Sometimes, you may want to create bootable USB device from an ISO or IMG file. Programs like ImageISO, UNetbootin, Rufus comes in handy in such situations. The limitations of these 3 programs is that you’ll have to format the USB drive to burn some other image file.
Fortunately, there’s a free YUMI software that allows you to create multiboot USB drive. Once you’ve downloaded Yumi on your Windows PC, run it. You’ll be prompted to accept the terms and conditions after which the program will load its wizard interface.
The program will not be installed on the hard disk drive. Thus, no desktop or start menu shortcuts will be created. You’ll have to note down the path to the main executable file of Yumi if you’d like to use this program on a regular basis. Anyways, here’s the step by step guide for creating multiboot USB drives with Yumi.
In the 1st step, you must select the appropriate drive letter of the USB drive. Besides this option, you’ll find a show all drives check box. If you want to write an ISO to an HDD or SSD partition, mark this box as checked. Make sure that you back up all the files stored on the selected partition as Yumi will format it.
In the 2nd step, you should select the program or distribution type from the drop-down list. There’s an option to download the ISO image file of the selected distribution.
In the 3rd step, you must specify the location of the ISO file you want to write to the drive you’ve selected in step 1.
The final step i.e. set a persistent file size is optional. If you don’t understand it, don’t change the slider’s value.
Yumi will begin writing the ISO to your USB stick when you click on create button. When this task is over, reboot your PC to check if it is able to detect the bootable USB device or not. If it does, you’ll see a bootloader utility that asks you to select the distro or program you had selected in step 2.
If your USB stick doesn’t have enough memory to write new ISOs, you’re allowed to remove an existing distribution.
Pros:
- You can easily create an antivirus or Windows rescue disks with Yumi.
- Supports every Linux distribution you might be aware of.
- UI is not complex.
- Supports various free and premium antivirus applications.
- If you want to try out a new tool or OS, the program will display its download link so that you can download the ISO/IMG file for creating bootable USB stick.
Cons:
- Doesn’t detect USB stick in the real time.
I used Yumi to create a bootable USB drive for the Linux Mint Cinnamon OS and Memtest86 application. Yumi was able to write the image files of these two programs to the pen-drive. Unfortunately, the USB device was not detected by the BIOS boot loader utility when the drive was in USB 2.0/3.0 port. Have you used Yumi? Does the program work on your computer?
Conclusion: With Yumi multiboot program, you can create a USB installer drive for all of your favorite system tools, Windows XP, 7, 8.1, 10 OS and Linux distros. The tool is simple and lightweight. It will take 1.6 megabytes storage memory.
