Ubuntu – How to create a bootable Ubuntu USB flash drive from terminal

command linelive-usbportablesystem-installation

Is there any way to create a bootable Ubuntu USB flash drive from the terminal without using any third-party applications like YUMI, Unetbootin, Startup Disk Creator, etc.

I tried to create a bootable Ubuntu flash drive with dd method,

sudo umount /dev/sdb
sudo dd if=/path/to/ubuntu.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=1M

It creates files on the USB disk, but when I try to boot the USB disk it shows an Operating System Not Found error.

Best Answer

You can use dd.

 sudo umount /dev/sd<?><?>

where <?><?> is a letter followed by a number, look it up by running lsblk.

It will look something like

sdb      8:16   1  14.9G  0 disk 
├─sdb1   8:17   1   1.6G  0 part /media/username/usb volume name
└─sdb2   8:18   1   2.4M  0 part

I would dismount sdb1.

Then, next (this is a destructive command and wipes the entire USB drive with the contents of the iso, so be careful): 

 sudo dd bs=4M if=path/to/input.iso of=/dev/sd<?> conv=fdatasync  status=progress

where input.iso is the input file, and /dev/sd<?> is the USB device you're writing to (run lsblk to see all drives to find out what <?> is for your USB).

This method is fast and has never failed me.

EDIT: for those on a Mac ending up here, use lowercase for bs=4m:

sudo dd if=inputfile.img of=/dev/disk<?> bs=4m && sync

EDIT: If USB drive does not boot (this happened to me), it is because the target is a particular partition on the drive instead of the drive. So the target needs to be /dev/sdc and not dev/sdc <?> For me it was /dev/sdb .

Reference: https://superuser.com/a/407327 and https://askubuntu.com/a/579615/669976

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