Let’s say you downloaded a 4GB bootable ISO file but before you use it to create the bootable USB drive you may want to check whether that ISO file you downloaded is actually bootable. Moreover, once you confirmed and created the USB media drive, it’s better to double-check the drive’s bootable state before putting it in real use.
MobaLiveCD is a free portable emulating tool that tests the bootable medias, including CD-Rom (LiveCD), USB flash drive, as well as the ISO image files. With MobaLiveCD, you can directly run a bootable ISO image file or USB flash drive like a virtual machine inside your Windows without the need to burn a CD-Rom or to reboot your computer.
How to use MobaLiveCD to check out the drive’s bootable state.
1. Download the MobaLiveCD tool from Mobatek Labs website.
2. To launch the tool, right-click the executable file you just downloaded and choose to Run as Administrator.
3. On the MobaLiveCD‘s main window, choose Run the LiveCD button to test bootable state to an ISO file, or Run the LiveUSB button for USB drive.
4. Select the ISO file or the USB drive you want to check its bootable state.
5. Click No when asked whether you want to create a hard disk image for your virtual machine.
6. Now, you will see a QEMU window opens up with some boot-up text in it. That means the MobiLiveCD is trying to book the virtual machine from the ISO file or the USB drive you selected in the last step.
If it advanced to the next step, such as the Windows Logo popping up, congratulations, it means that the ISO file or the USB drive you selected is bootable. You can safely click the X icon at the top right to close the window.
If not, the QEMU window is stuck at the boot-up stage, then the ISO file or the USB drive you are testing is not bootable.