Creating a portable boot/software utility flash drive

Edit: Help no longer necessary (though software/bootable utility suggestions still welcome). I've written what I ended up doing at the bottom of the post for anyone interested who may stumble across this.


I have a 16GB flash drive that I want to put various bootable utilities and portable software on, but I have a few questions before I begin. The (current) list of what I'd like to have:

Bootable

Puppy Linux
Lubuntu
GParted
Systemrescue CD
Memtest86+
Clonezilla

Portable Software

7zip
Clamwin
Explorer++
Filezilla
Firefox
g3torrent
Infranview
Notepad++
Open Office
PCRepairSystem Toolkit
Google Chrome
Recuva
SMPlayer
Undelete Plus
VLC Player

I'm planning on using Xboot to create the multiboot drive if it will work the way I expect. I do have a few questions about it though. Will a linux distro act solely as a live CD, not allowing any software to be installed or files to be saved? I would like to be able to use the linux distros as portable computer access, but since their main use to me is data recovery, this isn't 100% necessary. Also, will Xboot leave the extra space for software and file storage? I want to be able to carry around the portable software and some installers as well.

Thanks for the help, and any suggestions of better alternatives to Xboot or recommendations of portable software are appreciated as well.


What I did:

I ended up using YUMI to create the multiboot usb drive. It works wonderfully and allows you to install more later on and uninstall current bootable utilities; to be fair, I have no idea whether the drive actually works yet because I haven't gotten around to trying to boot it.

I ended up installing:

Puppy Linux
Hiren's BootCD
Lubuntu
Knoppix
Fedora
SystemRescueCD
Clonezilla
Gparted (redundant due to Hiren's, I know, but if I'm going after Gparted I want to get straight to it)
Memtest86+ (also redundant)

I have all the images of these and Plop Boot Manager as well, in case I need to burn them to disc for a BIOS that won't boot from USB.

As far as software goes, I included:

7zip
ClamWin
Explorer++
FileZilla
Firefox
g3torrent
GIMP
Infranview
Notepad++
OpenOffice
OpenTTD (for time-killing)
PCRepairSystem
Google Chrome
Skype
Recuva
ShexView
smplayer
UndeletePlus
VisualBoyAdvance (also time-killer)
VLC

The installers for all of these are included as well in case an installation or two failed.

I also have a few installers for programs that friends/family might need:

7zip
MalwareBytes
MyDefrag
ImgBurn
SUPERAntiSpyware
VLC
BitTorrent

And for my usage, EasyBCD and YUMI.

I feel like I'm pretty darn prepared for any impromptu computer help with this thing on my keychain - after I verify that everything works properly, of course, although I've tried to prepare for whatever might not have worked by including the installers/images and having multiple utilities that serve the same purpose.