How to Use Ventoy: The Beginner's Guide (One USB, Every ISO)

CodexFuse Team · 2026-10-30T09:40:13.128Z · 13 min read

Install Ventoy once on a USB drive, copy ISO files like any other file, and boot any OS from one menu. Secure Boot, persistence, and troubleshooting covered.

Learning how to use Ventoy takes one afternoon and pays off every time you reinstall Windows, try a Linux distribution, or reach for a rescue tool. Ventoy is a free, open-source utility that turns a single USB drive into a permanent multi-boot drive: install it once, then add, swap, or remove operating systems by copying ISO files the way you copy any file. No reformatting, no re-flashing, no starting over. If you already read our Rufus beginner guide, this is the other lane — Rufus writes one ISO per drive, while Ventoy keeps them all. This guide covers the full loop: install, add ISOs, boot, Secure Boot, persistence, updates, and the fixes for the common failures.

What Is Ventoy and How Does It Work?

Ventoy is a free, open-source tool that turns one USB drive into a permanent multi-boot drive. You install Ventoy on the drive once, then you add operating systems and tools to it simply by copying ISO files onto it like any other file. When you boot a computer from that drive, Ventoy shows a menu listing every ISO it found, and you pick the one to start.

The entire workflow is three steps:

1. Install: run Ventoy's installer on a USB drive (this erases the drive).
2. Copy: drag ISO files onto the drive — one Windows installer, several Linux distributions, a rescue tool, whatever fits.
3. Boot: restart the computer, pick the USB drive from the boot menu, then choose an ISO from Ventoy's menu.

After that, adding a new ISO is a file copy, and removing one is a file delete. You never re-flash the drive. The project supports both legacy BIOS and UEFI machines and lists more than 1,300 tested ISO files, including every Windows version, hundreds of Linux distributions, antivirus rescue disks, memory testers, and Windows PE environments, per its documentation. This guide follows the same single-tool flow as our Rufus beginner guide, but for the multi-boot lane Ventoy owns.

Ventoy vs Rufus: Which One Do You Need?

Pick Ventoy if you want one drive that holds many bootable images permanently; pick Rufus if you want the fastest way to write one ISO to a drive for a single job.

The core difference is architectural. Rufus writes one ISO into the drive's boot structure, so the drive becomes that single ISO until you rewrite it. Ventoy installs a small bootloader once and leaves the data partition alone, so the drive stays a normal file container that happens to be bootable. Our Rufus beginner guide covers the single-image path in full if that is what you need.

What Do You Need Before You Start?

You need a USB drive with at least 16GB of storage, a computer to install from, and the ISO files you want to boot.

A 32GB or 64GB drive is the practical choice: a Windows 11 ISO alone is around 5GB, so a 16GB drive fills up after two or three installers. A 64GB drive comfortably holds a Windows installer, two or three Linux distributions, and a rescue toolkit at the same time. Faster USB 3.x drives are worth it — installing Windows from a USB 2.0 stick is noticeably slower.

The mandatory warning first: installing Ventoy erases the entire USB drive. Back up any files on it before you start. This only happens at install time — adding, removing, or updating ISOs later does not touch the rest of the drive.

How Do You Install Ventoy on Windows?

On Windows, you download the Ventoy package from ventoy.net, run Ventoy2Disk.exe as administrator, select your USB drive, and click Install.

1. Download. Go to ventoy.net and open the download page, which takes you to the GitHub releases page. Under Assets, download the Windows package (ventoy-x.x.xx-windows.zip — at the time of writing, the current release is 1.1.18). Extract the zip with File Explorer's Extract All and open the folder; you will find Ventoy2Disk.exe inside.
2. Run as administrator. Right-click Ventoy2Disk.exe and choose Run as administrator. The window shows two version fields: "Ventoy In Package" (the version you downloaded) and "Ventoy In Device" (the version on the USB drive, if Ventoy is already installed there).
3. Select the right drive. Plug in your USB drive, then choose it in the Device dropdown. Double-check the drive letter and the capacity match what you expect — the installer will erase whatever you select.
4. Install. Click Install. Ventoy shows two warning dialogs confirming that all data on the drive will be erased; confirm both. The install takes one to three minutes, and your drive is ready.

If Ventoy2Disk.exe repeatedly fails on your machine, you are not out of options. Windows restricts the low-level disk writes the installer needs, and antivirus or system-protection software can interfere. Ventoy's own docs recommend the Ventoy LiveCD as plan B: write the LiveCD ISO to any USB stick, boot from it, and run the installer from that tiny Linux environment, which does the low-level writes far more reliably.

How Do You Install Ventoy on Linux?

On Linux, you download the tar.gz package, extract it, and either launch the graphical installer or run the shell script with sudo.

1. Download and extract. Get the ventoy-x.x.xx-linux.tar.gz package from the GitHub releases page and extract it — right-click and choose Extract here, or use tar on the command line.
2. Launch the installer. Open the extracted folder and look for VentoyGUI.x86_64. Run it, enter your sudo password when asked, and click Install after selecting the USB drive.
3. Or use the terminal. From inside the extracted folder, run sudo sh Ventoy2Disk.sh -i /dev/sdX (replace sdX with your drive — identify it first with lsblk; writing to the wrong device destroys data).

One useful option lives in the GUI's Options menu: "Partition Configuration" with a "Preserve some space at the end of the Disk" checkbox. That reserves a chunk of unallocated space you can later format as a normal NTFS, FAT32, or EXT4 partition, handy on large external drives where you want boot images and regular storage cleanly separated.

How Do You Add ISO Files to a Ventoy Drive?

You copy ISO files onto the Ventoy drive like any other file — that is the whole procedure.

Open the drive in your file manager (it appears as a drive labeled Ventoy) and drag your ISO files onto it. You can drop them at the root or organize them into folders — one folder for Windows installers, one for Linux, one for rescue tools. Ventoy scans all folders and subfolders at boot and lists every bootable image in its menu. Files larger than 4GB are fine, because Ventoy formats the data partition as exFAT instead of FAT32.

Managing the collection is equally simple: to add an ISO, copy it; to remove one, delete it; to replace an old Ubuntu with the new release, delete the old file and copy the new one. Ventoy also accepts WIM, IMG, VHD(x), and EFI files, not just ISOs, so Windows PE environments and disk images work too. A drive built for trialing distributions pairs naturally with our Ubuntu beginner guide for the first ISO you will likely boot.

How Do You Boot From a Ventoy USB Drive?

Plug the drive in, restart the computer, open the boot menu, select the USB drive, then pick an ISO from the Ventoy menu and press Enter.

The boot menu key depends on the manufacturer and is usually shown on screen for a few seconds during startup. The common ones:

Once the Ventoy menu appears, use the arrow keys to highlight the ISO you want and press Enter. That is all — no extraction, no per-ISO preparation. If the computer boots straight into its installed system instead, the USB drive was not selected, or the machine booted in a mode (UEFI vs legacy) that the drive's firmware order skipped; re-enter the boot menu and try the other USB entry if two appear.

What If Secure Boot Blocks the USB?

If Secure Boot is enabled and the drive will not boot, you enroll Ventoy's key once per computer through the blue MOK Manager screen that appears on first boot.

Secure Boot has been supported since Ventoy 1.0.76. In the installer, make sure Secure Boot support is enabled (Options menu in Ventoy2Disk.exe, or the -s flag for the Linux script). Then, the first time you boot the Ventoy drive on a machine with Secure Boot on, a blue MOKManager screen appears asking you to enroll the key — follow the prompts, and the steps only need to be done once per computer.

Two practical notes from Ventoy's own Secure Boot docs: since version 1.1.13 you may need to enroll a new key because of the UEFI CA 2023 change, and some machines require an "Allow Microsoft 3rd Party UEFI CA" option to be enabled in the firmware. If you get an error screen instead of the blue enrollment screen, the Secure Boot approach does not work on that machine — disable Secure Boot in the UEFI setup and the drive will boot normally. In theory Ventoy boots fine whether Secure Boot is on or off; the key enrollment is just the price of keeping it on.

How Do You Keep Your Files Between Reboots (Persistence)?

For supported Linux distributions, you create a persistence data file, point Ventoy at it in a small JSON config, and Ventoy offers it at boot time.

Normally a live Linux USB forgets everything when you reboot. Ventoy's persistence plugin fixes that without extra partitions: you put a backend data file (for example persistence.dat) on the first partition and describe it in /ventoy/ventoy.json, and Ventoy presents a menu letting you boot that ISO with or without its saved data. You can keep separate data files for different ISOs, or even several backends for one ISO with a menu to choose between them.

The supported list includes Ubuntu and Ubuntu-based distributions (Linux Mint, elementary OS, Zorin), Arch-based distributions, MX Linux, Kali, CloneZilla, and Fedora, each with its own data-file label (casper-rw for Ubuntu, MX-Persist for MX Linux, and so on). The official CreatePersistentImg.sh script builds a correctly labeled file for you — by default a 1GB ext4 image labeled casper-rw. Configuring the JSON by hand is optional: VentoyPlugson, the project's GUI configurator, generates ventoy.json for you. This is the piece no quick-start guide teaches, and it is what turns a trial USB into a portable workstation.

How Do You Update Ventoy Without Losing Your ISOs?

You download the new release, run the installer again, and click Update instead of Install — the update only replaces the bootloader and leaves every ISO untouched.

Ventoy releases updates periodically to add support for new ISO files and fix compatibility issues. The 1.1.18 release, current at the time of writing, added experimental SteamOS recovery image support, fixed a Windows/WinPE Secure Boot version-check failure, and fixed persistence intermittently failing on Ubuntu desktop. Running Update instead of Install keeps your entire ISO collection exactly as it is; only run Install again if you want to wipe the drive and start over.

For a rescue toolkit that lives on the same drive — the sort of setup network admins carry — our Tailscale beginner guide is worth pairing with a live Linux ISO, so one USB drive covers both booting and remote access.

Troubleshooting: When the Boot Menu Does Not Appear

Work this short ladder in order before reinstalling anything.

• The computer skips the USB entirely. Re-enter the boot menu and pick the USB drive explicitly, or change the boot order in the UEFI/BIOS setup. On some machines the drive appears twice (UEFI and legacy entries) — try both.
• Secure Boot blocks it. Go through the MOK key enrollment described above, or disable Secure Boot in the firmware if enrollment fails on that machine.
• The Ventoy menu appears but your ISO is missing. Ventoy lists images it finds at boot time. Confirm the file actually copied completely (eject the drive properly — a half-copied ISO is invisible), check it is a supported format (ISO, WIM, IMG, VHD(x), EFI), and make sure it sits on the data partition, not inside the ventoy config folder.
• An ISO starts but misbehaves. Check the ISO's own checksum first — corrupted downloads are the usual cause. Then check Ventoy's compatibility notes: some ISOs need specific boot options, and updating Ventoy often fixes exactly these cases.
• The installer itself keeps failing on Windows. Use the Ventoy LiveCD as plan B, per Ventoy's docs — boot the tiny Linux environment it provides and install from there.

Sources

• GitHub — Ventoy 1.1.18 release notes (current release at time of writing; fetched 2026-10-30): changelog, Secure Boot version-check fix, Ubuntu persistence fix.
• Digital Citizen — "What Is Ventoy and How to Use It to Boot Multiple ISOs From One USB Drive" (updated April 2026; fetched 2026-10-30): full Windows install walkthrough, ISO management, boot menu, Ventoy vs Rufus comparison, update procedure.
• LinuxForDevices — "Ventoy — A beautiful tool for distro-hoppers and ISO hoarders" (updated September 29, 2026; fetched 2026-10-30): Linux install path, GUI and CLI methods, preserve-space partition option.
• Ventoy official documentation — Secure Boot guide (fetched 2026-10-30): Secure Boot supported since 1.0.76, MOKManager key enrollment, UEFI CA 2023 note for 1.1.13+.
• Ventoy official documentation — Persistence plugin guide (fetched 2026-10-30): backend data files, CreatePersistentImg.sh, ventoy.json configuration, supported distributions and labels.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Ventoy safe to download and use?

Yes. Ventoy is a legitimate open-source project hosted on GitHub with a large user base. Download it only from ventoy.net or the official GitHub releases page. Some browsers flag the download because it is a less common executable, but the official file is safe — this is exactly why you should never use a mirror.

Does installing Ventoy erase my USB drive?

Yes — the initial installation formats and erases the whole drive, so back up its files first. After that, adding, removing, or replacing ISO files never erases anything, and updating Ventoy to a newer version preserves all your ISOs.

How many ISO files can I put on a Ventoy drive?

There is no fixed limit. It depends only on the drive's capacity and the size of each ISO — a 64GB drive can comfortably hold ten or more operating system ISOs at once.

Can I still use the Ventoy drive for normal file storage?

Yes. The main partition is a standard exFAT drive that works like any USB stick. Ventoy only lists bootable images in its boot menu and ignores your other files.

Should I use Ventoy or Rufus?

Use Ventoy when you want one permanent drive that holds many bootable images you can swap by copying files. Use Rufus when you need the fastest way to write a single ISO to a drive for a one-off job — see our Rufus beginner guide for that path.