Why does 'dd' not work for creating bootable USB?

Posted by jdowner on Super User See other posts from Super User or by jdowner
Published on 2012-04-01T12:33:37Z Indexed on 2012/04/01 17:34 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 178

Filed under:

linux

|

dd

Recently I wanted to create a bootable USB of Linux mint. I found that there was a lot of conflicting advice/experience about whether the 'dd' command could be used to create a bootable USB. I decided to download an ISO and try. While dd definitely put the image on the USB stick it was not bootable. So my question is what is the magic ingredient that will make this work or why has this approach persisted if it does not work?

This is the command I used,

dd if=/mint/iso/image of=/dev/sdb1 oflag=direct

© Super User or respective owner

Related posts about linux

apt-get install and update fail

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I've got a problem with apt-get update and apt-get install ... commands . every time update or installing fails and errors are : Get:1 http://dl.google.com stable Release.gpg [198B] Ign http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb/ stable/main Translation-en_US Get:2 http://dl… >>> More
kernel module compiling error

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
sh@ubuntu:/home/ccpp/helloworld$ make gcc-4.6 -O2 -DMODULE -D_KERNEL_ -W -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -isystem /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/include -c -o hello-1.o hello-1.c hello-1.c:4:0: warning: "MODULE" redefined [enabled by default] <command-line>:0:0: note: this is… >>> More
Build-Essentials installation failing

as seen on Ask Ubuntu - Search for 'Ask Ubuntu'
I am having trouble accessing the several critical header files that show to be a part of the build process. The "Ubuntu Software Center" shows "Build Essentials" as installed: Next I did the following two commands, which did not improve the problem: ~$ sudo apt-get install build-essential [sudo]… >>> More
Updating Debian kernel

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I'm trying to update my Debian machine to 2.6.32-46 (which is the new stable). However, after doing apt-get update my apt-cache search linux-image shows me: linux-headers-2.6.32-5-486 - Header files for Linux 2.6.32-5-486 linux-headers-2.6.32-5-686-bigmem - Header files for Linux 2.6.32-5-686-bigmem linux-headers-2… >>> More
Serial connection over a single USB cable (Windows to linux, or linux to linux)

as seen on Server Fault - Search for 'Server Fault'
I'm helping out with a project for an embedded device that only has USB and no serial. This device is running Linux. These days, when we need to connect to a serial port on a device we typically use a USB to serial adapter (on something like a phone system or a load balancing device, etc). I would… >>> More

Related posts about dd

rank on two dates - each date iteratively

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
How to query for rank over 'value' for each day in the below table? Ex: IT should list out the 'mydate', 'value', 'rank' for all values on 20th and then do a fresh rank() for all values on 21st? Thanks... create table tv (mydate,value) as select to_date('20/03/2010 00','dd/mm/yyyy HH24'),98 from… >>> More
DD-WRT Connection Leak

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I have DD-WRT installed on a WRT54G v1.1, and a few of the features seem to cause connections to leak. I've configured it for 1024 connections with TCP/UDP timeouts of 180/30. I've tried higher values as well. Anyway, if I use the Bandwidth tab to monitor the bandwidth usage, the number of connections… >>> More
PHP: convert date format yyyy-mm-dd => dd-mm-yyyy [NOT IN SQL]

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
hey guys, i am trying to convert a date from yyyy-mm-dd to dd-mm-yyyy however i dont know how the date function requires a timestamp and i cant get a timestamp form this string... anyone an idea? thanks Matthy >>> More
String (dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm) to Date (yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm) | Java

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a string in "dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm" and need to convert it to a date object in the format "yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm". Below is the code I'm using to convert oldScheduledDate = "16-05-2011 02:00:00"; DateFormat formatter = new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss"); Date oldDate = (Date)formatter.parse(oldScheduledDate); Now… >>> More
SQL - Rank() on a table

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
create table v (mydate,value) as select to_date('20/03/2010 00','dd/mm/yyyy HH24'),98 from dual union all select to_date('20/03/2010 01','dd/mm/yyyy HH24'),124 from dual union all select to_date('20/03/2010 02','dd/mm/yyyy HH24'),140 from dual union all select to_date('20/03/2010… >>> More