Linux boot disk creator

10 Useful Tools to Create Bootable USB from an ISO Image

CD and DVD writers are a thing of the past. You are not likely to find them in modern-day laptops. If your goal is to create a bootable medium, then creating a bootable USB drive from an ISO file remains your best option.

There are quite a number of tools that can help you create a bootable USB drive. Some will even go further and let you create a multi-boot USB drive where you get to choose the OS that you want to install.

Here are some of the widely-used utilities for creating a bootable USB drive from an ISO file in Linux desktop systems.

1. Rufus

We start off our list with Rufus which is arguably one of the most popular bootable USB creation utilities. It’s a free tool that you can download and create bootable USB pen drives, memory sticks, etc. It is particularly helpful when you want to create a USB installation medium from an ISO image or work on a system with no OS installed.

Rufus is a portable utility that comes with a small footprint – 1.3MB only. No installation is required. You just need to double-click on the executable file to launch the UI and start creating your USB bootable medium from an ISO image of your choice (both Windows and Linux).

Unfortunately, Rufus is only supported on Windows and the developer has not yet ported it to Linux as yet. If you are looking for an alternative that works on Linux, read on.

2. UNetbootin

UNetbootin is a free and cross-platform utility for creating live bootable USB drives using an ISO image from all the major Linux distributions, even the lesser-known ones such as Tails, and AntiX.

It doesn’t employ distribution-specific rules for creating bootable USB drives, and therefore, most of the Linux ISO images should load without a problem.

Apart from creating a Live bootable medium, you get other system repair tools and utilities for example:

• Parted Magic
• SystemRescueCD
• Smart Boot Manager
• Dr.Web AntivirusF-Secure Rescue CD
• Super Grub Disk
• Backtrack
• Ophcrack

3. Balena Etcher

Developed & Maintained by the Balena team, Balena Etcher is a free and open source for writing image files such as .img and .iso onto USB drives and creating Live bootable pen drives and SD cards.

Etcher is a cross-platform tool and is available for download on Windows, macOS, and Linux (both 32-bit and 64-bit). It provides a very elegant yet simple UI that provides a smooth experience while writing your image files.

4. Ventoy

Ventoy is yet another utility that lets you not only create an ordinary USB bootable medium but also allows you to create a multiboot USB drive with several OS options.

In fact, Ventoy takes away the need to format your USB drive over and over again. Simply copy the ISO file to your Pendrive drive and boot it. You can copy multiple ISO files concurrently and Ventoy will provide a boot menu to select your preferred image to boot from. Ventoy supports over 420 ISO files.

• Cross-platform (Windows, Linux).
• Support for both Legacy and UEFI BIOS modes.
• Support for ISO images larger than 4GB.
• MBR and GPT partition style supported (1.0.15+).
• USB drive write-protected support.
• You can directly boot from ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files. No extraction is required.

And many more. Check out Ventoy’s additional features.

5. Universal USB Installer

Abbreviated as UUI, Universal USB Installer is a Live Linux Bootable USB Creator Software that allows you to easily create a bootable USB from your favorite Linux distribution or Windows installer. It runs only on the Windows operating system.

In addition to that, you also get additional tools such as USB Boot Rescue tools such as Comodo and BitDefender Rescue CD, and bootable software such as Hirens Boot CD.

6. Yumi

Yumi – short for ‘Your Universal Multiboot Installer’ – is another tool that you can leverage to create a multiboot USB drive. It’s the predecessor of the Universal USB installer and allows you to create a Multiboot USB Flash Drive containing multiple ISO files on the fly and start using it to boot your preferred Live Linux OS.

Key features of Yumi USB creator include:

• Runs only on the Windows operating system.
• An option to reformat your USB drive.
• Support for both Legacy and UEFI BIOS modes.
• Affinity for Ubuntu-derived Distributions.
• Download links to make it easy to get the related ISO files.
• A website link to help you learn more about the YUMI.
• A feature to remove installed items on the USB drive to facilitate cleanup.

7. PowerISO

PowerISO is a robust and fully-featured application for burning CDs/DVDs. In addition, It allows you to extract, burn, create, encrypt, compress, and convert ISO images and mount them on an external drive.

It provides an all-in-one solution allowing you to do whatever you want with your files.

At a glance, PowerISO allows you to:

• Supports Windows, Linux, and macOS.
• Create a bootable USB drive from an ISO image.
• Create bootable ISO files and create bootable CDs and DVDs.
• Open and extract ISO files with a single click.
• Rip multimedia files including audio files such as MP3, WMA FLAC.
• Burn audio files from MP3, and WMA FLAC to CDs / DVDs.
• Ability to edit ISO files directly.
• Create ISO or BIN files from CDs / DVDs.

8. GNOME Multiwriter

GNOME Multi-writer is a utility for Linux systems that is used to write an ISO file to multiple USB devices at a go.

It supports USB drives of up to 32GB in size. It was originally written as part of the ColorHug project, but later on, shifted direction and became an independent application in 2015.

9. MultiBootUSB

MultiBootUSB is a free and open-source cross-platform tool that also allows users to install multiple Live Linux distributions on a USB drive and boot from it. It provides a simple and user-friendly UI that enhances the seamless creation of the bootable USB drive.

• Supports Windows, Linux, and macOS.
• Automatic detection of ISO files.
• Works on both USB and external hard drives.
• Preservation of files on the USB drive without deletion.
• Installed images can be uninstalled without affecting other files in the drive.
• Ability to install multiple distributions at a time on the command line.
• The list of supported distributions is constantly updating.

10. ImageUSB Writer

Last on the list is the ImageUSB Writer. Just like GNOME multi-writer and multi-boot USB, this is a free utility for Windows systems only that allows you to write an ISO file concurrently to several USB devices. It also supports direct imaging between the devices.

ImageUSB writer is also a perfect tool for mass duplication of USB flash drives. The application is also capable of reformatting a USB device, as well as MBR and GPT entries for wider disk space.

That was a roundup of some of the utilities that you can leverage to create a bootable USB drive from an ISO image in Linux. We have compiled tools that work on both Linux and Windows in case you are working on either system. That is all for now. Your feedback is highly welcome.

Источник

3 Ways to Create Bootable Ubuntu USB Startup Disk

Creating a bootable USB drive is one of the most preferred ways of testing and installing a Linux operating system on a PC. This is so because most modern PCs don’t come with a DVD drive anymore. Further, USB drives are easily portable and less delicate than a CD / DVD.

Many graphical tools abound that can help you create a bootable USB drive. One of the most widely used tools is Rufus, a simple yet very effective tool. Sadly, it’s only available for Windows systems.

Thankfully, Ubuntu ships with its own tool called Startup Disk Creator. The tool is easy to use and allows you to create a bootable Ubuntu USB disk in no time.

With a bootable Ubuntu USB drive you can perform the following operations:

1. Install Ubuntu on your PC.
2. Try out Ubuntu desktop without installing it on your hard drive.
3. Boot into Ubuntu on another PC and run it.
4. Perform diagnostic operations such as repairing or fixing a broken configuration.

With that in mind, let’s see how you can create a bootable Ubuntu USB startup disk.

Requirements

For this exercise, ensure that you have the following prerequisites before you get started:

• A USB drive – Minimum 4GB.
• Ubuntu ISO image ( We will use Ubuntu 20.04 ISO ).
• A stable internet connection for downloading the Ubuntu ISO image – If you don’t have one.

In this guide, we will explore three methods that you can use to create a bootable Ubuntu USB startup disk.

On this page:

Let’s shift gears and see how you can create a startup Ubuntu.

Creating Ubuntu USB Startup Disk Using Graphic Tool

The Startup disk creator is Ubuntu’s native tool that comes preinstalled in every modern Ubuntu release. It allows a user to create a Live USB drive from an ISO image is a simple yet fast and effective way.

To launch Startup Disk creator, click on ‘Activities’ at the top left corner of your desktop and search for the tool in the application manager as shown. Next, click on the ‘Startup Disk Creator’ option to launch it.

Once launched, you will get a window as shown. The upper section displays the path of the ISO image, the version of the ISO file and its size. If all options are okay, proceed and hit the ‘Make Startup Disk’ option to commence the process of creating the bootable USB drive.

Thereafter, you will get a pop-up notification asking you whether to proceed with the creation or abort. Click on the ‘Yes’ option to initialize the creation of the bootable drive. Provide your password to authenticate and start the process.

The Startup Disk Creator tool will begin writing the disk image onto the USB drive. This should only a few minutes to be completed.

Once complete, you will get the notification pop-up below indicating that all went well. To try out Ubuntu, click on the ‘Test Disk’ button. If you want to go ahead and start using the bootable drive, simply click ‘Quit’.

Creating Ubuntu USB Startup Disk Using DDrescue Command

The ddrescue tool is a popular data recovery tool that you can use to recover data from failed storage devices such as hard drives, pen drives, etc. Additionally, you can use the ddrescue tool to convert an ISO image to a startup USB drive.

To install ddrescue on Ubuntu / Debian systems execute the command.

$ sudo apt install gddrescue

NOTE: Repositories refer to it as gddrescue. However when invoking it on the terminal use ddrescue.

Next, we need to verify the block device volume of the USB drive. To achieve this, use the lsblk command as shown below:

The output below confirms that our USB drive is denoted by /dev/sdb .

Now use the syntax below to create a bootable USB stick.

$ sudo ddrescue path/to/.iso /dev/sdx --force -D

For example to create a Ubuntu 20.04 startup disk we executed the command below.

$ sudo ddrescue ubuntu-20.04-beta-desktop-amd64.iso /dev/sdb --force -D

The process takes a few minutes and your bootable USB drive will be ready in no time.

Creating Ubuntu USB Startup Disk Using dd Command

Another simple and easy to use command-line tool you can use to create a startup disk is the dd command. To use the tool, plug in your USB drive and identify the device volume using the lsblk command.

Next, unmount the USB drive using the command below:

Once the USB drive is unmounted, run the following command:

$ sudo dd if=ubuntu-20.04-beta-desktop-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M

Where Ubuntu-20.04-beta-desktop-amd64.iso is the ISO file and bs=4M is an optional argument to help accelerate the process of creating the bootable drive.

You can now eject your Live USB drive and plug it to any PC and either try out or install Ubuntu.

This brings us to the end of this topic. We hope you found this guide useful and that you can now comfortably create a bootable USB startup disk using all the methods explained herein.

Источник