Related Products We may receive commission on purchases made using these links

Getting started with Ventoy: Learn how to make a multiboot USB drive (USB Booting)

5

$4.99 on Amazon

ST400 2.5 inch Enclosure/USB-C/Bootable Virtual ODD&HDD / AES256 Encryption Max up to 76 Digits/Write Protect / 2541(ST400/USB-C Type/Next Gen Model) Made in Korea

4.4

$114.00 on Amazon

SamData 128GB USB Flash Drives 1 Pack 128GB Thumb Drives Memory Stick Jump Drive with LED Light for Storage and Backup (1 Pack Red)

4.5

$16.19 on Amazon

How to Create a Multiboot USB Drive with Ventoy, Windows 11 & MemTest86

This guide walks through building a single USB drive that boots Windows 11, runs MemTest86 for memory diagnostics, and holds additional tools all without ever reformatting. By the end, you'll have a drive you update by copying files, not rebuilding from scratch.

Choose the right tool before you start

One USB drive. Multiple bootable images. No rebuilds. That's the goal, and it's why Ventoy is the right tool here rather than Rufus or YUMI.

Rufus is designed to create a single bootable USB quickly and reliably. It does that job well. A side-by-side test by an4t.com (October 2025) clocked Rufus at roughly two minutes versus Ventoy's three-minute initial setup plus file copy time for a 5 GB Windows 11 ISO. For a one-off task, that gap matters. For a drive built to last, it doesn't.

Ventoy solves the multiboot problem by separating the bootloader from the images. Install it once, then treat the drive's data partition like an ordinary folder. Copy a Windows 11 ISO in, copy a MemTest86 image in, reboot, and Ventoy presents a menu listing every file it finds. The Ventoy GitHub repository (December 2025) confirms the premise: no reformatting between changes, and direct boot support for ISO, WIM, IMG, and VHD files without extraction. Over 1,300 ISO files have been tested for compatibility.

YUMI, the older multiboot alternative, relies on Syslinux and GRUB in ways that produce boot failures on modern UEFI systems, per an4t.com (October 2025). It also requires reformatting to swap images, which defeats the purpose entirely.

Know the edge cases before you start

Most setups work without friction. A few don't, and it's worth knowing the tradeoffs now rather than mid-process.

Some custom Linux images need a ventoy.json configuration entry before they'll boot correctly, per an4t.com (October 2025) skip this and those images simply won't appear or will fail to load. Machines with Secure Boot enabled will require a one-time key enrollment the first time the drive boots on that hardware; without it, you'll hit a security violation screen before Ventoy ever loads. Older machines without UEFI firmware may need the drive reinstalled using MBR partition style rather than GPT, or they won't recognize the drive as bootable at all. None of these are blockers all three are covered in the troubleshooting section below but expecting a frictionless first boot on every machine is optimistic.

Prerequisites:

• USB drive of at least 16 GB (32 GB or larger recommended; a Windows 11 ISO alone exceeds 5 GB)
• A Windows PC with administrator access
• Windows 11 ISO downloaded from Microsoft
• MemTest86 free .img file from memtest86.com
• Ventoy downloaded from ventoy.net

Compatibility decisions to make before installing

Three choices determine whether this drive works reliably across machines. Make them before touching the installer.

GPT or MBR partition style

For most modern machines, GPT is the recommended default. Every PC running Windows 11 uses UEFI firmware, and the Ventoy GitHub repository (December 2025) confirms that both MBR and GPT are fully supported. The main reason to choose MBR is hardware old enough to lack UEFI entirely in that case, GPT-formatted removable media may not be recognized at boot.

For a Windows 11 and MemTest86 toolkit specifically, GPT on a UEFI machine keeps everything consistent. Current MemTest86 versions (v5 and later) are UEFI-only and will not load in legacy BIOS mode, as documented on Unix Stack Exchange (2021). If the target machine runs UEFI, use GPT. If it doesn't, weigh whether MemTest86 v4 (the legacy-compatible version) covers your needs before committing to MBR.

Secure Boot

Leave Ventoy's Secure Boot support enabled during installation. Ventoy has supported IA32 and x86_64 UEFI Secure Boot since version 1.0.07, per the Ventoy GitHub repository (December 2025). The first time the drive boots on a given machine, the firmware may prompt for key enrollment. That's a one-time step, not a sign of a broken setup the troubleshooting section covers it in detail. Disabling Secure Boot preemptively leaves the machine less secure and doesn't actually solve anything.

Filesystem and large ISOs

Windows 11 ISOs exceed 4 GB, which is the maximum file size FAT32 can handle. Ventoy's data partition defaults to exFAT, which handles large files correctly. If the data partition ends up formatted as FAT32 for any reason, the Windows 11 copy will silently fail or transfer as a corrupted file. Both TechBloat (July 2025) and Multicare Technical (October 2025) flag this as a common failure point. Verify the filesystem is exFAT or NTFS before copying large images.

Create a bootable USB drive with multiple ISO files: install Ventoy and add your images

Step 1: Install Ventoy on the drive

This is the only time the drive gets formatted. After this step, adding or removing ISOs requires no rebuilding at all.

1. Extract the Ventoy zip and right-click Ventoy2Disk.exe. Choose Run as administrator, since the installer needs elevated permissions to write to the drive.

2. Plug in the USB drive. It will appear in the device dropdown. If it doesn't show up, click Refresh.

3. Open the Options menu and set the partition style to GPT. Leave Secure Boot support enabled.

⚠️ Verify the correct drive is selected before proceeding. The installation will erase everything on it. Check the drive letter and reported capacity against what you expect.

4. Click Install and confirm both warning prompts. The process takes two to three minutes. When it finishes, the drive appears in Windows Explorer as a partition labeled Ventoy; this is where ISO files go. A small hidden EFI partition is also created alongside it and requires no interaction.

Updating Ventoy later: If a new version releases or you need a compatibility fix, run the installer against the same drive and choose Update instead of Install. All ISO files on the data partition are preserved. This is one of the clearest practical advantages over tools that require a full rebuild to change anything, per an4t.com (October 2025).

Step 2: Add Windows 11 and MemTest86

Once Ventoy is installed, adding a bootable image means copying a file. Ventoy detects ISO and image files automatically and lists them in its boot menu at startup.

1. Copy the Windows 11 ISO to the Ventoy partition. Drop it at the root or inside a subfolder; Ventoy finds ISOs in subdirectories and displays them in the boot menu. Organizing with folders like Windows, Tools, or Diagnostics keeps the list readable as the drive accumulates images, as TechBloat (July 2025) recommends.

2. Copy the MemTest86 .img file to the same partition. No extraction, no modification required. A confirmed Unix Stack Exchange report (2021) describes copying memtest86-usb.img directly to a Ventoy drive and booting it successfully with no additional steps, tested on a UEFI-only system with MemTest86 Free 10.7.

⚠️ MemTest86 UEFI requirement: Current MemTest86 versions (v5 and later) require UEFI. If you need to test a machine running only legacy BIOS, download MemTest86 v4 from the PassMark site. It supports BIOS mode, and Ventoy can boot either a UEFI or legacy-compatible MemTest86 image depending on the target firmware, per Unix Stack Exchange (2021).

3. Safely eject the drive from Windows before removing it.

To update either image later a new Windows 11 build, a fresh MemTest86 release delete the old file and copy in the new one. Ventoy does not need to be reinstalled or reconfigured.

Step 3: Boot from the drive and select an image

1. Insert the USB drive and power on the target machine. Access the firmware boot menu during startup; the key varies by manufacturer (commonly F12, F2, F10, Del, or Esc). Select the USB drive from the list, as UMA Technology (January 2025) details.

2. The Ventoy menu appears listing every ISO and image file on the drive by filename. Use arrow keys to highlight an entry, then press Enter.

3. For Windows ISOs, Ventoy presents a secondary boot menu with Normal mode and Wimboot mode. Normal mode works in most cases. If the screen goes black and the installer doesn't load, return to the menu and try Wimboot mode it's a documented alternative loading path for Windows images, per the Ventoy forum (April 2023).

4. For MemTest86, selecting the .img file boots directly into the memory test interface with no additional prompts, provided the machine is in UEFI mode.

Quick test checklist before relying on this drive:

• Boot the Ventoy menu on the target machine and confirm it appears
• Select the Windows 11 ISO and verify the installer loads to the language selection screen
• Select the MemTest86 image and confirm the diagnostic interface appears
• Note whether Secure Boot prompted key enrollment, and whether it enrolled successfully

Troubleshooting: the three failure points

"Verification Failed: Security Violation" on boot

This is Secure Boot working as intended before Ventoy's signing key has been enrolled. Press any key to enter the Shim UEFI key management interface. Select Enroll key from disk, navigate to the Ventoy EFI partition, and enroll ENROLL_THIS_KEY_IN_MOKMANAGER.cer. Reboot. The enrollment persists on that machine, so any Ventoy drive boots without repeating this step unless the firmware is reset or Ventoy is reinstalled, per the Ventoy forum (January 2024).

If key enrollment fails on a specific machine: Dell firmware has produced inconsistent behavior in community reports. Disabling Secure Boot in UEFI settings is the practical fallback.

Black screen after selecting an ISO

The Ventoy menu loads, but the ISO boots to a black screen and stalls. Try these in order:

• Switch to Wimboot mode from Ventoy's secondary boot menu; specifically useful for Windows ISOs
• Verify the ISO's integrity by comparing its SHA-256 hash against Microsoft's published checksum a corrupted download produces this behavior without any error message
• For MemTest86 specifically, confirm the machine is set to boot in UEFI mode; modern MemTest86 versions will not load in BIOS/CSM mode, per Unix Stack Exchange (2021)
• Update Ventoy to the current release boot failures affecting multiple ISOs are sometimes resolved by updating the bootloader, which preserves all data partition files

USB drive doesn't appear or Ventoy menu never loads

Before ISO-level debugging, confirm the drive is visible at all:

• Ensure USB boot is enabled in UEFI settings and the USB drive is set as a boot priority
• Try a different USB port; front-panel headers can be unreliable at boot
• If the drive fails on older hardware, reinstall Ventoy using MBR partition style instead of GPT, per Multicare Technical (October 2025) some legacy firmware doesn't handle GPT-formatted removable media correctly

What else to put on this drive

Windows 11 and MemTest86 make a functional starting point. These additions turn it into a full repair and recovery kit:

• Linux live ISO (Ubuntu, Fedora, or similar) useful for accessing files on a machine whose Windows installation won't boot
• Antivirus rescue disk (Kaspersky, Bitdefender, or similar free options) boots independently of the installed OS for offline scanning
• GParted disk partitioning from a live environment, useful for repair and recovery prep
• Hiren's BootCD PE an all-in-one Windows PE environment with built-in diagnostics and repair tools
• Clonezilla disk imaging and backup that boots directly from ISO

Ventoy lists all of these in its boot menu automatically. Drop the ISO into the appropriate folder and it appears at next boot. The Ventoy GitHub repository (December 2025) confirms support for x86 Legacy BIOS, IA32 UEFI, x86_64 UEFI, ARM64 UEFI, and MIPS64EL UEFI, meaning the same drive covers a broad range of hardware, including newer ARM-based Windows machines.

Keep ISOs current by swapping files as new versions release. Updating takes about thirty seconds per image. The drive stays useful exactly as long as the tools on it do.