step 1: install GRUB on thumb drive

See here or here.

It's easiest to either boot a Super Grub Disk (CD), and go to the command-line before it goes all the way in. Or, boot Knoppix (CD), and run `grub` from the command-line.

Example menu.lst's include: [1]

step 2: copy any ISOs/floppy images/etc over, and make them boot

Grub ⇒ dedicated-partition-per-OS

See here or here.

Grub ⇒ union(several-OSs)

See here.

Grub ⇒ memdisk ⇒ floppy .img

See here. CERTAINLY this is possible, since booting floppies is WHAT memdisk was made for, and Grub can certainly boot memdisk.

Grub ⇒ memdisk ⇒ CD .iso

unpossible?

Grub ⇒ BCDW ⇒ dedicated-partition or .iso

?not sure?

Anyway, this is what UltimateBootCD uses that allows it to boot into .ISOs, so we should definitely figure this out.

Grub ⇒ diskemu ⇒ anything

Nope, sorry, that's dead. Bart uses isolinux+memdisk noaw, you should tooo.

Grub ⇒ memdisk ⇒ Smart Boot Manager

See here.

External links

TODO

get memdisk working on floppy images (so I can have a broad range of floppies... PARTICULARLY Ghost)
get one large MS-DOS v7 partition working, as a sometimes superior alternative to multiple-disparate-floppies (just have to make the primary partition have autoexec.bat/etal, and then just boot straight to it?)
- some tips
- writeup
find/buy a 2-4GB stick, create two-five 750GB partitions, and set it up so I can copy any boot CD onto one of the partitions, and boot into it via Grub
- also, start a HDD-based archive of these 750GB partitions (since they require a bit of time to copy over each time).