How to Turn a CD Operating System Into a USB Format for Booting
The majority of Linux distributions and other free and open source UNIX-like operating systems release their software as an ISO disk image. This disk image is meant to be burned to a CD or DVD that can then be used as an installation medium. To conserve disks, users began burning the same images to USB drives that could be written over multiple times. A number of applications now exist for simplifying the process and creating USB installation mediums from Live CDs.
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Instructions
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Unetbootin (Microsoft Windows/Linux)
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Download and install Unetbootin from the developer's SourceForge website. Connect the USB drive to the computer.
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Launch the application using whatever method your operating system uses, either a desktop icon or a program list.
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Click the "Diskimage" option, then click the "..." button and select your ISO image from the disk. Click the "USB Drive" option in the lower-left corner of the box, then select your drive's name from the adjacent drop-down box.
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Click "OK" to create a USB medium from the Live CD.
dd (Mac OS X/Linux)
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Launch your preferred terminal emulator either from the "Applications" menu or in the "Utilities" folder, depending upon your operating system. Connect the USB drive to the computer.
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Use the "CD" command to go to the folder where your CD image is located. Type "sudo fdisk -l" to view your list of drives. Make a note of the USB drive's name.
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Type "dd if=image.iso of=/dev/usb1" where "image.iso" is the name of the CD image and "/dev/usb1" is the USB drive's name on your machine. Press "Enter" to burn the CD image to the USB drive.
Disk Utility (Mac OS X)
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Launch a Finder window, then click the "Applications" folder. Double-click the "Utilities" folder, then double-click the "Disk Utility" icon.
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Connect the USB drive to the computer. Open the folder containing your CD image, then drag and drop the disk image into "Disk Utility."
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Click your USB drive in the list and check to make sure the CD image is also selected. Click the "Burn" button to write the disk image to the USB drive.
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