how to create bootable usb drives and sd cards for every operating system

8/11/2019 How to Create Bootable USB Drives and SD Cards for Every Operating System

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How to Create Bootable USB Drives and SD Cards For Every

Operating System

Creating installation media for your operating system of choice used to be simple. Just download an ISO andburn it to CD or DVD. Now were using USB drives, and the process is a little different for each operating

system.

You cant just copy files form an ISO disc image directly onto your USB drive. The USB drives data

partition needs to be made bootable, for one thing. This process will usually wipe your USB drive or SD

card.

From a Linux ISO

Ubuntu recommends theUniversal USB Installerfor creating bootable Linux USB drives on Windows. This

tool can create bootable disc images for many different Linux distributions.UNetbootinis another popular

alternative.

Download the Linux distribution you want to use in .ISO form. Run the tool, select your desired distribution,

browse to your downloaded ISO file, and choose the USB drive you want to use. The tool will do the rest.
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You can use similar tools on Linux. For example, Ubuntu includes a Startup Disk Creator tool for creatingbootable Ubuntu USB drives. UNetbootin also runs on Linux, so you can use that too.

From an IMG File

Some operating system projects provide an IMG file instead of an ISO file. An IMG file is a raw disk image

that needs to be written directly to a USB drive.

UseWin32 Disk Imagerto write an IMG file to a USB drive or SD card. Provide a downloaded IMG file and

the tool will write it directly to your drive, erasing its current contents. You can also use this tool to createIMG files from USB drives and SD cards.

Linux users can use the dd command to directly write an IMG files contents to a removable media device.

Insert the removable media and run the following command on Ubuntu:

sudo dd if=/home/user/file.img of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

Replace /home/user/file.img with the path to the IMG file on your file system and /dev/sdX with the path to

your USB or SD card device. Be very careful to specify the correct disk path hereif you specify the path

to your system drive instead, youll write the contents of the image to your operating system drive and

corrupt it
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From a Windows 8 or 8.1 ISO

If you already have a Windows 8 or 8.1 ISO file and you want to create installation media without

redownloading anything, you can actually use the Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool for this.

Just provide the Windows 8 or 8.1 ISO file when prompted. The tool will happily create Windows 8 or 8.1

installation media if you provide the appropriate ISO file.


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With DOS

If you need to boot into DOS to use a low-level firmware upgrade, BIOS update, or system tool that still

requires DOS for some reason, you can use theRufustool tocreate a bootable DOS USB drive.

Rufus uses FreeDOS, an open-source implementation of DOS that should run whatever DOS program you

need to use.
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From Mac OS X Installation Files

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How to Reinstall OS X on Your Mac, Wipe Your Drive, and Create USB Installation MediaMacs can automatically download and reinstall their operating system. This process normally keeps your personal files,

but you can choose...[Read Article]

You cancreate a bootable drive with Mac OS X on itby downloading the latest version of OS X from theMac App Store. Use Apples included createinstallmedia tool in a terminal or by run the third-party

DiskMaker X tool.

The Mac OS X drive can be used to install OS X on other Macs or upgrade them to the latest version without

any long downloads.

From a Windows ISO for Mac

switch from PowerPC to Intel many years ago, a Mac is just another PC. Macs come with...[Read Article]

If you plan oninstalling Windows on a Mac via Boot Camp,dont bother creating a bootable USB drive in

the usual way. Use your Macs Boot Camp tool to start setting things up and it will walk you through

creating a bootable Windows installation drive with Apples drivers and Boot Camp utilities integrated.

You can use this drive to install Windows on multiple Macs, but dont use it to install Windows on non-

Apple PCs.
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Some of these tools overlapfor example, Rufus can also be used to create bootable drives from LinuxISOs, IMG files, and even Windows ISO Files. We suggested the most popular, widely recommended tools

for each task here.

how to create bootable usb drives and sd cards for every operating system

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