Linux – Booting Linux live CD from USB

bootloaderlinuxlivecdusb

I'm using the Ultimate Boot CD, and I've added a bunch of customized .iso's to it. I can boot into those .iso files fine, but most of them are mini-versions of Linux that are designed to run off of a CD. When they try to boot, they try to run off the CD (which obviously isn't there since they're on a USB drive) and then either freeze, or don't work in some other way.

Is there any way to edit the .iso files to tell them they're booting off of a USB drive? I'm assuming there'd be something somewhere in the boot configuration files to do this. Where would that be? I would think it'd be different for different ones, but are there some places that are standard for live CDs? What would I have to change?

EDIT: Just to make exactly what I'm asking clear…I know there's stuff all over the place on how to boot a .iso from USB. That's not the problem, I can already do that. What I'm wondering is how to make the OS stored in the .iso realize that it's booting from USB and not CD?

Best Answer

UNetbootin can boot any live CD image off a USB stick. (I think it works by emulating a CD drive.)

Some other options are listed here.

If you wanted to include several bootable CDs on the same USB drive, see How can I keep multiple live/bootable ISO images on a single USB drive?.

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