by fukka42 » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:15 PM UTC

junon wrote: post #84

fukka42 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't, no, but why should I trust the maintainer, and why should the maintainer trust Randy from some random site?

Because you intend to run their software? And don't try to tell me you've never ran any proprietary software.

Re: Ventoy: Create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI Files

#94

Post by i4qpLmoptUph3fZ » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:23 PM UTC

junon wrote: post #84

fukka42 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't, no, but why should I trust the maintainer, and why should the maintainer trust Randy from some random site?

To sibling comment: I don't understand your line of reasoning. How does using someone's software make you trust them? Don't you need trust to run someone's software first?

Re: Ventoy: Create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI Files

#95

Post by bombcar » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:26 PM UTC

organsnyder wrote: post #83

d3Xt3r wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

ChatMBR.

Re: Ventoy: Create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI Files

#96

Post by i4qpLmoptUph3fZ » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:26 PM UTC

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #64

i4qpLmoptUph3fZ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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?

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?

Re: Ventoy: Create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI Files

#97

Post by nelblu » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:27 PM UTC

Long time ventoy user. For someone who loves to flash or try out different Linux distros all the time, this is a godsend.

I would also highly recommend iventoy, if you want to just boot using network device : https://www.iventoy.com/en/index.html. It came in very handy when I had a machine which only had a CD/DVD ROM, floppy and netboot option. I didn't want to waste a DVD-R so just booted via network.

Re: Ventoy: Create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI Files

#98

Post by pxc » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:30 PM UTC

hnuser123456 wrote: post #58

pxc wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Making custom Windows install media is insanely painful, even from Windows. I went through the process of creating non-interactive install media for Windows once, and was astonished at how awful it is compared to building custom Linux live media. (Not least of all because of the churn in the XML you have to maintain that basically represents clicking through all the installer menus.)

WAIK? I created a customized Windows install image as a 19 year old intern and presented it to the rest of the IT team...

Microsoft's tooling for customizing images amounts to several gigabytes to download and install just to get started.

The Windows approach is based on a mix of relatively limited offline modifications and automating clicks and keystrokes (AutoUnattend.xml, OOBE.xml) and recording or forgetting manual changes (Audit Mode, Sysprep). Both are insanely kludgey.

New development of the tooling always comes to dism.exe first rather than the DISM PowerShell module, so you may need to use DOS commands instead of the (very lovely) modern shell that Microsoft maintains.

Depending on what kind of stuff you're trying to install, you might need to do half a dozen reboots in the course of recording your manual changes.

Mounting/unmounting a WIM file can take more than a minute (wtf?) and if you're working on modifying one of the installer images from upstream, you need dozens of gigabytes of free disk space.

If you don't just want install media, but a bootable repair environment, everything is even worse. Hardware recognition is bad, boot is slow, and only some programs can actually run in a WinPE environment.

Have you ever customized bootable Linux media?

When I had to make some custom NixOS install media for an aarch64 VPS, it required only a few lines of code in the exact same environment as I use to customize running systems, and it's completely declarative, non-interactive, requires no special toolkit, doesn't require dozens of gigabytes of scratch space, never requires me to boot anything...

Teenage interns can also shovel manure, but that doesn't make it pleasant or painless!

Re: Ventoy: Create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI Files

#99

Post by gamedna » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:32 PM UTC

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.

Re: Ventoy: Create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI Files

#100

Post by PaulKeeble » Thu, Oct 30, 2025, 6:46 PM UTC

fumeux_fume wrote: post #11

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 i…

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.