Doing some research for why some HP computers do not boot from a USB flash drive, I came across Ventoy.

Ventoy is a software tool to create a USB flash drive bootable in anything and supports the most common image files.

We tried Ventoy to make a USB flash drive bootable, and it works like a champ. In fact, the software is so easy to use, it is worth commenting about a previous post we did. A while back we talked about how to check if your USB flash drive is bootable, and to be honest, rather than putting in the time and work to read the article and do the steps, your time is better used flashing your drive with Ventoy. The result is a bootable USB flash drive for any device.

Ventoy is an open source tool for creating bootable flash drives when using image files like ISO, IMG, WIM, VHD and EFI files. The project team tested over 900 image files which tested successfully on over 90% of the distro packages.

What we like about this solution is no need to flash the drive with boot code using the source CD-ROM like so many tutorials out there (for Windows at least) because the Ventoy tool creates a second partition which all the boot code and the Ventoy utility flashes that partition with the boot code needed. You can see from the Disk Management screen shot below there are now two partitions on the tested flash drive.

You can tell there have been plenty of Ventoy updates and what is (also) very nice about their software tool is the display of Ventoy version on your device. Nice feature to cross reference if your device is current or needs an update. The update process is just as quick as the original creation of the bootable device.

Considering the above, it goes without saying it is easier than ever to make a USB flash drive bootable in anything without having to re-do the work. This software eliminates the need to re-create a bootable image to USB and flash it over and over. Simply update the image file content, not the boot strap code.

The only thing even slightly annoying, which is easy enough to correct is the Volume name for the primary partition defaults to “Ventoy” Would be nice if an edit feature was in the software to customize this without the additional step of renaming the volume after-the-fact.

Here are a list of feature copied from the website. The project is open source and we suggest making a donation if you do in-fact use the code. It’s only fair, right!

The following article will explain how to check your USB flash drive for if it’s bootable. There is no software needed, no download, just a couple of simple commands in your Windows 10 operating system.

A master boot record (MBR) is a special type of boot sector at the very beginning of a partition storage device like a fixed disk (hard drive) or removable drive (USB thumb drive). The MBR contains executable code to function as a loader for the installed operating system. This loader turns over the functions of the hardware (mother board bios) and passes that loading responsibility off to the operating system (Windows).

This is how you check if your USB is bootable, or not:

First, please have only the one USB stick connected which you want to check if it’s bootable. It’s not required to do this, but will my the instructions below a bit easier to follow, that’s all.

Using the Windows search function copy and paste this into the search field and click Enter

compmgmt.msc

The screen shot below will pop up after you click Enter. Using the image as a reference, select “Disk Management” under the “Storage” folder“. In the middle of the dialogue box you will see the drive letter associated with your USB flash drive. In the middle of the box you will probably see the USB listed two different times. The top portion of the box, the USB will be listed along with other devices, like your hard drive and optical drive. The bottom portion of the box, the USB will be shown as “Removable“

Once you’ve determined which drive letter is your USB drive, you may Right Click on the drive letter and select Properties.

A Properties dialogue box appears giving you the option to select any one of the devices show in the previous window (the Disk Management window). From this dialogue box, click the Hardware tab and select the “Mass Storage USB Device” by a single click. Then click the Properties button at the bottom.

The last dialogue box are the Properties of your specific flash drive.

Click the Volumes tab at the top, you then must click “Populate” to get the device information. . The “Partition Style” will read either Master Boot Record (MBR) or the field will be empty.

If the above information isn’t detailed enough for the information you are looking for, the next step is to use a hex editor and check if the boot strap code is actually in the Master Boot Record. This is a bit more detail and the guys at Hakzone did a really good job of summarizing how this would be done using a hex editor program.

GetUSB.info has reported on making a bootable USB with nt60 boot sector, and here is another post about bootable USB, but this time for making the boot device for any Windows OS…or should I say from any Windows OS.

WinToFlash is a slick little tool I came across which allows you to make a bootable USB from any source Windows installation CD or DVD.

WinToFlash will slurp out the boot sectors required to make a bootable USB from your source CD or DVD.   Simply pop in the Windows disk, get a 4GB stick [8GB is better] that can read/write faster than a promo give-away drive, and run WinToFlash.

Here is a list of items you can perform using WinToFlash for bootable USB devices:

• Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7 to a USB drive transfer
• WinPE (BartPE based on Windows XP/2003, WinPE based on Windows Vists/2008/7 and so on) to a USB drive transfer
• USB media erasing full or quick
• Create a USB drive with emergency bootloader for Windows XP/2003
• MS-DOS to a USB drive transfer
• Create a USB drive with Windows XP/2003 Recovery Console

You certainly don’t need a lot of power to run the utility, that’s for sure.   But if not sure, here are the min specs:

• Pentium 233-megahertz (MHz) processor or faster
• At least 64 megabytes (MB) of RAM
• At least 20 megabytes (MB) of available space on the hard disk
• Keyboard and a Microsoft Mouse or some other compatible pointing device
• Video adapter and monitor with Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher resolution
• Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7

WinToFlash is asking for dontations if you find the tool helpful.   Good luck! [ https://tinyurl.com/ovfetq ]

USB Tutorial:   How to create a bootable USB stick with the specific nt60 book sector required for Microsoft Vista.

Before we begin the USB tutorial on nt60 boot sector you’ll need to review the check list of items needed before you start.   Chances are, if you find yourself searching for this tutorial, you already have everything needed to make a USB bootable with nt60 boot sector.

• 4GB flash drive will do the trick
• Your Vista installation disk
• Set BIOS to boot from a USB device

When selecting your flash drive be sure there is nothing you need on the device as this process to create a nt60 boot sector will clean the drive of all data.

1. Put your Vista disk into the optical drive, if the autorun starts, close it all down and exit without performing any tasks.
2. Plug in your USB stick which you want to make bootable with nt60.
3. Open into the Command prompt.   [you will need Admin rights]
4. Type ‘diskpart‘ and press Enter



5. Now type ‘list disk‘ and press Enter   All the storage devices connected to your computer will be displayed, make sure the size of the Disk you plan to select is the USB flash drive you intend to use!



6. Now type ‘select disk [number here]‘   In this example I typed