Gola Bobbin: One USB Stick, Many Installers, Every File Read Back
Date Published
One stick, several installers, and each one starts the way it should. Gola Bobbin writes Windows images, Linux images or both to one USB stick, and gives you a boot menu with one entry per image. It is made for technicians and shops that carry installers in several languages or editions and are tired of one stick per image.
Where the name comes from
A bobbin is the spool that holds the threads. Several threads wound side by side on one spool, each in its place, each ready to be drawn out when the work needs it. That is a Bobbin stick: one USB stick that holds several installers, side by side.
Our tools are named after textile crafts, weaving and sewing, which are living crafts in Tunisia. NTLoom is the loom, Shuttle is the part of the loom that carries the thread across, Stitch joins the pieces into one garment, Bootlace laces up a computer's start-up over the network, Bobbin is the spool that holds several threads at once, so one USB stick carries several installers, and Kit is the technician's toolkit.
What makes it different
Here is what Bobbin does that a single-image stick writer does not, and why we built it.
Every image stays whole, on a partition of its own
Single-image stick writers work until a stick has to carry more than one image. Bobbin never cuts an image into pieces: each Windows image gets its own NTFS partition, with install.wim in one piece, and keeps its own files and its own answer file.
Each menu entry starts its own image
By default, Windows Setup takes the first partition that holds an install image, which shows the editions of the wrong language for the second image. Bobbin gives every boot image a launcher that starts Setup on the partition of its own image, with its own answer file. The French entry lists the French editions, and the English entry the English ones.
Windows, Linux, or both on one stick
A stick can hold Windows images, Linux images (the Ubuntu family, Debian live and Fedora live), or a mix. And for any other image, Alpine or Arch for example, a universal write puts it byte for byte on the whole stick.
Honest about Secure Boot
On a Linux stick, Secure Boot depends on which image's loader starts the stick. We measured it, so Bobbin tells you: it recommends the best loader, lists every image in the menu, and says exactly which images would not start under Secure Boot and what to change. A badge in the window shows the verdict before you write.
Every file read back, from the stick itself
A hash taken right after a copy can come from the operating system’s cache. Bobbin dismounts and mounts every volume again, then compares every file with its source by SHA-256 and verifies every boot image from the stick. A write that fails is reported as failed, never as done.
A production line, not just a stick
Write several sticks at the same time, with the same images or a list for each. Or switch on production mode: every stick you plug in is written at once, with one Windows administrator prompt for the whole session.
Change a finished stick without writing it again
Add, replace or remove one image on a stick Bobbin wrote. The other images and partitions are not touched.
The window and the command line do the same
Every option of the window exists on the command line, for scripts and for the stations of a shop. Both speak English, French and Arabic.
It is small
Two programs in one folder: the window of about 4.6 megabytes and the command line of about 3.3 megabytes. No installer, and no web view: the window is a native Windows program.
Every feature
Windows sticks
• A boot menu with one entry per image, in the boot manager of Windows itself: no third-party boot code, no virtual disk drivers. Works on UEFI with Secure Boot and on legacy BIOS.
• Up to three images per stick today, one small boot partition plus one partition per image. More than three is an open question (see Good to know).
• The description of each image is read when you add it and shown on its card: the editions, the architecture, the version. An image the stick cannot boot is refused.
• The room of each image. A slider sets how much room the chosen image takes (never less than it needs); what is left stays free for images added later.
• Windows 11 Setup checks you can skip, per write. TPM 2.0, Secure Boot, memory size, processor model, storage size and disk requirements, one tick each. None is ticked by default, and exactly the ticked ones are written.
• The Secure Boot certificate of the stick. Automatic leaves the image as it is; "Windows Production PCA 2011" or "Windows UEFI CA 2023" writes the boot manager signed through that set, and refuses it before touching a disk if the image cannot give it.
• Checks before writing: the disk is exactly the one chosen (number, exact size, model, what it holds, and the serial number when the disk has one), every image matches its checksum file, and no image carries duplicate driver packages.
Linux sticks
• Up to three Linux images (the Ubuntu family, Debian live, Fedora live), each unpacked on a FAT32 partition of its own, behind a small boot partition whose GRUB menu lists them. The family of an image is recognized from its files, and an image the program does not know is refused with a sentence.
• Starts on legacy BIOS and on UEFI.
• Menu name... renames the menu entry of an image; by default it is the file name without its extension.
• The loader button chooses which image's loader starts the stick. The recommended one is the default.
• The Secure Boot line and badge: green "expected to work" or amber "not for every image", with the sentence that says which images the chosen loader does not start, and a one-click button for the loader that starts them all.
Mixed sticks and any other image
• Mixed stick. The Windows layout, then one FAT32 partition per Linux image, three images at most in all. On legacy BIOS the Windows boot menu gets a "Linux (GRUB)" entry; on UEFI the firmware lists the Linux partitions as boot choices. The kind of stick comes from the list: only Windows images make a Windows stick, only Linux a Linux stick, both a mixed stick.
• Write this one image byte for byte (works with any ISO). The image is written over the whole stick and read back by SHA-256, with the first differing byte named if it does not match. The way to write an image Bobbin does not unpack.
Several sticks, names and retries
• Several sticks in one run, the same images on every stick or a list for each, written at the same time, with the number at once under your control.
• A name for each stick. It is written on the stick and its volume label, shown on its card, and remembered by this PC for the next time. A die button suggests a name made of two words, such as SwiftOtter. "Save" renames a stick Bobbin already wrote without writing it again.
• A confirmation that lists every stick (name, disk, size, what it holds) and asks you to type the number of sticks before anything is erased.
• Stop all, Try again, Write more sticks. Try again writes only the sticks that did not finish; "Select all" becomes "Deselect all" when everything is ticked.
• The list of sticks follows the USB ports: a stick plugged in or out appears or disappears. Images can be dragged in from Explorer, and the Up and Remove buttons set their order: the order of the list is the order of the boot menu.
• Show the plan only, write nothing (dry run) shows what would be done, including what Secure Boot means for a Linux list.
Production mode
• Every stick you plug in is erased and written at once, with the images and options of the window, without asking again. One confirmation lists the images; Cancel is the default.
• One administrator prompt for the whole session, not one per stick. The window itself runs without administrator rights.
• Sticks that were plugged in when the mode began are never touched, and a stick taken out and plugged in again is a new one.
• A board of jobs with a banner, counters, waiting, writing, done and failed sticks, the newest on top. A Pause button holds the line, and Stop all or End production mode stops it.
• Windows sticks or Linux sticks (not mixed, not byte for byte). The images are pinned: if one changes on disk while the mode runs, nothing more is written. The mode ends after 20 minutes without a stick.
• On the command line: bobbin production.
Checking, editing and recipes
• Check stick. Reads a finished stick again and compares every file with the record kept on it, and prints the Secure Boot certificate the stick was written with.
• Edit stick... (Windows sticks). Add an image (with its own room slider), replace the selected image or remove it, on a stick Bobbin wrote. The change asks for confirmation naming the stick and the image, and the new partition and boot image are read back before the menu entry is added. The last image of a stick cannot be removed.
• Recipes. "Save as a recipe..." and "Open a recipe..." keep the images, the room of each, the options, and for Linux the menu names and the loader. A recipe never holds sticks.
Plans, updates and languages
• Plan of sticks. A build tool can ask which USB drives to use and what goes on each before its images exist (bobbin-win32.exe --choose-sticks), then carry the plan out when the build is over (bobbin write --plan). Every stick is found again by what it is, not by its disk number. NTLoom uses it to write its sticks.
• English, French and Arabic, with a light and a dark look; Arabic is mirrored.
• Updates. bobbin update looks for a newer version and installs it, --check only looks, --rollback goes back. The About box has the same as a button ("Check for updates"), shows what changed and refuses to update while sticks are being written.
• Copy engine. Files are copied with the engine of Gola Shuttle (hashed and read back) by default; the Windows copy tool is the alternative.
• Under the hood: the window starts without administrator rights, so that dragging from Explorer keeps working, and asks for them when you press Write.
How to get it
• With NTLoom. Every NTLoom license includes a licensed Bobbin.
• On its own. Bobbin is available on request, and free for now. Contact us and we will send it to you, with the license for your PC.
The program needs a license tied to the PC it runs on: bobbin licence request prints a request code, and an activation code (one per PC) activates it. Gola uses Bobbin internally, and NTLoom uses it to write USB sticks.
Good to know
• It erases the stick. Everything on a stick is removed when it is written, and you confirm by typing the number of sticks.
• Windows only, x64 images only. Bobbin is a Windows program, and it refuses Windows images that are not x64. ARM64 images, and rescue images such as WinPE, are not covered yet.
• Three images per stick. A boot partition plus three image partitions is what a stick holds today. More than three is not available yet.
• Linux: the Ubuntu family, Debian live and Fedora live are unpacked on the stick. An image of another kind is written alone, byte for byte. A file larger than 4 GiB in a Linux image cannot go in the Linux menu (the limit of FAT32): use the byte-for-byte write.
• Edit stick is for Windows sticks. A Linux or mixed stick is written again with the images it should hold. Production mode makes Windows sticks or Linux sticks, not mixed ones. A stopped stick is written again from the start.
• Tested in the lab, not yet on every real PC. We wrote real sticks from a Windows virtual machine with every file read back, and started them in virtual machines (legacy BIOS, UEFI, UEFI with Secure Boot); the layout was also built and booted by hand on hardware. A stick written by the program has not yet been started on a real PC’s firmware, and the UEFI listing of the Linux partitions of a mixed stick has been seen only on a hand-built stick.
• Usage counts. The free version sends anonymous usage counts (how many sticks were written, how many failed, and the like, never a message or an identifier). The program shows a notice at the first start and does not open until you accept it.