How to create bootable USB flash drive?

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It is my understanding that modern computers allow to be booted up via a USB flash drive instead of a CD/DVD drive. I’m just curious to know how this flash drive thing works.

Say that I download an .iso file such as the one for a live Linux distro. The computer that I currently have requires me to download the .iso file, burn it to a DVD, and use the DVD drive to boot the resulting live Linux distro up (by pressing a key such as the ESC one and selecting the DVD drive as the boot up device in the BIOS).

How does it work with a computer capable of booting up via a USB flash drive?

Do you download an .iso file and burn it to the USB flash drive?? Something tells me that it is not the way bootable USB flash drives are created…

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Rufus is your friend.
Download the ISO and use Rufus to burn it to the USB.

cheers, Paul

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Rufus is your friend.
Download the ISO and use Rufus to burn it to the USB.

cheers, Paul

Thanks, Paul.

So… Windows Disc Image Burner would not be able to burn an .iso file to a USB flash drive?

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Most Live linux cds I have used also allow one to make a bootable Linux USB or external HDD once booted.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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I don’t know if you can burn an ISO to USB using native Windows commands.

cheers, Paul

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I don’t know if you can burn an ISO to USB using native Windows commands.

cheers, Paul

You can with the correct software and a large enough USB drive.
http://www.rmprepusb.com/documents/release-2-0

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I’ve used http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool to create a bootable Win 7 USB and a bootable disk for Vista, although I think the ISO has to be a Windows one as I tried it with an ISO for something else to create a bootable disk, but it didn’t recognise it as an ISO.

I believe it also works for Win 8.1 but you may need to use the Media Creation Tool for Win 10.

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I’ve used http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool to create a bootable Win 7 USB and a bootable disk for Vista, although I think the ISO has to be a Windows one as I tried it with an ISO for something else to create a bootable disk, .

I also believe that, Windows only!

I would also suggest Yumi,http://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/ it sets up a multi boot usb with many options. See the many option for it and other tools @

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tools_to_create_Live_USB_systems
:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Russ, that isn’t a native Windows command.

cheers, Paul

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Russ, that isn’t a native Windows command.

cheers, Paul

Just trying to think “Globally”

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You don’t say whether you are using one of the leading backup programs. I use Macrium Reflect, and Acronis before that. Macrium and Acronis both offered the facility to burn boot media, CD/DVD, or USB stick, and nagged you until you had done it.

Experience with Macrium was excellent, a small hiccup with an early build of version 6, good forum help, and a new build fixed the problem.

And, just to remind you – make sure to test your bootable USB. Finding that it doesn’t boot your system when you need it to is a bit late. Sounds obvious, easy to overlook.

Dell E5570 Latitude, Intel Core i5 6440@2.60 GHz, 8.00 GB - Win 10 Pro

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You don’t say whether you are using one of the leading backup programs. I use Macrium Reflect, and Acronis before that. Macrium and Acronis both offered the facility to burn boot media, CD/DVD, or USB stick, and nagged you until you had done it.

Experience with Macrium was excellent, a small hiccup with an early build of version 6, good forum help, and a new build fixed the problem.

And, just to remind you – make sure to test your bootable USB. Finding that it doesn’t boot your system when you need it to is a bit late. Sounds obvious, easy to overlook.

Can someone post a link for me to learn how to test my bootable USB. I use Macrium Reflect free but I can not see a way to test it there.
Another thing please is when I verify my image with Macrium, does that mean its all good or do they need to be tested further.
Pete.

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It is my understanding that modern computers allow to be booted up via a USB flash drive instead of a CD/DVD drive. I’m just curious to know how this flash drive thing works.

Say that I download an .iso file such as the one for a live Linux distro. The computer that I currently have requires me to download the .iso file, burn it to a DVD, and use the DVD drive to boot the resulting live Linux distro up (by pressing a key such as the ESC one and selecting the DVD drive as the boot up device in the BIOS).

How does it work with a computer capable of booting up via a USB flash drive?

Do you download an .iso file and burn it to the USB flash drive?? Something tells me that it is not the way bootable USB flash drives are created…

The below link provides instructions and files required to create bootable flash drives of any flavor of linux or Windoze. Please enjoy and distribute widely.

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/

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What I do is have a cheap portable external USB drive. These drives in my experience are not very reliable, but they have worked for me several times when it was crucial.

This is the solution for anyone who is not happy usings the various offerings available to make a USB bootable etc

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Tools for making Bootable USB Rescue Environments (mostly Windows and WinPE, as Linux already offers its own USB Boot Media downloads, or you can purchase certain Linux Live and Install USB Media directly from OS Disc) :

Lazesoft:
http://www.lazesoft.com/

Aomei PE Builder:
http://www.aomeitech.com/pe-builder.html

OS Disc:
https://www.osdisc.com/

Remember, on some recent laptops with UEFI Fast Boot, you must do three things to be able to boot from a USB device:
(1) Disable Secure Boot in your BIOS
(2) On some Toshiba Satellite and some other brands of laptops, disable Fast Boot in the BIOS
(3) Disable Windows 8, 8.1, or 10 Fast Startup — This Windows feature locks up the NTFS and System Partitions and sometimes causes them not to be accessible in Rescue environments.

I have used Macrium Reflect Free Version 6 on USB and CD for a Windows Rescue Environment. Linux likes my Ubuntu Install Media. With the three caveats above, Linux can also see and repair Windows NTFS and System Partitions.

I also keep USB sticks with my ASUS Transformer Book t100ta restore image and drivers with a special program supplied at the ASUS web site. Other brands and other devices may offer similar tools. These are bootable even when Windows won’t boot. See BackTracker info:
https://www.asus.com/us/support/FAQ/1008640/

-- rc primak

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Hi, I really appreciate the following advice. I have been having that problem with my Toshiba laptop!

Remember, on some recent laptops with UEFI Fast Boot, you must do three things to be able to boot from a USB device:
(1) Disable Secure Boot in your BIOS
(2) On some Toshiba Satellite and some other brands of laptops, disable Fast Boot in the BIOS
(3) Disable Windows 8, 8.1, or 10 Fast Startup — This Windows feature locks up the NTFS and System Partitions and sometimes causes them not to be accessible in Rescue environments.

Thank you.

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Hi, I really appreciate the following advice. I have been having that problem with my Toshiba laptop!

Remember, on some recent laptops with UEFI Fast Boot, you must do three things to be able to boot from a USB device:
(1) Disable Secure Boot in your BIOS
(2) On some Toshiba Satellite and some other brands of laptops, disable Fast Boot in the BIOS
(3) Disable Windows 8, 8.1, or 10 Fast Startup — This Windows feature locks up the NTFS and System Partitions and sometimes causes them not to be accessible in Rescue environments.

Thank you.

Always glad to help.

The issue came up at a computer club meeting when a fellow Toshiba Satellite owner said his system doesn’t boot from USB. Not even under Windows 7. (The setting for Fast Boot is in the BIOS on older Toshiba Satellite laptops.)

I came across these caveats when doing my own experiments with Macrium Reflect Free WinPE USB media after upgrading my own Toshiba Satellite to Windows 8.1 from Windows 7. I also could no longer boot from USB, until I found these caveats and applied the required fixes.

My Ubuntu Linux also couldn’t interact with the NTFS Partitions after a “Shutdown” of Win 8.1. It turns out that with Fast Startup enabled (which it is by default in Win 8.1) the system never really shuts down, but goes into “Hybrid Hibernate” sleep. This has the effect of locking the state at shutdown for all Windows-visible partitions on the drive, including Data Partitions which may be shared with another OS. Not what a dual-booter wants to happen! The caveats I discovered solved that issue as well.

So that’s how I learned about these issues.

-- rc primak

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My Ubuntu Linux also couldn’t interact with the NTFS Partitions after a “Shutdown” of Win 8.1. It turns out that with Fast Startup enabled (which it is by default in Win 8.1) the system never really shuts down, but goes into “Hybrid Hibernate” sleep. This has the effect of locking the state at shutdown for all Windows-visible partitions on the drive, including Data Partitions which may be shared with another OS. Not what a dual-booter wants to happen! The caveats I discovered solved that issue as well.

So that’s how I learned about these issues.

I find it interesting that a windows option could lock NTFS partitions. I wonder if an external dock could be reached from a linux boot…
Is it Bios related or something in the disk firmware??

:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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I find it interesting that a windows option could lock NTFS partitions. I wonder if an external dock could be reached from a linux boot…
Is it Bios related or something in the disk firmware??

:cheers:

Here’s the full story:

Ubuntu refuses to write to the NTFS partitions because Windows has not fully shut down. Ubuntu calls this an unstable system state, which it is.

Here’s why:
The hiberfile created when Windows 8.1 goes into hybrid hibernate is not a complete hiberfile. It does not preserve all the details about the states of the NTFS partitions. This means that any change ot any file in the partitions mapped out in this hiberfile can result in system instability or even damages to the NTFS file systems, for any affected NTFS partition.

Linux formatted partitions can’t be natively read by Windows, so they aren’t affected by this unstable condition. As a result, Linux and its own native partitions will go on as if nothing were wrong. But any changes made by Linux (or anything else) to the NTFS partitions which Windows was tracking when it was “shut down” into hybrid hibernate, can and will confuse Windows on the next Windows boot. Sometimes the disruption is sufficient to damage the file system on one or more NTFS partition.

So the answer is, even if your suggestion would work, it would be unsafe.

The three caveats for dual-booters must remain in effect, I’m afraid.

-- rc primak

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Here’s the full story:

Ubuntu refuses to write to the NTFS partitions because Windows has not fully shut down. Ubuntu calls this an unstable system state, which it is.

.

Nice to know Linux is playing nice w/ Windows

:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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I use Universal USB Installer found here http://goo.gl/ZtsX0y. It will copy linux or Windows Vista, 7 or 8 iso. You don’t burn it to a usb drive.

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I use Universal USB Installer found here http://goo.gl/ZtsX0y. It will copy linux or Windows Vista, 7 or 8 iso. You don’t burn it to a usb drive.

Same as post #12.

But I also wondered if we could stop talking about burning USB Flash Drives.

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…I also wondered if we could stop talking about burning USB Flash Drives.

While “burn to usb” has occurred several times in this thread, actually “burning” usbs (as in setting them on fire?) has not.

For those of us who would like to know about creating a bootable flash drive, it would be nice to know how…with ambiguous terms like “burn” explained for less geeky people like me.

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Same as post #12.

But I also wondered if we could stop talking about burning USB Flash Drives.

The “PC” Police are creeping into the tech world, get out your shields!

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The only way to test the bootable USB properly is to boot your computer.
To test that it “should” work you can boot VirtualBox from it. http://lifehacker.com/how-to-boot-from-a-usb-drive-in-virtualbox-1648868568
You can also boot from the PLOP ISO and select the USB – using any virtual machine software. https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/intro.html

cheers, Paul

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The only way to test the bootable USB properly is to boot your computer.
To test that it “should” work you can boot VirtualBox from it. http://lifehacker.com/how-to-boot-from-a-usb-drive-in-virtualbox-1648868568
You can also boot from the PLOP ISO and select the USB – using any virtual machine software. https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/intro.html

cheers, Paul

The instructions were different to the app as it was updated 02/10 so I failed on that one:confused:. Will try again when I can understand it a bit more. Its just that the website was saying do this and that but what I was seeing on my virtual machine was completely different. May be its just me but guess work was no good.:mellow: Never mind..all good.

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The only way to test the bootable USB properly is to boot your computer.
To test that it “should” work you can boot VirtualBox from it. http://lifehacker.com/how-to-boot-from-a-usb-drive-in-virtualbox-1648868568
You can also boot from the PLOP ISO and select the USB – using any virtual machine software. https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/intro.html

cheers, Paul

That Plop sw is not for the faint hearted :o:

What I found very interested on the site: Permission Remover – Android App

I may do further investigation into this, Android Apps definitely NEED a minder. Whatever one says about MS snooping Google’s is worse and they allow Apps to have free reign.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Plop is easy, extract the ISO and attach it to your VM as a CD.
Plug the USB into your machine.
Fire up the VM and make sure the USB is attached.
Select USB from the Plop menu and bob’s your uncle.

cheers, Paul

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OK but there is a slew of rally advanced options as well. I may get around to that, but not the more advanced options on a good work computer, but I do have Pentium 4…..

:cheers:

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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