Build a bulletproof rescue disk

YOU’LL NEED THIS 16GB OR LARGER USB FLASH DRIVE  Ventoy (www.ventoy.net) and a selection of rescue media in ISO file format.

- NICK PEERS

ONE RESCUE DISK TO RULE THEM ALL. That’s the stated aim of this tutorial, and thanks to a free tool called Ventoy, that goal is not just reachable, it’s simple to achieve, too. All you need is a suitably large USB flash drive—16GB or larger—and after installing Ventoy on it, you can simply copy across all kinds of bootable media as ISO files directly to the drive, then choose which one to boot from when you restart your PC.

Whether you need to restore your last drive image to bring Windows back to life, perform surgery on a non-booting Windows install, clear malware, or recover data from a corrupt drive before wiping it and starting again, your one-size-fits-all rescue disk will have you covered.

In this tutoial, we’ll step you through the trickiest part of the process: installing Ventoy to your flash drive before configuring your Secure Boot-enabled PC to allow you to boot from it, then reveal some of the rescue media out there you need to ensure you’ve covered all your bases. While you’re at it, why not chuck on some Linux live distros, too? Whatever your bootable media needs, Ventoy truly has you covered. 

1 INSTALL VENTOY

Ventoy doesn’t require installation—you can download the latest version from its home page (https://ventoy.net/en/download.html) in one of two forms: as a standalone app packaged as a Windows zip file (right-click this and choose Extract All, then extract it to the same directory you downloaded it to), or as a Live CD (ISO) for those rare occasions when Ventoy is unable to write to your USB flash drive. There’s also a build for Linux users.