You only have one usb stick but u wanna have many os installers in there? Try Ventoy 🚀

Tired of formatting your USB drive every single time you want to try a new Linux distro or run a Windows installer? 😫

It’s the worst. You find a cool new OS, you download the ISO, you burn it to a USB with a tool like Rufus or BalenaEtcher, and your drive is locked to that one thing. Want to try another? You have to wipe it and start all over.

Well, say hello to your new best friend: Ventoy! 🥳

Here is a beginner-friendly guide to installing Ventoy, complete with emojis, perfect for a Medium story.

Boot All Your ISOs from One USB! 🚀 A Super-Simple Guide to Installing Ventoy

Tired of formatting your USB drive every single time you want to try a new Linux distro or run a Windows installer? 😫

It’s the worst. You find a cool new OS, you download the ISO, you burn it to a USB with a tool like Rufus or BalenaEtcher, and your drive is locked to that one thing. Want to try another? You have to wipe it and start all over.

Well, say hello to your new best friend: Ventoy! 🥳

What is Ventoy? 🤔

Ventoy is a magical, open-source tool that turns your regular USB drive into a bootable Swiss Army knife. 🇨🇭

Here’s the magic: You install Ventoy once. After that, you just copy and paste your ISO files (like ubuntu.iso or windows.iso) directly onto the USB drive.

That’s it.

When you boot from the USB, Ventoy gives you a neat menu listing every single ISO file you copied. You just pick the one you want to run. No more re-formatting. Ever.

Ready to make one? Let’s go!

What You’ll Need 🛍️

• A USB flash drive. 8GB is fine, but 16GB or 32GB+ is better so you can hold lots of ISOs at once!
• A computer (Windows or Linux). I’ll cover both.
• About 5 minutes of your time. ⏰

Step 1: Download Ventoy 📥

First, we need to grab the Ventoy software.

1. Go to the official Ventoy website: **https://www.ventoy.net**
2. Click on the “Downloads” page in the navigation bar.
3. Find the latest release and click the link for your operating system (e.g., ventoy-x.x.xx-windows.zip or ventoy-x.x.xx-linux.tar.gz).
4. This will take you to a source forge page. Under files section you’ll see ventoy-x.x.xx-windows.zip or ventoy-x.x.xx-linux.tar.gz

Step 2: Unzip the File 📁

The file you downloaded is a compressed .zip or .tar.gz file. We need to extract it.

• On Windows: Find the downloaded file (usually in your Downloads folder), right-click it, and choose "Extract All..."
• On Linux: Find the file, right-click it, and choose “Extract Here.”. Or if u want cli sure tar -zxf ventoy-x.x.xx-linux.tar.gz(replace with appropriate file name of course)

You’ll now have a new folder with a name like ventoy-1.0.97. Open it up!

Step 3: Plug in Your USB Drive 💾

Get that USB drive you’re going to use and plug it into your computer.

🚨 SUPER IMPORTANT WARNING 🚨

This next step will ERASE EVERYTHING on the USB drive. Permanently. Forever. Gone.

Make sure you’ve saved any important files from it somewhere else! Back it up now! 💾

Step 4: Run the Ventoy Installer 🏃‍♀️

This is where we install Ventoy onto the drive.

On Windows (The Easy Way!)

1. Inside the Ventoy folder you unzipped, find and double-click Ventoy2Disk.exe.
2. You might get a security pop-up from Windows. Click “More info” and then “Run anyway.” You’ll also need to click “Yes” to allow it to make changes.

On Linux (Also Easy!)

1. Inside the Ventoy folder, you’ll see a file like VentoyGUI.x86_64 (the name might change slightly depending on your computer's architecture).
2. Before you can run it, you might need to give it permission. Right-click the file, go to Properties > Permissions, and check the box that says “Allow executing file as program” or “Is executable.”
3. Now, you need to run it as an administrator. The easiest way is to right-click in the empty white space of the folder and choose “Open in Terminal.”
4. In the terminal window that pops up, type the following and press Enter (you’ll need to type your password):
5. Bash

• sudo ./VentoyGUI.x86_64

Step 5: Install to Your USB Drive ✅

You’ll now see the Ventoy installer window. It’s super simple.

1. At the top, under “Device,” carefully select your USB drive from the dropdown menu. You can usually tell by its name and size (e.g., “Kingston 32GB”).
2. Double-check it’s the right one! You don’t want to accidentally wipe your backup hard drive!
3. Click the big “Install” button.
4. Ventoy will warn you TWICE that all data will be destroyed. This is your last chance!
5. Click “Yes” and “Yes” again if you are 100% sure.

Wait a few seconds… ⏳

…and… Success! 🎉 You’ll get a message saying Ventoy has been successfully installed on the device.

How to Use Your New Super-Drive 🌟

This is the best part.

Step 1: Open your File Explorer (or “Files” on Linux). You’ll see your USB drive now has a new name: “Ventoy”.

Step 2: Find an ISO file you want to boot. (e.g., ubuntu-24.04-desktop-amd64.iso, windows11.iso, systemrescue.iso, etc.)

Step 3: Drag and drop (or copy and paste) the .iso file directly into the "Ventoy" drive.

That’s it. You don’t need to unzip it, format anything, or use any other tools. Just copy… and paste.

You can add another. And another. Add as many as will fit! 🤯

How to Boot From Your Ventoy Drive 🖥️

1. Leave the USB drive plugged in.
2. Restart your computer.
3. As it’s booting up (right when the screen turns on), you need to open the “Boot Menu.”
4. This is different for every computer. Look for a message on the screen that says:

• “Press F12 for Boot Menu” (Common on Dell, Lenovo)
• “Press ESC for Boot Menu” (Common on HP)
• “Press F2 or DEL to Enter Setup” (You can change the boot order here)

1. Keep tapping that key! ⌨️
2. When the menu appears, use your arrow keys to select your USB drive (it might be listed by its name, like “Kingston” or just “UEFI: USB Drive”).
3. Press Enter.
4. You’ll see the magical Ventoy menu listing all the ISO files you copied. 📜
5. Just select the one you want and hit Enter.

You’re done! You now have a single USB drive that can boot dozens of different operating systems and tools. No more formatting, no more hassle.

Notes:

after u selecting ur ventoy usb in ur bios/uefi, it doesnt boot into that and nothing really happens, in that case put that stick back to the pc where u made the ventoy, Follow the Step 5 again but instead of clicking install, click Update this time and try to boot into that again. Good luck.

Welcome to the Ventoy life! 😎