¹Department of Computer Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai-200240, China
²School of Software, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai-200240, China
³Shanghai Key Laboratory of Computer Software Testing & Evaluation, Shanghai-201112, China1

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Abstract—An operating system is the main interface for human beings to interact with computer, use its resources and run their favorite applications or do their professional work. Lots of operating systems are available for a personal computer and end users have their own choice to select one or more out of these systems. Having numerous choices for an operating system selection, and having different editions and distributions of each choice, IT supports are bound to have all these distinct copies of various operating systems’ installation resource (CDs/DVDs) in order to fulfill users’ requirements. Similarly, forensic experts should also carry these different copies of various operating systems, as the destination computer may require any of them while retrieving the data. These professionals, however, have started to use a usb stick as a replacement of CD/DVD. Using a usb stick to install an operating system is also a solution to reduce installation time by multiple factors. But the existing number of distinct copies of these operating systems force them to carry a number of installation media (CDs, DVDs, or usb sticks), or compel them to remake a usb stick as an installation medium every time for a different operating system. This paper addresses an all-in-one solution to the IT professionals in using a usb hard disk to install every popular operating system. This paper first describes how a usb stick can be an installation medium for different editions and distributions of various popular operating systems, such as Windows, GNU/Linux distributions, and Mac OS X, individually. It also explains an all in one solution to IT support and forensic expert professionals, to use a single external usb hard disk as an installation resource for all the aforementioned operating systems.

Index Terms—USB Hard Disk, Operating Systems, Portable OS, Live OS, Boot Loader, OS Installation Media.

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Cite: Anil Kumar Karna, Yuting Chen, "Multi-operative USB HD: An All-In-One Solution to IT Supports and Forensic Experts," Journal of Software vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 847-858, 2014.