Boot ISOs from Memory Stick

Computer Forum General Hardware
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Hi, I’m sick of wasting CDs and DVDs (I don’t have any re-writables), and also the time it takes to burn them.

I want to be able to copy an ISO to my memory stick (or extract it), and boot the PC from it so I can try different versions of Linux easier.

My laptop and Computer are both capable of booting from memory stick.

Is it possible to boot a CD ISO from a memory stick? Is there any software that will do this for me? If not, why?

Thanks, Thomas

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Run ISOs from Memory Stick

i have an ext3 partition exclusively for all my .iso’s, free space is free space, so, yeah, i don’t see why not

BTW: i run multiple *nix’s in VMware, but there’s no 3D in VMware so no games, the slight delay is a bit annoying, however, if you have a decent spec & plenty of RAM, & assign about 1Gb to the Virtual machine i’ve heard there is no delay

although i’ve never tried it, however you can’t burn an iso with K3b, and i think the only way is to install *nix to the USB pen in the usual install was

BTW: just reread you post, sorry, i thought you were asking if you could run an iso off a USB pen, i didn’t read the part about booting an iso from a pen

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:smiley: Thanks anyway :smiley:

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found this although it isn’t booting a .iso from a USB pen, it’s a “how to install *nix to a USB pen”

BTW: is this what you were referring to ?

and as flash drives don’t handle constant read / write too well, use a swap partition on HDD, & the pen drive will last longer

obviously this will kill the USB drive after a while, so don’t keep anything valuable on it, as when the pen dies the data will be lost, unless you know a lot about data recovery

Edit: VMware can boot from a .iso stored on HDD