Performance Hardware
User’s Guide
T h e U l t i m a t e B o o t a b l e
U S B F l a s h D r i v e —
A d v a n c e d F e a t u r e s
A guide for adding advanced functionality to the Ultimate Bootable USB Flash Drive.
Version 1.0 May, 2010
Overview
Corsair has provided a utility that helps users create the Ultimate Bootable USB
Flash Drive . One outstanding feature of this tool is that it is very simple for end
users to add advanced functionality to the tool once the basic installation is complete.
A drive like the Flash Survivor GTR, pictured below, can become a wonderful tool
in a few easy steps. An ISO image is an image of an optical disk and this tool has
the ability to boot from a bootable ISO image thus eliminating the need to burn a
CD or DVD. Following the directions in this guide, the user simply downloads the
desired ISO file, extracts it to the USB drive, edits three lines of text, and the tool
is ready to use.
The Ultimate Bootable USB Flash Drive-Advanced Features
There are many options that an user can add to the basic version of this tool. Most
Linux distributions can be downloaded as ISO files. With this tool, users can boot
to Linux from their drive which amounts to a pocket sized portable operating system.
Also, many tools and utilities such as Parted Magic from our example here, can be
found in ISO form. This means no more burning CDs or DVDs using ISO images if
you don’t want to. And, those ISO based tools and utilities can be more conven-
iently used, stored, updated, manipulated, and transported using a USB flash drive.
Multiple ISOs can be added to the drive and the capacity is limited only by the
drive size.
If you can find the program, application, or utility you wish to use in a bootable
ISO form, you can add it to your USB flash drive using this tool. The process is
simple and takes only a few minutes.
The Ultimate Bootable USB Flash Drive-Advanced Features
1
Download and Extract the Needed
Files
Download the Ultimate Bootable USB Flash Drive Tool and the How To Guide for
it here: http://forum.corsair.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85815
Download the Parted Magic ISO file here:
http://partedmagic.com/download.html
In addition to the 2 files above, you will need a text editor. Notepad, included with
Windows, is sufficient. Notepad ++ is another excellent option and can be found
here: http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
Our example uses Parted Magic, a very helpful formatting tool. This tool is frequently recommended by Corsair Technical Support and is especially useful for
SSD owners.
After you have completed the basic creation of the Ultimate USB Flash Drive,
you’ll need extract Parted Magic and save it to your flash drive.
The Ultimate Bootable USB Flash Drive-Advanced Features
Copying and Editing to Add the ISO to the
2
The tool uses a file named menu.lst to list the boot options for the boot loader.
With a simple edit of this file, you add the ability to boot an ISO image. Copy your
menu.lst file and rename the copy menuOLD. This will ensure that you have an
unedited copy of the file on hand if you need to restore the original file.
Boot Menu
In this portion, you will need a text editor such as Notepad or Notepad ++. Open
the menu.lst file with your text editor.
The Ultimate Bootable USB Flash Drive-Advanced Features
3
Edit the Text in the menu.lst File
The last segment of text in the .lst file is a sample file provided to make modifying
the tool easier. First, remove the # signs from lines 24-29. Then, on line 24, change
the title to the name of your ISO. In this example we named it Parted Magic. On
lines 25 and 26, change testname.iso to the name of your Parted Magic ISO file.
Remember to keep the syntax spacing the same in each line that you edit. Save
your edits to the menu.lst file on your flash drive. See below for examples of the
file before and after.
BEFORE
AFTER
You have now modified your drive to use Parted Magic in addition to the basic
functions of Memtest86+ and FreeDOS.
The Ultimate Bootable USB Flash Drive-Advanced Features
4
Boot to Your USB Flash Drive
To use the utilities on your drive, you will need to boot your system to this drive
as opposed to booting to your system drive. There are 2 ways to do this. Option 1
below shows how you would manually select the boot menu and select the drive
to which you want to boot. Refer to your manual as the key for this varies across
different motherboards. You may also set the USB flash drive as the first item in
your boot order as shown in Option 2. Either method works equally well.
OPTION 1
Option 2
The Ultimate Bootable USB Flash Drive-Advanced Features
5
Select the Utility you Wish to Use
Once you boot to your USB flash drive, you will see the boot menu as shown below which will now include Parted Magic. Select the utility you wish to use and it
will be loaded.
There are literally endless possibilities for using this tool and adding advanced
functionality. Essentially, any program that will fit onto the drive and that can also
be run from an ISO image can be utilized in this manner. This includes many utilities like Parted Magic and Linux distributions. Many open source programs, such
as the FreeNAS server program for example, are distributed in ISO form and can
be added and used. The advanced functionality truly makes this the ultimate
bootable USB flash drive.
The Ultimate Bootable USB Flash Drive-Advanced Features
Resources
The Ultimate Bootable USB Drive Tool:
http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=85815
Corsair USB Flash Drive Product Page:
http://www.corsair.com/products/flash.aspx
Pendrivelinux.com:
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/
Download Parted Magic here:
http://partedmagic.com/download.html
© May, 2010, Corsair Memory, Incorporated. All rights reserved. All trademarks and registered
trademarks are the property of their respective owners in the United States and/or other countries.
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