Create a Bootable Linux USB Flash Drive Using dd

Create a Bootable Linux USB Flash Drive Using dd

  1. Insert your USB drive into your computer and use ‘df’ or ‘lsblk’ from the command line to determine the device name your flash drive has been assigned, e.g. /dev/sdb, sdc, etc.
  2. Make sure the drive is not mounted. If necessary, unmount it with:
    sudo umount /dev/<device_name>
  3. Write the .iso image to the flash drive:
    sudo dd if=/path/to/distro.iso of=/dev/<device_name> bs=1M
  • You may choose to add the following to the end of your ‘dd’ command to check for successful completion:
    ; echo $?
  • The whole command with this check would be:
    sudo dd if=/path/to/.iso of=/dev/<device_name> bs=1M ; echo $?
  • The output may look something like this:
    • 1477+1 records in
      1477+1 records out
      1549615104 bytes (1.5 GB, 1.4 GiB) copied, 0.566236 s, 2.7 GB/s
      0
  • If the ‘dd’ command produces output with a ‘0’ on the final line then you have successfully created your bootable flash drive.
  • If created successfully, you may now reboot your system: sudo shutdown -r now
  • While the system is booting, enter the boot order menu to elect to boot from your flash drive first using the F10 or F11 keys.
  • Follow the instructions or click the icon or button to install the given Linux distro to disk.

      • Related Articles

      • How to Create and Boot from a LiveCD/USB Drive

        STAGE 1: Download .ISO image, prepare USB flash drive First, you will need an .ISO image of a Linux OS that you will put onto a USB drive (4GB+ recommended). As far as .ISO images go, you can use one from any OS that you wish. We strongly suggest ...

      • Creating FreeDOS bootable ISO

        Prerequisites: Linux mkisofs or genisoimage unzip utility for Linux unix2dos (part of dos2unix packages) This guide will cover creating DOS bootable ISO files to assist with simple and automated firmware updates for the most frequently updated ...

      • Create Linux LiveCD from Windows using Rufus

        Download Rufus. Download a Linux ISO: Ubuntu: Direct Download: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop Torrent, Net Install: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/alternative-downloads CentOS: Direct Download or Torrent: https://www.centos.org/download/ ...

      • Create an Ubuntu LiveUSB with Persistence

        PREREQUISITES: A USB thumbdrive of 8GB capacity or larger A Windows Workstation with internet access GETTING STARTED: Prepare a USB drive of capacity 8GB or larger. Format the drive in Windows to FAT-32. (Windows will prompt you automatically to do ...

      • Create FreeDos CD from Windows using Rufus

          Download Rufus. ( Create Bootable USB Media) Download attached FDOEM.zip (FreeDos Image Creator) Unzip FDOEM.zip to C:\Temp   Move any files that you want to have available during the DOS session to the C:\Temp\CDROOT folder. Ex. BIOS Updates, IPMI ...