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I successfully created a multiboot persistent USB flash drive with multibootusb. The persistent storage was limited (4GB).

However, how can I add a data partition that can be read on Ubuntu and windows?

If multibootusb is not the right application to do that, I accept other suggestions.

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    I have only been able to install MultiBootUSB, (by Sundar Ima), on the first partition of a flash drive, but it does not mind sharing the first partition with Windows. Aug 7, 2017 at 19:43
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    Thanks for this information C.S.Cameron. It means that we should not bother with another (and separate) first partition when using MultiBootUSB. (I am removing my previous comment.)
    – sudodus
    Aug 8, 2017 at 8:40

2 Answers 2

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Boot the MultiBootUSB drive.

Open Nautilus as root, go to computer/cdrom and make a folder named Shared Data.

Save any stuff you want to share with a Windows computer there, You will need to be root to access the folder.

When plugged into a computer running Windows, the Shared Data folder will be accessible when the drive is opened in Explorer.

Windows can only see the first partition on a flash drive and MultiBootUSB needs to be installed on the first partition, but they can share it.

Mkusb will create a Ubuntu flash drive that boots using grub2.

It uses a FAT32 boot partition, a ISO9660 read only OS partition, an ext casper-rw persistence partition, (not limited to 4GB), and a NTFS partition that can be used by Linux or Windows.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/mkusb

You can split the casper-rw persistence partition into casper-rw plus home-rw if you want more persistence options.

It is a little work to turn a mkusb drive a multibooter but it can be done by editing grub.cfg to boot iso's located in the usbdata partition.

Up to 14.04 it was possible to add a persistent partition to syslinux type Live drives such as Startup Disk Creator and Unetbootin make, now days this just results in BusyBox.

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  • let me see if I understood. You suggested 2 solutions, one with multibootusb and another with mkusb? Aug 7, 2017 at 22:32
  • Yes, MultiBootUSB can share a partition with Windows but it's persistence is limited to one 4GB casper-rw and one 4GB home-rw persistence file for each menuentry. The partition on a mbusb drive can not be easily modified. Mkusb is suggested as an alternate that has more persistence options than mbusb. Aug 8, 2017 at 14:57
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Use GParted to partition the drive with a Fat32 partition for the live usb and a ntfs partition for your data.

described here

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