I have created a Ubuntu 11.04 Live USB with Unetbootin. I was wondering if it was possible to create a bootable iso from the usb stick.
Create bootable ISO from Live USB
iso-imageliveusb
Related Solutions
Ok after some research I've figured out a solution, and I'll go through it step by step. Problem was two-fold.
Plug in the USB flash drive and determine the device it's mounted on with the command:
sudo fdisk -lThis time around it was /dev/sdc1 for me, so I'll use that as my example.
Umount the device
umount /dev/sdc1Not sure if necessary but I formatted the drive in FAT32, just in case
sudo mkdosfs -n 'USB-Drive-Name' -I /dev/sdc -F 32Now my ISO was using isolinux not syslinux. I knew it worked with CDs so I figured out that I needed to call the isohybrid command, which allows for an ISO to be recognized by the BIOS from a hard drive.
isohybrid filename.isoYou can find out more about this command here, but this was the cause of the message "Missing Operating System" The first problem was fixed, but now it said "isolinux.bin was missing or corrupt"
The next step is to copy the iso. My second problem lay here, where I was copying to the partition, sdc1, not the device, sdc.
sudo dd if=filename.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=4kThis seems to work just fine, but the forum where I got the last fix, it was recommended to do the following before unplugging the device:
sync sudo eject /dev/sdc
I made a bootable USB stick from an ISO file. If I edit a file on this USB stick, will it still boot and work properly?
A bootable USB flash drive is no different than any bootable device. If I edit files in my documents directory on a USB flash drive it’s no different than editing files on a hard drive.
Heck, I can edit the contents of an application on my hard drive I can still boot my hard drive… The application might be hosed, but my overall system works. But if I edited a system file I might cause a problem that could cause the system to fail if I edited the file in a way that… Just puts the system at risk.
But this is all dependent on what file you have edited and where you did it and how you did it and is not unique to you creating a bootable USB flash drive from an ISO or otherwise.
Best Answer
You should reconsider the overall question and do as Thiago M suggests. A Live CD needs to be configured to boot and pass off the boot sequence in a manner that differs from USB thumb drives. There is a similar question about migrating between different thumb drives on https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/14435/cloning-a-bootable-usb-stick-to-a-different-size-stick is currently being discussed. That technical challenge is much simpler than moving to a CD and it is quite complex so I would punt.