You can now either reboot your computer and boot from the USB drive or unplug the USB drive, take it to another computer, and boot it there. That’s a more complicated process. Like a live CD or DVD, a bootable USB drive lets you run practically any Linux distribution without affecting your computer. Provide a downloaded Ubuntu ISO file, connect a USB drive, and the tool will create a bootable Ubuntu USB drive for you. Since we launched in 2006, our articles have been read more than 1 billion times. In this article I will share 5 different tools which you can use to burn ISO to USB drive with examples. Get the latest tech news and updates, programming tutorials, and cybersecurity tips and tricks. In a terminal window type the following command. Just click the “Yes” button and Rufus will automatically download them for you. Dave McKay first used computers when punched paper tape was in vogue, and he has been programming ever since. Update: In recent versions, dd now has a status=progress option that provides updates on the process once per second. Each drive has a block device associated with it. Activate the “Create a bootable disk using” checkbox, click the button to the right of it, and select your downloaded ISO file. If you’re already using Ubuntu, you don’t need to do this from Windows. From the drop-down menu, select the drive you want to use. Go to “USB Device” and select your USB flash drive (if ROSA ImageWriter doesn’t do it automatically). Click “OK” to continue if the drive has no important data on it. You can easily make your own bootable USB that’s equipped with the operating system of your choosing. After getting it … Just open the Dash and search for the  “Startup Disk Creator” application, which is included with Ubuntu. Activate the “Create a bootable disk using” checkbox, click the button to the right of it, and select your downloaded ISO file. All Rights Reserved. The command we are going to issue to dd is as follows: There is no visual feedback from dd at all as the creation progress takes place. That is our USB drive. Instead, you need to write booting information to USB drive first, which is not able to be done manually. And start the flashing process to burn the file of the OS from the computer to your USB drive to produce a Bootable USB. On the computer we used for this article, the process took about five minutes. You can click “Close” to close Rufus when it’s done. If you’re using another Linux distribution, it may include a similar utility. For installing Linux to your PC, this is fine—but if you want a live USB that keeps your changes so you can use it regularly on different computers, you’ll want to check out these instructions instead. Process Started; You can now find the USB converted to the Bootable USB. To be clear, this bootable USB drive will boot into a working copy of Ubuntu Linux but it will not save any changes you make. You can always format a USB drive and use it again for storing data. Now that the ISO file is properly "burned" to the USB drive, you can boot from it and then continue with whatever it is you're using this bootable drive for. You’ll need to download an ISO file to do this—we’re going to use Ubuntu in our example, but this should work for quite a few different Linux distributions. UNetbootin is another tool that allows you to create bootable USB drives as it either downloads the ISO file or you can provide the downloaded ISO file to create a bootable disk easily. The USB drive will now be listed in the output. Some involve using the system tools, while others depend on the installation of external packages. Turn on computer. Click the “Make Startup Disk” button when you are happy to proceed. If this is the only ISO file present in the Downloads folder you will only see one file listed. Now, you will need to select the source ISO file and specific device for bootable media. When you are ready to install Ubuntu, you can use the USB drive as the installation medium. Find out the name of your USB drive with the lsblk command: Confirm to yourself that the ISO image and the USB drive are correct. So, in the context of the same here are some best free or opensource software to create the bootable USB. Just select the default option—“Write in ISO Image Mode (Recommended)”—and click “OK”. In this article, we will be seeking the help of the Etcher utility to burn a USB stick with an ISO image of the Ubuntu package. Please follow the steps to create Linux bootable USB drive, Step1: Create Bootable USB Drive for Linux… Join 350,000 subscribers and get a daily digest of news, comics, trivia, reviews, and more. The contents of this drive will be erased, so back up any important files on the drive first. All Rights Reserved. While you don’t technically “burn” the ISO file to a USB drive, there’s a special process required to take a Linux ISO file and make a bootable USB drive with it. Once you’ve selected the correct options, click the “Start” button to begin creating the bootable drive. There should be an ISO image highlighted in the upper pane and a USB drive highlighted in the lower pane. Plus, there is no built-in tool for making this possible on Windows. (If you forgot to back up your data, click “Cancel”, back up the data on the USB drive, and then run Rufus again. Download Rufus and run it on your Windows PC. A bootable USB is super convenient to have on hand if you need to install or repair an operating system on your computer. Click the “Other” button. You’ll need a third-party tool to turn that ISO file into a bootable USB drive. Create An ISO From A Bootable USB Drive Using dd command Alternatively, use "dd" command to create ISO image of the USB drive using the following command: $ sudo dd if=/dev/sdc of=bootableusb.iso Replace the USB drive letter (i.e. Join 350,000 subscribers and get a daily digest of news, geek trivia, and our feature articles. You can check the bootable USB drive works by rebooting your computer and booting from the USB drive, or you can try booting from it in another computer. It supports most of the Linux distribution, such as Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, CentOS, and so on. UNetbootin doesn’t use distribution-specific rules for making your live USB drive, so most Linux ISO files should load correctly using this option. You may be told you need newer SysLinux files. Select the Ubuntu ISO file. If you have chosen the wrong device or ISO, click other to change your selection. dd will do exactly what you tell it to, as soon as you tell it. Each time you boot into the Ubuntu from this USB drive it will be a fresh instance of Ubuntu. You will require an Ubuntu installation ISO image to create the bootable USB drive, so make sure you have downloaded the version of Ubuntu you wish to use. Rufus will create the bootable USB drive. The tool we’ll use to create the bootable drive from the command line is the dd command. Or you can download iso file from the command line using wget or curl command. Here we will create a Ubuntu bootable flash drive, first go to ubuntu website and download the iso file to your Linux computer. Open Windows Explorer, and right-click the drive letter assigned to the drive. Start PowerISO (v6.5 or newer version, download here). A bootable USB drive is the best way to install or try Linux. In the Boot Selection drop-down, select Disk Or ISO Image and then click the Select button. Create the Linux Mint USB Drive Format a USB Drive Prepare the drive to accept the ISO-to-USB Linux transfer. For example, you could run this command instead to see the status: When the bootable USB drive has been created dd reports the amount of data that was written to the USB drive, the elapsed time in seconds and the average data transfer rate. There is a new entry in the list, called sdb and it has two partitions on it. To do so, press the Super key (that’s the Windows key on most keyboards) and type “startup disk.” The Startup Disk Creator icon will appear. You can download Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft’s website. We need to know what device your USB drive is associated with. First you need to install a tool called ms-sys. With UNetbootin you can create bootable disks for Ubuntu, Fedora and other Linux distributions easily. To create a bootable USB Drive of Linux Mint on Windows 10/8/7, we will download a software called Rufus. How do I make an ISO into a bootable USB? RELATED: How to Create a Live Ubuntu USB Drive With Persistent Storage. If you want to be able to save changes and data you need to create a bootable USB drive with persistent storage. Insert the USB flash drive into the USB port. However, it can be used to create other bootable OS. In the main window, click Custom Image and select the downloaded Red Hat Enterprise Linux ISO image. When you are sure that the correct USB drive is the only one connected to your computer, launch Startup Disk Creator. How to Burn an ISO File to a USB Drive in Linux, we recommend Rufus for creating a live USB drive the easy way, How to Respond Directly to a Specific Message in Instagram, How to Add, Edit, or Delete Saved Passwords in Microsoft Edge, How to Quickly Clear All Notifications on Mac, How to Disable Friend Requests on a Nintendo Switch, © 2020 LifeSavvy Media. Click the “Quit” button. Once you’ve selected the correct options, click the “Start” button to begin creating the bootable drive. It allows you to try out the popular Unix-like operating system without making changes to the computer. Whichever method you choose, you’ll need the Linux distribution’s ISO file. PowerISO can create bootable USB drive for Linux. There are many tools that can do this job for you, but we recommend a free program called Rufus—it’s faster and more reliable than many of the other tools you’ll see recommended, including UNetbootin. Additionally, the USB drive you expect to boot from. Step 7: Boot Selection. Next, restart your computer and boot from the USB drive using these instructions. Creating a bootable Ubuntu USB stick is very simple, especially from Ubuntu itself, and we’re going to cover the process in the next few steps. UNetbootin is another best Bootable USB Creator that you can use right now. Click on the Select image button and locate the distribution.iso file. A confirmation message appears to let you know when the creation of the bootable USB drive has completely finished. Step 2: Properly format the USB for creating bootable Windows USB. You will require an Ubuntu installation ISO image to create the bootable USB drive, so make sure you have downloaded the version of Ubuntu you wish to use. Choose the Format option on the menu. Regardless of how it is named on your computer, the device that was not in the previous lsblk listing must be the USB drive. Browse to the location of your Ubuntu ISO file, highlight it and click the “Open” button. The Startup Disk Creator main window should now resemble the screenshot below. Head to Ubuntu’s download page and download the version of Ubuntu you want—either the stable “Long Term Service” release or the current release. That way you know for sure what device identity to pass to dd on the command line. Linux users traditionally burned ISO files to DVD or CD, but many computers don’t have disc drives anymore. Click its icon or press Enter. Look, the tool is meant to create Linux Bootable USB Drive, but it can also create Windows Bootable USB. We will create a bootable USB stick with Linux by starting from a Linux distribution’s ISO. Connect a USB drive with at least 2GB of free space to your Windows PC (this may vary depending on your distribution of choice). Step1: Create Bootable USB Drive. Check your Linux distribution’s documentation—you can search for it online—for more information. Creating a Bootable Windows 10 USB in Linux. There is one internal hard drive on this machine called sda and there is one partition on it called sda1. The Startup Disk Creator’s main window will appear. If you’re not sure which one to download, we recommend the LTS release. 6. The output from lsblk will show the drives currently connected to your computer. Boot from USB and install Windows 10 enterprise client. Select “Disk or ISO image” as pre-selected It is a Linux cli app for writing Microsoft compatible boot records. Same goes for bootable hard drive testing programs, password recovery tools, data wipe programs, antivirus tools, etc. Once created a bootable Windows 10 USB. How to create a bootable MacOS USB. Lowell is the founder and CEO of How-To Geek. In our example this is sdb. Select the attached USB drive and Insert ISO file. Method 3. It is a portable, ISO USB maker. I personally use Rufus to create bootable USB from ISO on a Windows environment.But currently Rufus can be installed only on Windows environment and not on Linux nodes. Creating Bootable CentOS 7 USB Stick on Linux is a quick and easy process, just follow the steps detailed below. A progress bar shows you how close the creation process is to completion. To be clear, this bootable USB drive will boot into a working copy of Ubuntu Linux but it will not save any changes you make. Click the “Device” box in Rufus and ensure your connected drive is selected. If the “Create a bootable disk using” option is grayed out, click the “File System” box and select “FAT32”. You can also take it to another computer and boot Ubuntu from the USB drive on that computer. With the ROSA ImageWriter application open on your Linux desktop, go ahead and download the ISO file of the Linux OS you plan to create a bootable USB with. When you run it, none of your chances (like installed programs or created files) will be saved for the next time you run it. Click the “Yes” button to create the bootable USB drive. 6. For example, Ubuntu Linux has two built-in methods for creating a bootable USB drive. $ wget http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/focal/daily-live/current/focal-desktop-amd64.iso How-To Geek is where you turn when you want experts to explain technology. Here is the link for that. This is your last chance to back out without making any changes to the USB drive. The tool will open immediately—you don’t even have to install it. Since we launched in 2006, our articles have been read more than 1 billion times. In “Create Bootable USB Drive” dialog, click “” button to open the iso file of Windows operating system. The above article may contain affiliate links, which help support How-To Geek. Prerequisite: Get Microsoft Windows 10 ISO and a USB of at least 8 GB in size. Whether you’re using Windows or a Mac, we’ll walk you through the process step-by-step. Step 1: Download and install UNetbootin, and launch the application. Prior to starting How-To Geek, Lowell spent 15 years working in IT doing consulting, cybersecurity, database management, and programming work. dd just goes right ahead and carries out the instructions you’ve given it. From Linux you can read and write Apple-compatible HFS+ disk images. Warning: This will erase the contents of the target USB drive. For example, if you've put a memory testing program on a flash drive, you can now boot from that flash drive and test your RAM with it. Create An ISO From A Bootable USB Drive Using dd Tool dd is a commonly used command-line tool for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems, used to convert and copy files. Open Fedora Media Writer . Alternatively, we also have tutorials to help you create a bootable USB stick from both Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS . By creating an El Capitan recovery disc, you can then create an installation disc, and then access the App Store for other free installers, such as Catalina and Mojave. Once the process is completed, click on Close and now, the bootable USB has been created. The other partition is called sdb5 and is 14.6 GB in size. As the name suggests, it is used to create only a Linux bootable drive. The output from lsblk will have changed. ), RELATED: How to Boot Your Computer From a Disc or USB Drive. Step 2: If you do not have the ISO file for whichever Linux distribution you need, the software can do it for you. During his career, he has worked as a freelance programmer, manager of an international software development team, an IT services project manager, and, most recently, as a Data Protection Officer. Over the last decade, Lowell has personally written more than 1000 articles which have been viewed by over 250 million people. Plug in the USB drive you will be using to create bootable media. The identifier we need to use is the one representing the drive, not either of the partitions. To select the Ubuntu ISO file you downloaded previously, click the SELECT to the right of “Boot selection”. You can also use the dd command to do this from a terminal on any Linux distro. So we must find some alternatives to Rufus to create bootable USB from ISO Linux command line or GUI. NOTE: This process creates a traditional live USB drive. You can also install a Linux distribution on your PC from it—no CD or DVD drive required. By submitting your email, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Warning: This command must be used very carefully. The above article may contain affiliate links, which help support How-To Geek. One partition is called sdb1 and is 1 KB in size. Linux Live USB Creator (LiLi) This is an open source and free software to create a Live USB drive. Join 350,000 subscribers and get a daily digest of news, comics, trivia, reviews, and more. There are two ways to do this: Some Linux distributions include a graphical USB startup disk creator tool that will do it for you. By submitting your email, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You’ll be warned that all data on the USB drive will be erased. Creating Bootable Linux USB Drive using Etcher is a relatively straightforward process, just follow the steps outlined below: Connect the USB flash drive to your system and Launch Etcher. You can’t simply copy or extract the ISO file to the USB drive and expect it to work, however. Creating a bootable USB drive is a better solution—it’ll work on most computers and will boot, run, and install faster. It can be especially useful for cases where: you need to create USB installation media from bootable ISOs (Windows, Linux, UEFI, etc.) It will be pristine every time you boot it, and you can boot it on practically any PC you like. The lsblk command lists the block devices on your computer. This will download iso file to the current directory. This tool also tells you if the ISO file is clean or corrupted. While we’re using Ubuntu as an example here, this will work similarly with other Linux distributions. For Ubuntu, any USB drive of 4 GB capacity or greater should be fine. After over 30 years in the IT industry, he is now a full-time technology journalist. You may be told you need newer SysLinux files. The USB device will be highlighted in the lower pane. Plug in your USB drive and use the lsblk command once more. A warning appears to remind you that the USB drive will be completely wiped. There are no “Are you sure” questions or chances for backing out. You now have a portable working copy of Ubuntu or another Linux distribution of your choice. Join 350,000 subscribers and get a daily digest of news, geek trivia, and our feature articles. A standard file open dialog will appear.