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How to "burn" an ISO to USB flash drive?
- Thread starter glitch44
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I believe you can do this through Disk Utility. Select the Thumb drive and then go to the restore tab. Drag the .iso to the source and do the same for the thumb drive in the destination.
You might need to check the formatting of the drive for the linux distro.
You might need to check the formatting of the drive for the linux distro.
Here's what I did:
1) Created a fat partition
2) Clicked on restore, dragged the ISO to Source, the partition to Destination
3) Clicked Restore followed by typing in my password
What I got was:
"Restore Failure
Could not validate source - error 254"
The ISO is md5sum tested and burning it to a cd works.
Any ideas?
1) Created a fat partition
2) Clicked on restore, dragged the ISO to Source, the partition to Destination
3) Clicked Restore followed by typing in my password
What I got was:
"Restore Failure
Could not validate source - error 254"
The ISO is md5sum tested and burning it to a cd works.
Any ideas?
I also want to do this. I tried to use dd, but it doesn't work. dd requires the drive be unmounted, but there is no way to unmount a flash drive. Even on a fresh boot, the umount command returns "Resource busy" and Finder unmounting seems to put it in some zombie state that's no longer accessible to dd.
FWIW...
- Using dd to write the ISO contents directly to the USB absolutely does not work.
- Using any other method to copy the ISO contents also doesn't work.
Both are true for any distribution of Linux.
The core problem is that how an ISO is converted into bootable USB is not the same from one distribution to another.
The best option is unetbootin:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
Unetbootin is an automated tool that will take many different ISOs (it isn't guaranteed to work if you use it with an ISO that isn't on its approved list, though, so you might want to check the compatibility first) and makes bootable flash drives off them.
But there is no OS X version of it, AFAIK, so the USB must be created using unetbootin in a Windows or Linux environment.
If that's not a possibility, you can use OS X, and follow tutorials appropriate to your distribution, such as the ones at pendrivelinux.com, but you'll have to find an alternative way to put a bootable MBR on it and syslinux it. (FWIW, I know I've done this at least once -- it's even possible to make a bootable USB of an Intel Linux distribution purely from a PPC Mac. I had to do this because I inadvertently completely jacked the Ubuntu installation on my Eee to the point that I could not recover, and I didn't happen to have a working bootable flash drive for it at that moment).
Since Unetbootin came out, I pretty much avoid any other method if at all possible....
- Using dd to write the ISO contents directly to the USB absolutely does not work.
- Using any other method to copy the ISO contents also doesn't work.
Both are true for any distribution of Linux.
The core problem is that how an ISO is converted into bootable USB is not the same from one distribution to another.
The best option is unetbootin:
http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
Unetbootin is an automated tool that will take many different ISOs (it isn't guaranteed to work if you use it with an ISO that isn't on its approved list, though, so you might want to check the compatibility first) and makes bootable flash drives off them.
But there is no OS X version of it, AFAIK, so the USB must be created using unetbootin in a Windows or Linux environment.
If that's not a possibility, you can use OS X, and follow tutorials appropriate to your distribution, such as the ones at pendrivelinux.com, but you'll have to find an alternative way to put a bootable MBR on it and syslinux it. (FWIW, I know I've done this at least once -- it's even possible to make a bootable USB of an Intel Linux distribution purely from a PPC Mac. I had to do this because I inadvertently completely jacked the Ubuntu installation on my Eee to the point that I could not recover, and I didn't happen to have a working bootable flash drive for it at that moment).
Since Unetbootin came out, I pretty much avoid any other method if at all possible....
"but you'll have to find an alternative way to put a bootable MBR on it"
I'm using Mac OS X 10.4.11 on an iBook G4 and in Disk Utility under the Partition tab, if you click options, there is a choice of partitions scheme, you can choose Master Boot Record (MBR) "To use the disk to start up DOS and Windows computers"
Things are easy on a Mac
To get around the "busy" thing when using dd:
In Disk Utility: Unmount the volume of the usb drive, not the drive itself.
I recently used this to put an .img of Ubuntu Netbook Remix on a usb flash drive following http://wiki.edubuntu.org/UNR
Only change I had to make was to use "bs=1024" instead of "bs=1M" for the blocksize argument in dd
And you can get the /dev/disk? number from Disk Utility too, select drive and press apple+i
I'm using Mac OS X 10.4.11 on an iBook G4 and in Disk Utility under the Partition tab, if you click options, there is a choice of partitions scheme, you can choose Master Boot Record (MBR) "To use the disk to start up DOS and Windows computers"
Things are easy on a Mac
To get around the "busy" thing when using dd:
In Disk Utility: Unmount the volume of the usb drive, not the drive itself.
I recently used this to put an .img of Ubuntu Netbook Remix on a usb flash drive following http://wiki.edubuntu.org/UNR
Only change I had to make was to use "bs=1024" instead of "bs=1M" for the blocksize argument in dd
And you can get the /dev/disk? number from Disk Utility too, select drive and press apple+i
This absolutely DOES work. Do NOT insert the *.dmg or *.iso file into the source box. Instead, INSERT THE VOLUME from the mounted image into the source box in Disk Utility.
I've been reading forums all over to try to create a bootable USB version of slax with my Macbook. I'm running 10.5.8.
up to this point I have a configured USB with a FAT32 partition and I have both the slax-6.1.2 iso and the raw files extracted from the slax-6.1.2.tar. I have followed the previous advice about "burning" the iso to the USB with the disk utility trying the iso and the mounted volume of the iso. I keep getting the same failure:
"Restore Failure
Could not validate source - error 254"
even with the mounted volume as the source. Am I missing a step?
also, I'm not very experienced with command line interface, but i've tried running the bootinst.sh in the USB but I get an error like this:
egrep: /proc/mounts: No such file or directory
egrep: /proc/mounts: No such file or directory
egrep: /proc/mounts: No such file or directory
Can't find device to install to.
Make sure you run this script from a mounted device.
any advice would be greatly appreciated
thanks!
up to this point I have a configured USB with a FAT32 partition and I have both the slax-6.1.2 iso and the raw files extracted from the slax-6.1.2.tar. I have followed the previous advice about "burning" the iso to the USB with the disk utility trying the iso and the mounted volume of the iso. I keep getting the same failure:
"Restore Failure
Could not validate source - error 254"
even with the mounted volume as the source. Am I missing a step?
also, I'm not very experienced with command line interface, but i've tried running the bootinst.sh in the USB but I get an error like this:
egrep: /proc/mounts: No such file or directory
egrep: /proc/mounts: No such file or directory
egrep: /proc/mounts: No such file or directory
Can't find device to install to.
Make sure you run this script from a mounted device.
any advice would be greatly appreciated
thanks!
i'm 99% sure the error 254 indicates an incorrect drive format/partition type. i've noticed that whenever i get that error, if i click "info" for the disk image, it is of a format that i can't apply using disk utility. i.e. it will be like iso 9886 or UDF, while i can only choose HFS+, FAT, etc... there is a program called macFUSE that can deal with extra format types -- and i hate to be another a**hole to post without a solution, but i would try looking into using macFUSE to give OS X the ability to deal with those formats, then maybe you'll be able to partition your media to the appropriate file system to match the source image.
personally, i boot into windows and use unetbootin to make linux discs. if you don't have windows to boot into, you can download virtualbox for free, and make a virtual linux system from your .iso, then from the virtual system get unetbootin [for linux] and burn your disk.
huge pain in the a- workaround, but it's all i've got. i feel your pain. i've always had to go to dirty dirty windows to make my linux discs, but mostly for lack of energy to go back to trying to figure out doing it on os x. hell, i'm on the windows side now trying to find similar solutions to the file system crap so i can put my windows, os x, and linux installs all on one firewire drive (i've re-installed all of them 5 or 6 times in the last two days trying to get my system to triple-boot, and installing from disc takes sooo long each time, but that's a whole other story)
***EDIT thinking about the virtual machine approach, you can convert the virtual machine to a physical machine and place its contents wherever? i just read about it, so obviously i haven't tinkered with the idea -- http://techokarma.blogspot.com/2008/10/v2p-virtual-to-physical-for-virtualbox.html
Its actualy pretty easy to do this in the terminal:
and it returns something like
Now unmount the disk using diskutil replace the disk number with the id of your usb stick
And use DD to write again replace the disk number
Replace if={} with the path to your iso image
Code:
Lafka:~ lafka$ diskutil list
Code:
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *1.0 TB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 999.9 GB disk0s2
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *4.1 GB disk1
1: DOS_FAT_32 GENTOO LIVE 4.1 GB disk1s1Now unmount the disk using diskutil replace the disk number with the id of your usb stick
Code:
Lafka:~ lafka$ diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1And use DD to write again replace the disk number
Code:
dd if={ISO_IMAGE_HERE_} of=/dev/disk1Replace if={} with the path to your iso image
Ohh my god!!! This one takes lot of time ... i dont know why .... I am writing 4g of ISO for Fedora and so far it took 1 hour and is still going on ....
block size
maybe the block size argument would make it faster.
Sounds like a similar case here : http://getsatisfaction.com/jolicloud/topics/copying_image_to_usb_drive_is_very_slow_mac_os_x
From "man dd" (this made me lol):
bs=n Set both input and output block size to n bytes, superseding the
ibs and obs operands. If no conversion values other than
noerror, notrunc or sync are specified, then each input block is
copied to the output as a single block without any aggregation
of short blocks.
got it
maybe the block size argument would make it faster.
Sounds like a similar case here : http://getsatisfaction.com/jolicloud/topics/copying_image_to_usb_drive_is_very_slow_mac_os_x
From "man dd" (this made me lol):
bs=n Set both input and output block size to n bytes, superseding the
ibs and obs operands. If no conversion values other than
noerror, notrunc or sync are specified, then each input block is
copied to the output as a single block without any aggregation
of short blocks.
got it
If you try to restore it through Disk Utility to the thumbdrive, thats going to make the thumb drive an exact copy of the bootable cd. So, why wouldnt you BURN a copy of the iso onto a DVD, then install the OS to a thumbdrive? Much simpler, takes alot less time. Also, fewer headaches.
Open the .iso in Disk Utility, put a Blank DVD in the drive, click burn. Once done, boot off the cd, and when asked where to install to, find the drive that matches your thumb drive. Simple, and its a full bootable version of the OS. Not the LiveCD...
Open the .iso in Disk Utility, put a Blank DVD in the drive, click burn. Once done, boot off the cd, and when asked where to install to, find the drive that matches your thumb drive. Simple, and its a full bootable version of the OS. Not the LiveCD...
Wor
Yes just drag the Mounted drive from you desktop into the box in Disk Utility, same thing with the mounted ISO into the other box! Waiting for my USB to finish now then to try and boot iDeneb on my Dell Inspiron 1501!!
This absolutely DOES work. Do NOT insert the *.dmg or *.iso file into the source box. Instead, INSERT THE VOLUME from the mounted image into the source box in Disk Utility.
Yes just drag the Mounted drive from you desktop into the box in Disk Utility, same thing with the mounted ISO into the other box! Waiting for my USB to finish now then to try and boot iDeneb on my Dell Inspiron 1501!!
This absolutely DOES work. Do NOT insert the *.dmg or *.iso file into the source box. Instead, INSERT THE VOLUME from the mounted image into the source box in Disk Utility.
This method did not work for me. I got the exact same error using this method as with using the .ISO file as source.
My Fix for the "Restore Failure" error
I know this is an old thread but I was getting the same "Restore Failure" error when I tried to use RESTORE in Disk Utility to burn an ISO onto my USB drive.
So what I did was create an new image in Disk Utility and copied over the files of the mounted ISO into the new Disk Image -Using the new Disk Image I was able to do the Restore onto my USB drive.
Hope this helps anyone who was having similar problems.
I know this is an old thread but I was getting the same "Restore Failure" error when I tried to use RESTORE in Disk Utility to burn an ISO onto my USB drive.
So what I did was create an new image in Disk Utility and copied over the files of the mounted ISO into the new Disk Image -Using the new Disk Image I was able to do the Restore onto my USB drive.
Hope this helps anyone who was having similar problems.
unetbootin
there is unetbootin for Mac! just check this up: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/unetbootin-mac-latest.zip
CePal
there is unetbootin for Mac! just check this up: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/unetbootin-mac-latest.zip
CePal
Unfortunately, this way it looks like it would not have made it bootable :-(. Trying the Disk Utility now. I was trying to make HP DL server firmware image to boot from USB, as I couldn't find the HP tool to make the USB bootdrive on a Mac.
How to install from USB Stick rather than CDROM
Am using a USB Stick to install Ubuntu Server 11 on a Linux machine, rather than using CD-ROM.
(Am using Mac OSX 10.6.7 to download my iso, configure USB stick, and then copy .iso to it)
This worked for me
- Insert 4GB USB Stick
- Open Disk Utility, Click ERASE. Format USB using MS-DOS (FAT)
- When Disk appears in Left hand column, right click and get Information (note down the "Disk Identifier : eg disk6")
- Then right click the Disk and select Unmount. (the drive still shows but the disk unmounts)
- Switching to the Terminal App
- Change to superuser / root, by issuing: sudo su - (then enter your password)
- Change directory to where ever your recently downloaded .iso image is stored, eg: Downloads
- My file iso is called ubuntu-11.04-server-amd64.iso, (approx 650mb) so use the following command:
- This will start copying the file to the USB stick.
- There is no "verbose" or screen "output" of what is happening. But after 15mins you should see something like:
The end result is a USB stick containing the installation media of Ubuntu Server (swap Ubuntu server for your media download of choice). Happy Days.
Am using a USB Stick to install Ubuntu Server 11 on a Linux machine, rather than using CD-ROM.
(Am using Mac OSX 10.6.7 to download my iso, configure USB stick, and then copy .iso to it)
This worked for me
- Insert 4GB USB Stick
- Open Disk Utility, Click ERASE. Format USB using MS-DOS (FAT)
- When Disk appears in Left hand column, right click and get Information (note down the "Disk Identifier : eg disk6")
- Then right click the Disk and select Unmount. (the drive still shows but the disk unmounts)
- Switching to the Terminal App
- Change to superuser / root, by issuing: sudo su - (then enter your password)
- Change directory to where ever your recently downloaded .iso image is stored, eg: Downloads
- My file iso is called ubuntu-11.04-server-amd64.iso, (approx 650mb) so use the following command:
Code:
dd if=ubuntu-11.04-server-amd64.iso of=/dev/disk6 bs=8192- There is no "verbose" or screen "output" of what is happening. But after 15mins you should see something like:
The end result is a USB stick containing the installation media of Ubuntu Server (swap Ubuntu server for your media download of choice). Happy Days.
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Looks like resetting this NVRAM stuff is something to pursue.
What could be the negative effects from trying this ?
I am pretty sure that bootable iso is reliably on my USB card,
/gunnar iMac G4 20" LCD with USB 2.0 / Leopard
What could be the negative effects from trying this ?
I am pretty sure that bootable iso is reliably on my USB card,
/gunnar iMac G4 20" LCD with USB 2.0 / Leopard
You can use Disk Utility to make the drive bootable, you do it by creating a new partition on the USB drive and selecting Master Boot Record from the Options button, then you can use unetbootin to copy over the contents of the iso you want ... I hope. I'm in the middle of doing this presently.
Make sure you format the partition as MS-DOS also.
Final Solution
Well, I was dealing with this problem, but after a little digging I found a be-all end-all solution for creating Windows/Linux bootable Flash Drives on the mac.
Disk Utility, for whatever reason, is prohibited from writing Joliet (ISO 9660) onto MS-DOS FAT 32 Flash Drives, though it should definitely work.
The best way to accomplish your goal is the following:
Open Terminal
Type 'diskutil list'. You'll see your primary hard drive (probably listed under /dev/disk0) and your Flash Drive, which will be listed as /dev/disk#, with # being any number that isn't zero. REMEMBER THE DISK LOCATION
In the next line, type 'diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk#'. You'll see this message on success:
Unmount of all volumes on disk# was successful
Now type, 'dd if=(DRAG ISO/DMG HERE) of=/dev/disk# bs=1m'
Do not forget bs=1m! The blocksize cannot be any different from this because of the nature of the MS-DOS FAT partition structure. Using smaller block sizes can potentially corrupt the newly created iso and will slow down the process tremendously.
Now give your computer some time (anywhere from 15 minutes to 2+ hours depending on file size) to finish this procedure.
If you're unsure about the dd command and how it functions, head over to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)
An awesome program I saw makes use of the dd command and includes a progress bar! Very cool stuff! http://www.gingerbeardman.com/dd-gui/
With this program, you don't have the option to change the blocksize, but the addition of a progress bar makes it worth it.
Well, I was dealing with this problem, but after a little digging I found a be-all end-all solution for creating Windows/Linux bootable Flash Drives on the mac.
Disk Utility, for whatever reason, is prohibited from writing Joliet (ISO 9660) onto MS-DOS FAT 32 Flash Drives, though it should definitely work.
The best way to accomplish your goal is the following:
Open Terminal
Type 'diskutil list'. You'll see your primary hard drive (probably listed under /dev/disk0) and your Flash Drive, which will be listed as /dev/disk#, with # being any number that isn't zero. REMEMBER THE DISK LOCATION
In the next line, type 'diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk#'. You'll see this message on success:
Unmount of all volumes on disk# was successful
Now type, 'dd if=(DRAG ISO/DMG HERE) of=/dev/disk# bs=1m'
Do not forget bs=1m! The blocksize cannot be any different from this because of the nature of the MS-DOS FAT partition structure. Using smaller block sizes can potentially corrupt the newly created iso and will slow down the process tremendously.
Now give your computer some time (anywhere from 15 minutes to 2+ hours depending on file size) to finish this procedure.
If you're unsure about the dd command and how it functions, head over to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dd_(Unix)
An awesome program I saw makes use of the dd command and includes a progress bar! Very cool stuff! http://www.gingerbeardman.com/dd-gui/
With this program, you don't have the option to change the blocksize, but the addition of a progress bar makes it worth it.
Last edited: