www.sarducd.it

[josvlaar]

I am trying to add multiple Windows Vista, 7 and 8.1 images to one 64GB usb stick. I have 4 iso's of each of those versions of Windows, namely 2 different languages and the 32 and 64 bit versions of them, so that means 12 iso's total that I want to boot from the same usb stick. When I rename 4 files to either InstallVista*, InstallWin7* or InstallWin8*, only one (the first) is selected, so adding them one run for each language/bit combination at a time, so in 4 runs total, seems to be the only option. After I change the filenames over so that the program selects 3 different iso's to add to the USB in the next run, there seem to be these options:
- Click USB stick button on the right. The program then asks whether to 'update the existing Sardu', but after 'updating' the images of the run before are removed from the stick/menu. This seems like a bug (or 'wrong English') to me, because nothing is truly updated, merely overwritten/replaced (same as formatting the stick and copying a new set of images to it). It should ask whether to 'overwrite' the existing Sardu.
- Click Menu item 'USB > Update only Sardu's menu'. Does not extract the next selected ISO.
- Click Menu item 'USB > Update USB'. Seems to be the same as first option but is in fact different. What it does is extract the contents of the next selected ISO's to the temp folder and then copy EVERYTHING in the temp folder to the USB stick again (including the images already copied to the usb stick in the first run/runs before). This means, for me, that I would have some images copied over twice, 3 and 4 times before my stick is finally ready. When cleaning up the temp folder in between runs and using this option, a boot error follows, so this is no workaround for the multicopying. When I enable 'Set direct extraction to USB' (in USB menu) together with this option, there seems to be no direct extraction the second run because the temp folder is filled up and I can see the progress bar. Also, same boot error occurs. So direct extraction doen't solve the multicopying either. When I try to add 2 Vista images to the same usb stick (one 2.82GB and the other 2.91GB), no less than 8.45GB is indicated to be copied to the stick the second run. After the run, 5.7GB of space is used (so copy is correct, but displayed volume of data is incorrect). But I still get the same boot error. A USB 3.0 stick should work on a USB 2.0 port without adding drivers to the image right? I am using Windows 8.1 as a host system and the boot error is as follows: 'Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause... File: \Boot\BCD... Info: An error occured while attempting to read the boot configuration data.' This error only occurs when adding a second Windows (Vista, and so presumably also 7/8) image of the same sort to the stick (no matter which options I choose).

My questions are:
- What could be my 'boot problem'? Will using Grub 0.4.4 solve this problem?
- What is the correct/recommended way to go about adding multiple Windows images of the same edition to the same USB stick (avoiding the multicopy and boot problem as described)? Do I have to create multiple partitions (one for every set of 3 Windows Vista/7/8 images of same language/bit version) and then boot to these different partitions with Plop?