USB Key Multitool?

srhuston asks: "I've got a USB key that I use for booting and installing machines (GRUB boots and pulls the rest from the network). This got me thinking, all the floppy disks and CDs that I use for various tasks, such as memtest86, SuperRescue, Plan-B, tomsrtbt and others with which I'd like to experiment, I could probably get a larger key and put a few of them on there. The problem is booting them all - it seems that unless I copy the contents of the CD to the key, I wouldn't be able to boot it properly, and doing that means I can only use one of them at a time and have to copy another to the key when I want to use it. Ideally I'd love to be able to have my GRUB menu (or something similar) pop up, and select which of the items I want to boot. Any ideas how I might accomplish this? GRUB doesn't seem to support booting an image (floppy or ISO), and ISOLINUX seems to want to boot just one image and not give options for multiple ones. Oh, and yes, I did look first and found more questions than answers."

Comments

Partitions

[aldragon]

I don't see why you don't just use multiple partitions instead of images and use a normal bootloader. In case you don't already know, usb keys do support multiple partitions just like any other block device.

Re:Partitions

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

usb keys do support multiple partitions just like any other block device

Depends on the key.

I know that mine can't be partitioned (at least, my efforts thus far have failed).

Is it possible to partition a floppy? If so, does it make sense? Then you might be able to partition every USB key. Otherwise, it will depend on whether the manufacturer put a partition table in the key.

Ultimate Boot CD

[Matt Perry]

I don't have a solution to your USB boot problem, but until then why don't you keep a copy of the ultimate boot CD around. It'll be a good stopgap measure as long as the machines you work on have a CDROM drive.