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I normally use a USB for carrying files around, like anyone. However, I'm now also carrying a Linux distro around on a live USB to boot from. Is it possible to combine these? The USB is 16GB, so it is large enough, if it were possible in the first place.
(I put "partitioned" in quotes only because I'm not an OS geek and am not sure if that term has a more specific meaning beyond the way I'm using it.)
temporary_user_name
Posted 2016-04-01T00:58:14.750
Reputation: 915
1Would this device be used in the same computer all the time? Because Windows does not recognize multiple partitions on a removable USB flash drives (it knows the difference between "removable" drives and a USB fixed disk). There are tricks to force it to think everything is a "fixed" disk, but that requires system level tweaks and every removable drive would be considered fixed in the future. – acejavelin – 2016-04-01T01:07:16.513
No, it would not. This is for multiple machines with different OS's: some Mac, some PC. – temporary_user_name – 2016-04-01T01:08:19.103
Then the viability of using multiple partitions on a single flash drive across multiple Windows computers is probably not feasible. But to answer your question, yes, it can be partitioned, but Windows will not recognize it properly. – acejavelin – 2016-04-01T01:09:59.703
What's stopping you from just 1) flash Linux on USB stick, 2) create a folder and put "normal" files, 3) carry it around? – ozbek – 2016-04-01T01:17:48.053
@ozbek Although the OP didn't come out and say it, the end result was he wanted a bootable Linux installation on part of the drive, and a partition that would contain files a Windows PC could access, which I assume was so he didn't have to carry 2 thumb drives. – acejavelin – 2016-04-01T03:41:48.533
@acejavelin You don't need a second thumb drive for that. – ozbek – 2016-04-01T04:47:08.447
Just make a separate folder for files on the drive. Linux won't touch it. – Alexiy – 2016-04-01T05:46:28.500