You copied the ISO onto the USB, booted it — and the Ventoy menu is empty, or your new image is missing from the list while the old ones show. The drive is almost never at fault. One of these six ordinary causes is.
✍️ Technical Anshu💾 Ventoy USB drives⏱️ 5 minute check
🎥 See how the toolkit USB is built and organized in the full video
Ventoy's menu is not a fixed list — at every boot it scans the drive live and lists the bootable image files it finds. So when an ISO is missing, Ventoy simply did not find a valid image where it looked. Work through the causes below in order; the first two explain most cases, and none of them needs a reinstall.
BOOT SCREEN — VENTOY MENU, ONE IMAGE MISSING
Ventoy
WinPE_Sergei_Strelec.iso
Windows_11.iso
The menu opens and boots fine — the toolkit you just copied is simply not listed.
📷 What the problem looks like — your older ISOs are listed, the new one is nowhere to be seen
1
The File Is on the Wrong Partition
A Ventoy drive has two partitions: a small one of about 32 MB called VTOYEFI (boot files only) and the large data partition where images belong. Files copied onto the small partition are never scanned.
WINDOWS EXPLORER — THE TWO PARTITIONS OF A VENTOY DRIVE
VTOYEFI (E:)32 MB — boot files only✖ ISOs here are never shown
Ventoy (F:)57.6 GB — the large data partition✔ ISOs belong here
📷 One drive, two partitions — only the large one is scanned for ISOs
Plug the USB into Windows and open This PC
Confirm your ISO sits on the large partition (the one with your drive's full capacity), not the tiny VTOYEFI one
If it is on the wrong one, move it over and boot again
2
It Is Not Actually an ISO Yet
Toolkits like Strelec and MediCat usually download as .zip, .rar or .7z archives. Ventoy cannot open archives — copying the archive itself to the drive shows nothing in the menu. Ventoy lists files of these types: .iso, .wim, .img, .vhd, .vhdx and .efi.
Right-click the downloaded file in Windows and check its real extension (turn on "File name extensions" in Explorer's View menu if hidden)
If it is an archive, extract it first, then copy the .iso inside to the Ventoy drive
Also check for a double extension like file.iso.zip — another archive in disguise
3
The Copy Was Incomplete or the ISO Is Corrupt
Multi-GB files copied to slow USB drives are easy to truncate — especially if the drive was pulled out while the copy was still flushing. A short or corrupt ISO is silently skipped or fails the moment you select it.
Compare the file size on the USB with the size shown where you downloaded it — they must match exactly
If the size differs, delete it from the USB and copy it again
This time, wait for the copy to finish fully and use Safely Remove / Eject before unplugging
If the download itself was interrupted, download the ISO again from the official source
4
Rename It to a Simple File Name
Long names packed with spaces, brackets and non-English characters occasionally cause an image to be skipped or to fail when selected. Renaming is a 10-second test:
Rename something like WinPE 11 (Strelec) [2025] é.iso to a plain name like strelec.iso
Keep letters, numbers, hyphens and underscores only
Boot again and check the menu
5
Check for a .ventoyignore File, and Try the File Browser
Ventoy normally scans all folders on the drive, so subfolders are fine — unless a folder contains a file named .ventoyignore, which tells Ventoy to skip that entire folder.
Look inside the folder holding your ISO for a .ventoyignore file and delete it if present
At the Ventoy menu, press F2 to open the local file browser and navigate to the ISO manually — if it boots from here, the file is good and only the scanning was the issue
6
Update Ventoy — Without Deleting a Single File ⭐
An old Ventoy version may not recognize newer image formats or recent Windows ISOs. Updating takes a minute and does not touch your files.
Download the latest Ventoy release and run Ventoy2Disk.exe
Select your USB drive and click Update — never Install, which would erase the drive
When it finishes, boot the drive and check the menu again
Building the drive correctly from the start — partitions, folders and file handling — is shown completely in the video above.
🧪 Quick way to isolate the problem: copy one small known-good ISO (for example a MemTest86+ image) to the drive. If it appears, your Ventoy installation is healthy and the problem is the original file. If even that does not appear, suspect the drive or the Ventoy installation itself.
🎥 Build the Toolkit USB the Right Way
Ventoy install, toolkit copying and menu organization — the complete process is in the video.
Yes. Ventoy scans subfolders automatically and shows the images it finds, so organizing toolkits into folders is fine — just make sure the folder does not contain a .ventoyignore file.
How many ISOs can one Ventoy drive hold?
Ventoy is tested with 1000+ image files. In real life the only limit is the size of your USB drive — a 64 GB drive comfortably holds MediCat, Strelec, Gandalf and a Windows ISO together.
The ISO shows in the menu but gives a black screen when selected. Is that the same problem?
No — if it is listed, Ventoy found the file fine. A black screen after selection usually means a corrupt download or a boot-mode issue: verify the ISO's size or checksum, and try selecting it with GRUB2 mode (Ctrl+R) or Wimboot mode (Ctrl+W) for Windows images.
This guide is based on Technical Anshu's "One USB = All Tools" video • Stuck on a step? Ask in the video comments — you'll get help there 🙏