UNetbootin to create a bootable Live USB. Bootable USB stick and UNetbootin program
In this article, I will walk you through the process of creating a bootable USB stick (LiveUSB) in operating systems - Linux, Windows and MacOS. I will write an ISO image of the Linux distribution to a USB flash drive, but you can use the programs described below to write any Live images.
As a rule, the user is faced with the task of writing an ISO image to a USB flash drive in order to get LiveUSB as a result. For example, you decided to install Ubuntu. To do this, you download an ISO image with the system, write it to a USB flash drive, boot from a USB flash drive, and the Live system or installer is launched.
To boot from a LiveUSB flash drive, you must set the boot from USB to the first place in the BIOS settings of your computer. For many motherboards, when you turn on the computer, you can call up a menu in which you can choose from which device to boot. In this case, you do not need to change the BIOS settings. For me, for example, this menu is called by pressing a key F12.
Creating a bootable USB stick (on Linux, Windows and MacOS)
To create a bootable USB drive, I will use a free program Etcher... This is a very simple and straightforward program. It makes creating bootable media extremely simple.
The program is cross-platform and with its help you can create bootable USB drives in Linux, Windows and MacOS. It works the same on all systems.
The program can be downloaded from the official website https://etcher.io
Note: On Linux, no installation is required, just download the file etcher-1.2.3-x86-64.AppImage and run it.
Let's consider the process of creating a bootable USB flash drive in the Etcher program.
Video - How to create a bootable USB flash drive in Etcher
Creating a bootable USB flash drive in the UNetbootin program
There is a fairly popular program for Linux UNetbootin, which allows you to create bootable USB drives. It can burn disk images, as well as automatically download images of popular Linux distributions (although very old versions of distributions are available for download, so this function is unlikely to be useful to you).
The program is cross-platform and can be used on both Windows and MacOS. I've only tested it under Linux. But she has one big drawback! Some flash drives created by it simply refuse to boot. For example, nothing worked for me until I formatted the USB flash drive to FAT16. The flash drive was formatted in the GParted program, the size of the partition on the flash drive was automatically set to 4GB, the rest of the free space was simply not used.
Below is the process of creating a bootable USB flash drive in UNetbootin.
Possible problems
Missing Operating System error
If you receive the message “ Missing Operating System", Then most likely the flag is not set on the flash drive Boot... To install it, restart your computer and log into your system. After that, run the command in the terminal (the flash drive must be connected):
Parted / dev / sdb set 1 boot on
Now restart your computer again.
No default or UI configuration directive found error
I ran into another error while booting my computer - "No default or UI configuration directive found". We managed to solve this problem only by formatting the flash drive to FAT16 and re-creating LiveUSB.
Video - How to create a bootable USB flash drive in UNetbootin
A Windows bootable USB stick is very easy to make. This article will describe three simple quick ways to create a bootable USB flash drive from a ready-made ISO image. All methods are free and popular, although there are simpler and more complex options among them, using different software. Also, all utilities work fully in Windows XP.
If you have a new laptop or computer, with BIOS UEFI, and the hard disk of which uses the GPT style of placing tables, then on such a computer you can also install Windows 7 using a different algorithm. Also, if the device, computer, laptop, netbook, etc. has a USB 2.0 port and USB 3, and you decide to install Windows 7 from a bootable USB flash drive to such a device, then undoubtedly you should connect the flash drive to USB 2.0 port because Windows 7 itself does not support USB port type 3, which are usually marked in blue.
If a bootable flash drive is connected via USB 3, then the attempt to install Windows 7 will end with the following error:
“A required optical drive driver was not found. If you have a flash drive, floppy disk, DVD or CD with such driver, please insert this media. "
Creating a bootable USB drive
Now the first thing you will definitely need is an ISO image of the operating system. The second is the need to take care of the flash drive itself. Since this medium will undergo formatting, the data from the flash drive must be moved to a safe, secure place. It is also important to note that the volume of the flash drive must be strictly at least 4 gigabytes.It is imperative to check and make sure that a particular motherboard accurately supports loading such a plan (from a flash device).
- Creating a bootable USB flash drive by means (it is recommended in the last turn, since the method is not very effective);
- Creation through;
- Utility;
Creating a bootable USB stick with UNetBootin
You need to download the program and run it (the program is portable, works without installation).
It is necessary to check the item called ISO-image, and then select the letter of the USB drive.
The location of a specific image must be specified manually.
Next, click open.
Now just click OK.
There is a short process of copying system files to a USB flash drive.
After a short extraction of the necessary files, our bootable USB stick is completely ready.
Creating a bootable USB drive with UltraISO
A slightly tricky solution, in contrast to the above, is to use the program UltraISO... However, you can quickly understand the program by following the instructions. The functionality of the program is made in plain Russian, and the trial period of use under the license is completely functional and suitable for our purposes.
Next, you need to select the Russian language and download the program, which is very simple. Run as administrator, then select the trial period of use.
Before us is the usual program window.
The next step is to find our ISO image on your hard drive, which contains the operating system. It is worth recalling that such an image can be created by any other program, and then specified here. In the main UltraISO window, right-click on the file, and in the menu that opens, select the open option.
Next, we indicate our image with the system, in our case this is the Windows 8.1 image, which is located in the installation folder. Find the image for yourself and click open.
Also now you can put the USB stick into the socket of a netbook or laptop. It is necessary to select the Bootstrapping menu in the main window of our program and click on the record of the hard disk image. The inserted USB flash drive should be present in this window.
Then we press to write down.
A hint will appear that your flash drive will be erased, we agree.
Next, we are waiting for the recording process to end.
Now you can carry our operating system in your pocket.
Today's users of personal computers and laptops are less likely to use external storage devices such as CDs and DVDs. It's probably not worth talking about their irrelevance, since they have long been replaced by flash drives, which, with their small size, can store several tens of gigabytes of information.
So, in order to write some operating system on your PC, it is enough to have a small USB flash drive with a virtual image of this very OS on it. To record these images, special utilities are used, one of which is the UNetBootin program.
A little about UNetBootin
UNetBootin is a cross-platform program that runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. With this application, the user can write a virtual image of the Linux OS to any external storage device in order to use it later to install and further use this OS.
The main requirement for the correct recording of an ISO image using this utility is that the free space of the drive must exceed the size of the ported image.
Create an image
To get started, you need an external drive, downloaded UNetBootin program and the distribution kit of the operating system downloaded from the official site of the developers or from some other site you checked, if you want some special assembly.
In order to make a virtual image of the Linux operating system, you need to do the following:
- Open the UNetBootin program.
- Put a check mark next to the item Image.
- Click on the " … ”Next to the line next to it and select the downloaded Linux distribution.
- At the very bottom of the window, the program in paragraph Type of put value USB disk, and in paragraph Disk- the path to the flash drive to which the image will be written.
- Click on OK.
After the performed actions, the UNetBootin utility will automatically start recording the image. You can watch the whole process through the program window.
Today I want to tell you how you can easily create a Live USB using the UNetbootin program.
For those who do not quite understand why this is necessary, I will say that Live USB is a drive that connects to a computer via USB (in our case, this is a USB flash drive) on which an operating system is installed that runs from this media and does not require its installation on a hard drive ... Such flash drives can be used to get acquainted with the new operating system and its further installation. They can also be used to restore data or computer health. In addition, many people use Live USB as a portable operating system, which in some cases can really help out.
Due to some peculiarities of OS installation on a USB drive, it is easier to use special programs for these purposes, one of them is UNetbootin.
Installing UNetbootin
So, as always, first you need to install the program. Ubuntu users can do this directly from the standard repository with the command:
Sudo apt-get install unetbootin
For those who do not have this opportunity, go to the program website and select the desired platform right on the main page. UNetbootin is available for Windows Linux and Mac. Downloading. After downloading, launch the application.
UNetbootin requires an administrator password, enter and now you can start creating Live USB.
Create LiveUSB with UNetbootin
There is nothing complicated here. First of all, you need to select a distribution image.
The program can itself download the system image from the Internet. To do this, select the "Distribution" item at the top of the screen, then select the required distribution kit and its version.
You can also create a Live USB from a pre-downloaded image. To do this, mark the item "Disk Image", then select the type of image, there is an option "Floppy" (you never know what) and "ISO". After that, you need to tell the program the path to our file.
Next, select the type of media. UNetbootin can install the system to both a flash drive and a hard drive. We choose a USB stick. After that, we select the medium itself, I have this flash drive / dev / sdb1. And now you can click "OK" - the creation of the Live USB will begin.
Upon completion, UNetbootin will offer to restart the computer so that we can boot into the newly created Live USB, or simply exit the application. Everything is up to you here.
UNetbootin is a small application that allows you to create bootable disks on USB sticks or other optical media of different versions of the Linux operating system.
Just a couple of years ago, laser disks were mainly used to install operating systems. However, such media have some disadvantages. Laser discs are very susceptible to mechanical damage, which leads to the inability to read some files and incorrect installation of the operating system. In addition, the read speed of small files from disks was rather slow.
Today the situation has changed significantly. This was due to the rapid growth in the capacity of flash drives. You must have a USB drive of at least 1 GB to install the operating system on your computer. To turn a USB flash drive into an installation disk, you need to use the UNetbootin application. You can download the program completely free of charge.
How the program works
Initially, you need to download and install the UNetbootin application, after which you can start familiarizing yourself with the program. The purpose of the utility is to create installation disks on portable drives and hard drive partitions. To do this, you need to select an ISO image, specify the disk on which the operating system will be installed and click OK to start the process.
If there is no image on the PC, you can choose any version of Linux or BSD on the website that the program offers. You can work with the application on almost all Windows operating systems.
Application features
The program allows you to use a variety of Linux and BSD ISO images. In addition, the application displays resources from which you can download the necessary files. In addition, the UNetbootin utility provides a choice of disk or portable storage for installing the operating system. It is also possible to choose the amount of disk space to save space after a reboot.
Advantages and disadvantages of the application
The UNetbootin application allows you to create bootable disks from USB flash drives for installing Linux and BSD operating systems. In addition, the program is capable of installing different versions of operating systems.
The utility has a Russian-language localization. Thanks to its simple interface, it is quite easy to work with the application. In addition, you can download the program absolutely free of charge, which will allow everyone to install it on their computer.
On the negative side, one can single out the inability to create installation USB drives for Windows operating systems.
In general, UNetbootin is a good application that allows you to create installation discs from any portable drive or hard drive partition. The utility is perfect for Linux and BSD users. The source can be an existing ISO image on the computer. Also, download the OS distribution from the net.
You can install the application on any version of the Windows operating system. If you need to install Linux or BSD OS on your computer, you should use this application. However, it should be noted that the program does not provide the ability to create bootable disks for Windows operating systems.
You need to download the application from the developer's official resource or a reliable site in order to be able to create bootable disks from flash drives for Linux and BSD operating systems. In this case, it is recommended to start the computer security system, which will prevent all attempts by viruses and malicious elements to penetrate the operating system.