DriveDroid

6,533

Softwarebakery Tools

PEGI 3

Contains ads

Offers in-app purchases

This application requires root

DriveDroid allows you to boot your PC from ISO/IMG files stored on your phone. This is ideal for trying Linux distributions or always having a rescue-system on the go... without the need to burn different CDs or USB pendrives.

DriveDroid also includes a convenient download menu where you can download USB-images of a number of operating systems from your phone (like Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE and Arch Linux). Around 35 different systems are available at this moment.

You can also create blank USB-images which allows you to have a blank USB-drive. From your PC you can store files onto the USB-drive, but also use tools on your PC to write images to the drive.

Notes
• This application uses features of the kernel that may or may not be available/stable on your phone. Tests have shown most phones work without problems, but please keep in mind yours might not (yet) work out-of-the-box.
• Most kernels support emulating USB drives, some support emulating CD-rom drives and kernels with the right patches support both.
• Most Linux-related ISOs can be booted from USB drives, but some ISOs can only be booted from CD-rom drives or require some kind of conversion.

Paid version
• No ads.
• Resizing of images.
• Add your own download repositories. Nice for companies or groups that want to share custom or licensed images.

More info: http://softwarebakery.com/projects/drivedroid

Reviews

4.5

6,533 total

5 5,040

4 697

3 296

2 124

1 376

Genius work

Hazmi Hafiz

Absolutely useful. Must have app for rooted phones.

Faizul Hadiman

Thumbs up

Alexander Jenkinson

From another planet. Absolutely cracking program, I pulled out my old PC to make it a Linux machine. Turns out I had no spare sata cable for the HDD :| and then I stumbled upon this beauty. I had to root my phone ofcourse; then I tried out the smallest distro I could find (Tiny Core Linux) all 60 something Mbs of it :D and voila an OS on my PC running from my phone, ruddy wonderful stuff. I have 3 usable distros now. TCL, Kali and Ubuntu. Thankyou makers of DriveDroid!

Ian Kinnell

I passed out after working out how to configure and execute this successfully. Stunning! Granted, I could knock a star off as the app isn't quite as intuitive as it could be, but that would just be petty! Using "Rufus" to convert a Hiren iso was slick and worked first time. Deserving of payment. Oh yes!

abhijeet pandit

One of the best apps for rooted phones. Great app, very useful. I only have one USB and I use it for storing files and I was fed up with reformating my USB and booting it every time I need to install or run live linux,I had to move my files to my PC but all that mess is gone. Great app. A must download for tech geeks.

User reviews

September 29, 2017

Genius work

Softwarebakery December 25, 2016

There hasn't been any updates to the stable version for a number of months. I'm guessing it has to do with acquiring root being slow on your phone. You can also give the beta a try, which acquires root more sparingly.

Hazmi Hafiz October 5, 2017

Absolutely useful. Must have app for rooted phones.

Faizul Hadiman November 11, 2016

Thumbs up

Alexander Jenkinson September 6, 2016

Ian Kinnell February 7, 2017

Softwarebakery November 7, 2013

Thanks for the feedback! Could you please give some pointers in where you got stuck or how it could be made more intuitive? You can mail me at info@softwarebakery.com

abhijeet pandit May 9, 2016

Upwork Martin February 24, 2016

Amazing app, genuinely helpful. Note: if iso's fail to boot on CM13 you must install latest superSU and flash from recovery to grant root permissions (stock root manager in cm won't work)

Softwarebakery February 24, 2016

Thanks for confirming SuperSU is working. One of the fixes for CM is merged into CM13 nightly, so hopefully SuperSU won't be needed in the future.

Tracy Keough December 11, 2016

Great Emulating Team. Great app. If you're inclined to ripping, decoding, building iso's ect. And need a more or less "mobile" distribution application. This is the right choice. Take a minute and do the "walk-through" config and go! Great work guys, real talk.

Janne Pitkänen April 4, 2016

Works great, saved me time and money! My Linux (like they occasionally do), screwed up. I was travelling with no way to create a USB stick booter. Instead of days without a laptop, the matter was resolved in hours with Drivedroid. Recommended!

Stefan Denic December 13, 2017

Works every third time and only with smaller iso images. It is the single worst user experience I've ever found in the last 7 years. Total waste of your time. Don't even bother with it.

Claudiu Tamaș November 19, 2016

Not work with Android 5+ I think the framework used to create this app is old because not request write permission for external SD card and I can't write image. Work only with small internal storage.

Softwarebakery November 19, 2016

Moving existing users over to the new permission model has shown to be nontrivial. The beta has support, but I'm keeping it.in beta until all the kinks are out. Try the beta to use the new storage capabilities and permissions.

Сергей Трофимов October 9, 2016

Works like a charm. With this app I don't need to search for a spare USB flash drive. Tested it on a few computers and haven't ran into any problems.

Shivkumar G Patil September 12, 2016

Can't access my storage after using your app Hi.. I have used your app but now I can't access my sd card on cm13 moto e. "It says storage /emulated /0" not found. " Unmount your sd card as usb disk drive"... How to do that.. I am screwed up using your app... Please help

Softwarebakery September 12, 2016

Rebooting the phone should always reset the USB state to its normal behavior. You can manually change USB settings in DriveDroid as well to fix things without rebooting. If problems persist, please send me a support email explaining exactly what you're trying to do.

Jacob Noori June 9, 2016

Incredibly useful I like to install different distros often on various machines and hated making USB sticks. Really simple to use and hasn't failed me yet. Only request would be Material Design since it looks a bit outdated with black status bar.

Softwarebakery June 10, 2016

Try the beta if you want something that resembles material design a bit more.

P Smith May 2, 2016

Genius. Tried this when I wiped Win10 from my Lenovo Yoga. Installed a BBQlinux Cinnamon USB, then from it created a Debian which corrupted leaving me with an incomplete, unbootable system. USB wouldn't boot again (very old).. Had the thought "is there any way to boot from my phone..." and there is. Keep trying iso's, not all will work. BBQlinux Plasma using read-only USB worked for me while Slacko, Debian, even Porteus would not. This app is fantastic, and a total lifesaver! Thank you Devs, will be donating asap.

aurey Col-Hos July 31, 2016

Unbelievable!! I can't believe I've never used this until now, this is really awesome, no more formatting USB, it took a while to get this working for me cause I had to play in the settings but now it's reliable, thank you dev! I can't get the net installers to work like Debian because my WiFi will not turn on, no matter what, but I can get others to work, awesome job, really congrats!

Dominic Bernardino January 6, 2016

Helps me out in a bad spot I regularly use Linux and need something like this to help me troubleshoot. No need for flash drives or anything like that, can just use this to help me. Definitely deserves a five star rating.

Vanshaj Girotra September 1, 2017

Used to work , but doesn't now. I think the problem is that whenever I boot my PC , the android system asks for how this device will work with it. Like only charge or transfer photo/files etc. If you guys can help me out , it would be great.

Gregory Jensen February 5, 2017

I have limited bandwidth. You can imagine my frustration when the app suddenly starts downloading an ISO when I'm trying to scroll. Terminating the app does not stop it. I terminated the Android download manager and had to clear its data... Otherwise 4* because it asked me if it was USB or CD but I have no idea how to check (BIOS reports FDD, like they sometimes do), works though. Update: 4* to reflect progress and reply. Thanks!

Softwarebakery September 26, 2016

DriveDroid downloads images through Androids download manager. The beta of DriveDroid will allow you to more easily handle downloading images, so this will come in the next stable release. The USB vs CD mode is baked into the kernel, so DriveDroid cannot determine this. You can see in your OS which of the two the phone is using.

Kodie Holford April 24, 2017

Absolutely terrible! Does not work at all! I've tried everything possible and still no luck. Would give zero stars if I could.

Valentin Richard December 6, 2015

Awesome but... It was working on my Oneplus One on lollipop but since Marshmallow, it's not working anymore, if you could tell me why :) besides that it's one of my favorite apps great job !!

Henry Thomas May 28, 2016

Saved me from a lot of trouble Amazing work!! This helped me boot into a Linux Distro because of which I could use GParted to fix my Windows partition. Really grateful.

Brett Walter January 30, 2016

Saved a lot of frustration Only had to change one setting to get it to work. Saves so much time when distro hopping and it's nice to always have a recovery drive on hand.

David Alex February 3, 2016

Extremely useful Installed windows without problems. Be sure to go through USB settings wizard in settings to get it working on your device. I ran out of storage space to update apps when this there's an img created, getting the "unable to update due to insufficient storage".

Steffen Mossefinn December 30, 2015

Saved my ass Fantastic piece of software. My laptop just failed me, and this app let me boot a live CD ISO so I could format and reinstall my OS. It's super simple to use, and it just works. Thumbs up!

Marked Verbs June 25, 2016

App is great but won't import my iso Have verified hash and tried with iso and img. Would pay if not for this unexplained problem. Lucky for you there is no alternative listed on alternatoveto

Grant Le Roux March 3, 2016

Super useful IT tool Boot all the things! Got all my ISOs in my pocket thanks to this app.

Ankit Yadav July 10, 2016

Amazing! When booting through USBs has become so messy, this is one handy, reliable and fast method to install Linux distros. If the developers are reading this, I'm really indebted to you. I was stuck with a faulty live ISO USB, and an OS less PC. This just made my day. Thanks!

Rast lol April 4, 2016

Great but can be improved I have some feedbackz: 1) I can delete image while hosting it. Seems not legit. 2) Downloads fail silently sometimes and I had a headache after trying to boot for an hour with no luck. You can check for file size if the image was downloaded from inside the app. 3) When going through wizard, I can not select "I see USB and CD and can boot both"! So one of options is disabled after the wizard! And I can not find where to change this in settings. It is ridiculous. 4) un/mounting, refreshing etc is SLOW!!!

Softwarebakery April 4, 2016

Thanks for the feedback! 1, 2 and 4 are pain points I'm aware of. They partly stem from needing root and acquiring root is slow. The beta should solve some of the problems, by not using root for some operations. 3. good point. DriveDroid needs to know for each device specifically whether it is usb or CD-ROM, so it'll require some more work

Queen Fiona February 25, 2017

I wasn't able to get this working on my HTC One M8. That's not a big issue, apps like this often have compatibility issues. The reason for the rating is that none of the options are properly documented, so I have no idea how to start fixing it. If I could just have an app to make a USB boot drive through OTG, I would be fine, but apparently DriveDroid is so good no one's bothered to document it. Heartbreaking.

Max Filip July 21, 2016

Has saved me multiple times This has been my go-to on laptops without cd drives (which is most of them). It works so well lately I started to use it for everything and have all my important iso's backed up on a nas.

Lachlan Harris June 27, 2016

This is a godsend. So much better than needing to carry around a dozen boot USBs. Had a few problems setting up on OnePlus One, but with correct configuration it's flawless. My only request would be to select a folder instead of an image, and have DriveDroid emulate the filesystem, but that's an epic feature request. Great job :)

Softwarebakery June 27, 2016

For adding folders try the latest beta. Emulating folders as images will not be supported for quite a while I'm afraid. It would indeed be epic though ;).

Daniel Goober January 4, 2017

Does not work. This needs to be able to work without rooting the phone, as most Android phones are not able to be rooted. Or at least make the app able to force a root long enough to act as a PC boot disk.

Softwarebakery January 4, 2017

That is something that needs to be mentioned to the Android team I'm afraid. Root is needed because Android doesn't support/allow applications to use USB in this way.

Erwan Le Pape December 30, 2015

Marshmallow broke it Worked great but since upgrading to Marshmallow, it's been failing to host images, regardless of the USB option used

Slim Jim September 5, 2017

Best app ever. Works with Chromebooks. I mounted a GalliumOS iso file using this app and booted it with my Chromebook. Now I have a much better operation system. Someone give these developers some money.

Paul Sandru November 20, 2016

So i have a little big problem here I created an image to make a bootable usb of windows 8 and it didn't work.That is not the problem.The problem is that i can't find where the image is located and it uses 9 gb of my memory which is not that small

CF Duinkerken August 13, 2017

Really great app! It removes the hassle of burning everything to a cd. Also very useful when you need to repair something. 👍

Randall Colitz November 27, 2015

This app is my primary reason for rooting my device. This app helps me eliminate the need to burn DVD's, and CD-ROM's. I have all my image files literally at my fingertips.

El February 12, 2016

This is GREAT. Not only saved my butt when a USB stick failed I'd no other way to boot a server, but is really handy with the ability to use multiple images etc. Won't carry a USB stick any more because of this :)

mike jones February 27, 2016

Can it work with not rooted phone I can't root my phone, there's no root for zre warp elite. Will this work? If so 5 stars.

Softwarebakery February 27, 2016

No, Android does not expose any functionality to do the things DriveDroid does. The kernel does expose this functionality, but it is only accessible through root.