Boot Multiple OSes Using Your Android Device and DriveDroid

DriveDroid is a neat app that allows you to boot ISO and IMG files that are stored on your Android device, just like you are booting from a USB drive. You can download a lot of images from within the app. You can also create blank images, but I haven't used this feature.

Your device must be rooted to use this app, so if it's not then this app isn't for you.

The process is quite simple. Start DriveDroid and press the "+" button and select "Download image" to get a list of available images. Select a distribution and then select the file you want. For the first time, I suggest trying Slitaz, since it is only about 35MB. Once it is downloaded, it will show up on DriveDroid's main screen.

To boot from an image, select it in DriveDroid, and select the host mode (e.g. Writable USB, etc). Then, connect the Android device to a PC using a USB cable and boot the PC. The PC will boot the selected image. If the image doesn't boot, check the PC's BIOS settings and make sure "Boot from USB" is set as the first boot device.

To stop hosting, just tap the DriveDroid icon in the Android notification area.

One requirement for the ISO images is that they must be in hybrid format. To check an ISO, type

fdisk -l file.iso

If no partition table is found, the ISO is not in hybrid format. One of my favorite tools, SystemRescueCd, isn't in this format. To make it work, all I had to do was download the ISO and run

isohybrid file.iso

This changes the file to the correct format and then it works with DriveDroid just fine.

DriveDroid makes it easy to try out new distributions. And with the right tools, your Android device can be an invaluable recovery tool.