How to Create Bootable Linux USB Flash/Pen Drive from Windows
Most of the popular Linux distributions these days offer live cd so that you can feel how their distribution feels before you can install it on your computer. If boot Linux using live CD the system takes ages to boot and applications installed feel sluggish as the optical drive offers lower data transfer rates. But if the same live cd is copied to a USB drive and made bootable then the system feels real fast as if you are booting from a hard disk drive.
There are several ways in which you can create bootable Linux drive, some of them requires lot of steps to be followed. In this post we see how we can create a bootable Linux USB drive from within Windows.
Prerequisite:
1. Windows XP or Windows Vista based host operating computer
2. USB Flash/Pen drive.
3. Get UNetbootin software from here.
4. A computer that is capable for booting from USB devices.
How to Create Bootable Linux USB Flash/Pen Drive
1. Download the version of Linux that you wish to install in USB drive. In this post we have taken Ubuntu 8.04.1 ISO file that we downloaded from Internet.
2. Open the UNetbootin utility and go to the second option called “Diskimage” and select ISO mode. Once these modes are selected then point the ISO file that you downloaded in step 1.
3. Make sure you that you have selected the correct USB drive of your choice where you want the Linux live CD to be copied. Warning: Make sure that you backup the data that is already existing in the USB drive as this software will erase that.
4. Once you hit the GO button the utility will start copying the necessary files to USB drive.
5. After the copying of the files is complete the utility will ask you to reboot. Now reboot your computer and boot from your USB drive.
Should you have any questions feel free to ask in comments section.
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My god.. if this works I`ll be so thankful…
brb I’ll reboot
Thank you very much, been hours looking for a site,
cya
Rafael,
I am glad that this post helped you.
I’ve done all that, changed my boot order so that USB is first but, after a bit of initial activity of the USB drive, my machine STILL goes into Vista.
I have Vista SP1 installed and all updates – has that got anything to do with it?
Thanks!
R
P.S. I’m using an ACER 5920 laptop (new in August 2007)
R
I recently tried out UNetbootin to put Linux live CD images onto a bootable usb drive. However, I have only been able to get it to work with Linux live distros (and only some at that). Is there another program (or method) to make any image file (.iso etc.) bootable on a flash drive? I would specifically be interested in regards to BartPE.
Steven
to put bartpe onto a usb use
http://gocoding.com/page.php?al=petousb
this works well for me.
I have actually coupled it grub4dos and have a multiple boot usb stick with
DSL Linux
Bartpe
Vista Pe
hi
i have a 320 gb Seagate portable hdd
i have made a 10 gb partition on it for linux.
how do i do a portable installation of ubuntu on it so that i cld use it on multiple computers??
the instructions u have given above works for USB pen drives
what about USB portable HDD ???
Hi
I tried all the above commands and workings, nut when I reboot the system, it said “BOOT ERROR”. I tried Fedora core9 on my 4GB pendrive. The FC9 is around 3.4 GB and it leaves only 350MB space left after extracting.
Please help me out.
Hi
I’ve done all the things mentioned, but when i try booting from the USB-stick i get the message `BOOTMGR IS MISSING´ ? What could be the reason for this.
Thanks