[SOLVED] Help creating bootable USB

[deanr]

Hi.

I'm trying to create a bootable USB from an iso image. I've done this hundreds of times on Mint but I am struggling to do this on Kubuntu.

When I right click on the iso I can select 'write image to disk with K3b' - but this looks super-complicated and only seems to give me the option to burn to DVD or Blu-Ray. No good.

Start up disk creator will not recognise my iso image - whether I drag and drop it or select it from the menu. It does see my USB, though. Still, no workie.

Multiwriter - which I found in Discovery seems to work but I quit the process after 15 minutes and it was less than 5% creating the image on the USB. I'm too impatient. Besides I could boot into Mint and create 10 usb's seemingly in the same time.

Any ideas why start up disk creator doesn't work? Is there another simple live image creator I should try?

Thanks,

D.

[claydoh]

etcher.io


The old startup disk creator in Ubuntu/Mint is doesn't seem to work well these days, and unetbootin, another long-used disk creator seems to be unreliable these days too.
Etcher has never failed me
Etcher is super simple, and is my recommendation.

Download it, extract the file, and double-click to run it.

[Don B. Cilly]

Balena etcher is great. Appimage, just make it executable if it isn't already.
It also warns you if you try to write to a large disk ;·)

[jlittle]

Be aware that writing an iso image to a USB stick is no longer necessary. While such bootable stick is handy, it's slow, tedious, and error prone. These days one can boot to an iso directly. IMO it's far simpler to have one bootable stick or even an external drive set up to run something like grub, or busybox. Then you just copy the iso to the stick, and space permitting there can be several isos on it, as well as utilities like systemrescuecd, and a bunch of useful stuff like your favourite dot rc files.

Also, if you've downloaded the iso to the computer you're installing it on, there's no need to copy or write it anywhere, with the right incantation grub can boot into it. This can have the advantage of being much quicker than using a USB stick, especially if you've downloaded to an SSD.

[jglen490]

I would strongly recommend dd on the command line if Startup Disk Creator or anything else fails to work. I stopped using etcher after numerous fails, but try it if you want

sudo umount /dev/sdX
sudo dd if=/path/to/ubuntu.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=1M && sync

Where /dev/sdX is the USB device that you want to write. Check dmesg for the exact device name, and write it to the device not a partition on the device.

[deanr]

Thanks for the comments thus far.

I am aware of etcher and have used it in the past. I looked in Discovery, Muon and Synaptic for it and it wasn't there so I moved on.

The live usb's are simply for playing around with and looking at other distros. It seems to be an addiction for me. At least it lead me to using Kubuntu on my 2nd machine.

I actually came across another solution - Gnome Disks - which worked really quickly and really well following this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsJpz-LDrYY

I'll mark the thread as closed but more suggestions and comments I'm sure would be welcome.

[Don B. Cilly]

Also, if you've downloaded the iso to the computer you're installing it on, there's no need to copy or write it anywhere, with the right incantation grub can boot into it.

Well the incantation looks just fine if you love grub.
I just happen to hate it.
So I was wondering if anybody had made a simple shell script to automate the incantation.
It seems nobody has... or I can't find it. :·/

[jglen490]

Thanks for the comments thus far.

I am aware of etcher and have used it in the past. I looked in Discovery, Muon and Synaptic for it and it wasn't there so I moved on.

The live usb's are simply for playing around with and looking at other distros. It seems to be an addiction for me. At least it lead me to using Kubuntu on my 2nd machine.

I actually came across another solution - Gnome Disks - which worked really quickly and really well following this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsJpz-LDrYY

I'll mark the thread as closed but more suggestions and comments I'm sure would be welcome.

Yes, etcher is a sideshow, you have to download it from other than the *buntu sources. That's not always a bad thing, but it is something I stay away from - just like flatpaks and the other things that may work in the *buntu environment. While these others may work just fine, they don't necessarily play nice with standard libraries and kernel modules and so very often will drag along their own baggage. While the universe may tend towards chaos, there's no need to add more

[Qqmike]

dd on the command line,

Building a Kubuntu live USB flash drive installer using dd
https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...712#post378712

[deanr]

Actually, I've just discovered that now with Gnome Disks installed you can just right-click on the iso image and 'open with' > ''disk image writer'. Nice and easy !

[verndog]

Booting ISO directly from grub won't work if Secure Boot enabled. I use 'dd'. Created an alias just for that purpose.

[vinnywright]

+1 on "dd"

but you must be careful , dd is a old school low level tool that dose NO checking and gives NO warnings , it assumes you know what you are doing and will happily over write the running system IF that is what you typed in for "of=" ,,,,,it dose what it's told no matter what.

VINNY

[Snowhog]

Which is why the dd command is often referred to as 'disc destroyer'.

[Qqmike]

Which is why the dd command is often referred to as 'disc destroyer'.

Also, "data destroyer."

[deanr]

Also, "data destroyer."

Not "Disco Dingo" ?