Can I add folders to a bootable USB drive

@Nisko

If you are referring to THIS POST then I suggest you just ignore it. It was more of an show off and I'm sorry I even got stuck at that topic in the first place. Explaining it further is such an advanced topic that we'd both die of old age before we get all required software collected, setup and finally applied to the thumb drive to get any usable results.

Generally FAT32 is the way to go, unless you are absolutely 100% certain it is absolutely imperative that you will and have to put a single file on the thumb drive that will be larger than 4GB in size. Then we must consider other options. But I'd say it would be easier to just use any archiving application and split that huge file in multiple pieces that are smaller than 4GB in size than exploring any alternatives.

Since you are interested in portable apps, then sticking 7zip there would be a nr1 priority. It can split any file into user defined chunk sizes.

Conclusion:

1. Yes you can put additional files on your bootable setup or rescue media thumb stick after it is created
2. Yes you should format it as FAT32
3. Yes you can add portable apps there
4. Yes you should add 7Zip as #1 app in your portable apps folder
5. Yes you can transfer files larger that 4GB in size from computer to computer using this drive because you just added 7Zip there, which can split your huge file into smaller chunks.
6. Yes you should ignore post #10 written by me in this thread

I hope it's clear now and I hope I did not confuse you any further. :)

Yes, if of sufficient capacity a Thumb drive can be partitioned just like a hard drive and the second partition can be NTFS or exFAT. I'd use a 16GB or 32GB but beware if using the MCT to create a bootable Thumb drive any unallocated space above 32GB may not be accessible to Windows, had that happen to me once. Experience and a warning shows the MCT process wipes the drive before formatting as FAT32 and creating the boot process and copying files.

Some information in this thread is not completely correct!!! NTFS can be used if the UEFI Firmware version is 2.0 or later.
My PC is 6yr old and has no problem booting with NTFS.

The only reason that we advice people to format the bootable drive to be FAT32 so that it will be compatible with the UEFI Firmware version prior to 2.0
so it can boot with UEFI Mode.

For UEFI Firmware version later than 2.0. The restriction of FAT32 is no longer required.

Below is the screen shot of a 64GB Lexar USB initialized as MBR disk. From Disk management, it shows as drive I: formatted with NTFS and set as Active. Support both MBR and UEFI.
The content is Windows Installation with 12699.334 Cumulative Updates added so the install.wim is around 4.5GB exceeding file size limit for FAT32.
One folder and 2 executable files added.


When booting the Windows installation, one needs to find out what drive letter the USB is assigned to, in this case it's F: to access files and folders. Note that I ran pescreenshots.exe to take a screen shot below:

Nisko said:

What is the MCT process? Thanks.......

MCT = Windows Setup Media Creation Tool, which allows you to download and create a burnable disk image in ISO format or a bootable thumb drive.

Nisko said:

What is the MCT process? Thanks.......

Yes, it's easy to forget the first several postings will have information applicable to later ones and for later visitors to start at the beginning of threads 'just in case' and that when using acronyms the full name should be used at the first instance of the acronym.
Can I add folders to a bootable USB drive - Windows 10 Forums