If you often create bootable USB drives using third-party software on Windows, you might need to format it first. However, you can use Ventoy2Disk, which is a free tool to create a bootable USB drive without formatting. You can create a multiboot USB drive with the help of this freeware. Let’s take a look at the features and options so that you can get started with it.
Ventoy2Disk features and options
You will not find a lot of features of options in this tool. However, it does its intended job well. Let’s assume that you have a bootable USB drive of Ubuntu, but you want to create a bootable pen drive of Windows – or, you want to create a multiboot USB drive on Windows 11/10. At such times, you can use the Ventoy2Disk tool to get the job done without any problem.
Generally, users need to format the pen drive to make it available for another ISO of an operating system. The highlight of this software is that you do not need to format the USB drive – whether you want to create a multiboot drive with two, three, or four ISO files. The second most important thing is to go through the installation process once. Once the software is linked to your USB drive, you can copy-paste the ISO file to make it a bootable storage.
Before starting, ensure you have all the ISO files on your PC. The file name or path should not contain a space or non-ASCII character.
Related: How to create bootable USB drive in Windows 11 using Rufus
Create bootable USB drive without formatting in Windows 11
To create a bootable USB drive without formatting using Ventoy2Disk, follow these steps-
- Download Ventoy2Disk from the official website.
- Extract the file.
- Insert the USB drive.
- Open Ventoy2Disk.exe on PC.
- Choose the USB device.
- Click the Install button.
- Copy-paste ISO files to the USB drive.
- Restart the PC to go through the installation.
Once the download is completed, extract or unzip the file on your computer. Now, insert the USB drive to your computer. After that, double-click on the Ventoy2Disk.exe file to open the setup window. It should look something like this-
It should detect the USB drive automatically. If it doesn’t, you can expand the Device drop-down list, and select your USB drive accordingly. After that, click the Install button so that it can start the software installation process.
For your information, it is the only time when your USB drive needs to be formatted. Therefore, it is essential to back up your data if it has anything.
Once you click the Install button, you will see a warning message and your permission to format the USB drive. The installation process takes a couple of seconds to complete. Once it is done, you should find a success message on your screen. After that, you can see two partitions—exFAT and FAT. You need to copy-paste all the ISO files to the exFAT partition, which should be named Ventoy.
Now, you can go through the OS installation process. For that, insert the USB drive to the desired computer, and restart the PC. You will be greeted with the following screen-
You can select an operating system from the list using the Up/Down key and press the Enter button. After that, you will see the usual installation screen for the respective operating system.
If you like this tool, you can download it from the official website. It supports most standard operating systems, including Windows 11/10, Ubuntu, Debian, etc. To get a list of all the supported operating systems, check the Tested ISO page on their website.
Read next: Best free Bootable USB Maker software for Windows PC.
