Bootable USB flash drive utilities

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Rufus

Rufus is a portable utility that allows you to create bootable USB drives for Windows and Linux. It also allows you to check the USB device for bad blocks, using up to four passes. Rufus runs in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows. You can create bootable USB drives for the listed versions of Windows, as well as almost all popular Linux distributions. You can also use Rufus to put utilities on USB drives, such as Parted, Ultimate Boot CD, and BartPE.

Example: To create a bootable Windows 7 installer from Rufu’s settings, Choose NTFS as the file system. Then check the option for "Quick format" and "Create extended label and icon files." Now check "Create a bootable disk using" and select your ISO file.

Syslinux

Make A USB flash drive bootable.

UNetbootin

UNetbootin allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for Ubuntu, Fedora, and other Linux distributions without burning a CD. It runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. You can either let UNetbootin download one of the many distributions supported out-of-the-box for you, or supply your own Linux .iso file if you've already downloaded one or your preferred distribution isn't on the list.

Universal USB Installer

UUI is a Live Linux USB Creator that allows you to choose a Live Linux Distribution, the ISO file, your Flash Drive and, Click Install to have a bootable Live working Linux on the flash drive.

See also: Ubuntu Installation from a Flash Drive

Windows 7 USB download tool

  • free from Microsoft

When you purchase Windows 7 from Microsoft Store, you have the option to download an ISO file or compressed files. The Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool allows you to create a copy of your Windows 7 ISO file on a USB flash drive or a DVD. This is an official Microsoft product.

WiNToBootic

A standalone tool that supports an ISO file, a DVD, or a folder as the boot disk source.

WinToFlash

A portable tool that allows you to create a bootable USB flash drive from a Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7, Server 2003, or Server 2008 installation CD or DVD.

WoeUSB

Create Bootable Windows USB drive from Linux. WoeUSB is a fork of the obsolete WinUSB. You are running linux and you need to take a MS Windows ISO image to create a bootable USB drive (for the purpose of installing Windows) then WoeUSB is a quick and easy solution. WoeUSB can create bootable USB media for Windows from Windows ISO images or DVDs.

Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 16.04 to 17.04, Linux Mint 17.x and 18.x 

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt update
sudo apt install woeusb

To create a Windows 7 boot:

  • from console execute: 
sudo bash
echo $((16*1024*1024)) > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_bytes
echo $((48*1024*1024)) > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_bytes
exit
  • ensure ISO is on the local disk, not a network drive or mounted from another medium, this seems to cause problems
  • using an ISO, run WoeUSB, and select NTFS as the file system for the flash.
  • If you get an exit code 256 error after the NTFS format, dont worry. Just start the process over. It seems to be a conflict between automount and woeusb. The second time around it starts copying files after it realizes the drive is NTFS formatted already
  • monitor the progress from console with nmon

Note: This process is not verified, and failed during testing.

Etcher / balena Etcher

balenaEtcher is a free and open-source utility used for writing image files such as .iso and .img files, as well as zipped folders onto storage media to create live SD cards and USB flash drives. Uses a GUI Etcher Bootable USB Creator.

When I downloaded Etcher for Linux from the main web page the program came as an AppImage file. They also provide external links to deb package and other options such as RPM.

The dd Command in Linux

Here are some examples using dd. 

sudo dd if=./linuxmint-19.2-cinnamon-64bit.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=4M status=progress oflag=sync
sudo dd if=./linuxmint-19.2-cinnamon-64bit.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=4M status=progress conv=fdatasync
sudo dd if=./linuxmint-19.2-cinnamon-64bit.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=4M && sync

These are from different sources. Sometimes this works. Sometimes it just sits there forever and you don't get a prompt back even if you try to break.

When you insert the USB flash drive into the Linux PC it is immediately recognized as a block device, not not necessarily auto mounted even when auto mount is enabled. It will be auto mounted if there is a partition that has a compatible file system. If it is auto mounted you need to unmount it from the command line while not "ejecting" it. We want the kernel to see the block device, however, we do not want any partition mounted.

The block device will show up in fdisk -l and if it does not, then you will not be able to write the ISO to the flash drive. If the flash drive auto mounts, then simply unmount it by a command 

umount /dev/sdc

With the block device recognized, and the partition(s) not mounted, I found this command to work best: 

sudo dd if=./linuxmint-19.2-cinnamon-64bit.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=4M status=progress oflag=sync

can detach a USB drive with the following commands 

sudo eject /dev/sdc

After invoking the eject command the USB flash drive is no longer a block device visible with fdisk -l

Related

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