[SOLVED] What's the best way to make a bootable USB thumb drive for clean installs?
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did you not get a windows OS to go to there web sight and have windows created a usb stick better find a friend what has windows maybe you can use their system and be done with all of this what else works???
Calling etcher bloated is an understatement.
Using that electron monster just because one does not want to learn the few options required for dd is - well - just wrong...
(edit: Windows comaptibility is of course an important argument; nevertheless, I prefer real software to electron)
Quote:
Results:
dd command: 5m 32s
Etcher: 3m 20s.
May I ask what bs (block size) you used for the dd command; maybe just the whole command?
did you not get a windows OS to go to there web sight and have windows created a usb stick better find a friend what has windows maybe you can use their system and be done with all of this what else works???
Thanks BW. I'm exploring that windows Media Creation Tool now.
NB Do be aware of Cloning to a smaller or a larger hard drive (see first tutorial).
Thanks a lot for the help with this. I have confused myself though because I started this thread on "best way to make a bootable USB thumbdrive for clean installs" and I do indeed need to do a clean install of a Linux distro, but I also need to do some other things. My sister has a computer with Windows 7 on it so she needs to upgrade or do a clean install to Windows 10. I still haven't figured whether it's better to do the clean install or the upgrade, and I'm not totally clear on how to do either. Anyway here are my tasks:
1) One of my computers do a Linux clean install
2) My sister's computer do either a clean install of Windows 10 or do an upgrade
3) My Windows 10 computer do the Macrium clone.
For now, let's just deal with #3--the Macrium clone, which I'm doing to switch out my 250 SATA hard drive for a Crucial 250 GB SSD. (I looked through that tutorial under "cloning a disk" but couldn't find the size issue.) (Is this too close to work? If so I can probably return the Crucial drive. BTW On Macrium it said the "C" drive of the SATA hard drive is 231GB.)
Macrium suggests doing a disk image first for backup purposes. I don't have any external drives big enough to hold the whole OS and files, and I'm not really worried about the OS because I figure I can always do a clean install if things don't work out. I will backup my important data, though.
So:
1) Build the Macrium Rescue Media Builder onto a USB or DVD
2) Hook up the Data Transfer cord to the computer and SSD
3) Do Macrium's "Clone this disk"
4) Wait for it to finish and then remove the SATA hard drive and hook the SSD up in its place
Is that it? I don't know how the Rescue Media Builder (on the USB or DVD) figures in. Or is that only if there are problems?
It is vital to backup all personal data before commencing any of these various operations.
1. Clean install on Linux.
2. I don’t think upgrades from W7 to W10 are available, but do check. Buy a genuine W10 disk or USB drive with a valid product key.
The disk must be formatted as GPT and booted in UEFI mode. The disk must have an EFI system partition (esp).
Either use GParted or the W10 installation DVD to format the drive as GPT. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...artition-style
W7 computers are not suddenly going to stop working on 15th January 2020.
W7 still has about one third of market share and will be around for many years to come, despite no MS security updates.
My advice would be to leave your sister’s computer running W7 and save yourself (and her) extra problems at the moment. Obviously it will need suitable security software.
This article may be of help: https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/...ort-guide.html
In contrast to #2, a new blank drive such as your SSD will be automatically formatted by Macrium during the restoration of the backup image. It needs no further attention.
It would be much simpler to use an SSD which is larger than your current HDD and thus avoid you having to do additional work prior to the transfer.
It also has the added advantage of giving you room for expansion.
It is vital to backup all personal data before commencing any of these various operations.
1. Clean install on Linux.
2. I don’t think upgrades from W7 to W10 are available, but do check. Buy a genuine W10 disk or USB drive with a valid product key.
The disk must be formatted as GPT and booted in UEFI mode. The disk must have an EFI system partition (esp).
Either use GParted or the W10 installation DVD to format the drive as GPT. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...artition-style
The Macrium Rescue/Boot media is used to boot the PC. It is vital.
Then select “Restore from an image”. Find the image on the EHDD and transfer this to the new SSD.
You must check the sizes of the HDD and SSD.
NB If the HDD is bigger than the SSD you need to modify things as per Cloning to a smaller or a larger hard drive on the first tutorial.
Please do lots more research before you start.
Good luck.
Thanks a lot, Beach Boy. I have so much to learn about this. Again, I apologize for the hodgepodge this thread is. All my bad. The bottom line--it's like you said:
Quote:
Please do lots more research before you start.
And I'll reply to both of your threads in this one post to try to limit the mess (I've made).
I just opened the computer I want to switch out the drives. It seems do-able. But I have too much going on to do it now. I'm really dependent on using Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice recognition software and if I mess up the switch and lose that I'm in trouble. So after I get done with a big project I'll give it a shot. I don't know about mounting the SSD properly with a purchased bracket. I'll probably just let it sit in the SATA's bay or duck tape it or use a zip tie.
Thanks for the calm advice about Windows 7 not falling off the face of the earth. And I have heard it's still available for free. Whether it will work or not I don't know. https://www.cnet.com/how-to/upgrade-...ree-heres-how/ And I've also read Microsoft is going to be pushing the upgrade in January 2020. https://www.techspot.com/news/83120-...0-upgrade.html Whether they will be charging I don't know. That's why I'd like to take a shot at it before January.
And regarding Macrium. As I understand it there's two ways of going about it.
#1) The two-step process: Clone (or do a Disk Image) to an external hard drive, then clone that from the external hard drive to the SSD
#2) Clone directly from the hard drive to the SSD.
Seems #2 would be easier (but probably riskier).
PS. I'm downloading BalenaEtcher to do the Linux distro clean install.
PSS. I tried Etcher with a Bionicpup64-8.0-uefi.iso and a lubuntu-19.10-desktop-amd64.iso and both came back with an error: Something went wrong. If it is a compressed image, please check that the archive is not corrupted.
Last edited by Gregg Bell; 12-14-2019 at 08:43 PM.
Reason: Etcher update
You have obviously successfully burned ISO images to DVDs or USB drives previously. Just use one of those previous methods and stop making life difficult for yourself.
You have obviously successfully burned ISO images to DVDs or USB drives previously. Just use one of those previous methods and stop making life difficult for yourself.
A successful burn will give a result similar to this, with matching records in and out:
Code:
3964928+0 records in
3964928+0 records out
2030043136 bytes (2.0 GB, 1.9 GiB) copied, 1085.81 s, 1.9 MB/s
I tried. I didn't need to do the formatting because the flash drive was already FAT32. I double checked (in Gparted) that the USB flash drive was
Code:
/dev/sdb/1
Then this is what I did in the terminal.
Code:
root@fun-OptiPlex-170L:/home/fun# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 40.0 GB, 40000000000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4863 cylinders, total 78125000 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00040bb1
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 2048 75769855 37883904 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 75771902 78123007 1175553 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 75771904 78123007 1175552 82 Linux swap / Solaris
Disk /dev/sdb: 7748 MB, 7748222976 bytes
247 heads, 9 sectors/track, 6807 cylinders, total 15133248 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x9d80dc2b
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 2048 15132671 7565312 b W95 FAT32
root@fun-OptiPlex-170L:/home/fun# sudo dd if=/home/gregg/Downloads/linuxmint-19.2-mate-64bit.iso of=/dev/sdb/1 bs=4M
dd: failed to open ‘/home/gregg/Downloads/linuxmint-19.2-mate-64bit.iso’: No such file or directory
root@fun-OptiPlex-170L:/home/fun# cd
root@fun-OptiPlex-170L:~# cd Downloads
bash: cd: Downloads: No such file or directory
root@fun-OptiPlex-170L:~# cd downloads
bash: cd: downloads: No such file or directory
root@fun-OptiPlex-170L:~# cwd
No command 'cwd' found, did you mean:
Command 'gwd' from package 'geneweb' (universe)
Command 'cw' from package 'cw' (universe)
Command 'cdw' from package 'cdw' (universe)
Command 'xwd' from package 'x11-apps' (main)
Command 'cwm' from package 'swap-cwm' (universe)
Command 'pwd' from package 'coreutils' (main)
cwd: command not found
root@fun-OptiPlex-170L:~# cd ..
root@fun-OptiPlex-170L:/# cd Downloads
bash: cd: Downloads: No such file or directory
root@fun-OptiPlex-170L:/# /home/fun# sudo dd if=/home/gregg/Downloads/linuxmint-19.2-mate-64bit.iso of=/dev/sdb/1 bs=4M
bash: /home/fun#: No such file or directory
root@fun-OptiPlex-170L:/# /home/fun# sudo dd if=/home/gregg/Downloads/linuxmint-19.2-mate-64bit.iso of=/dev/sdb/1 bs=4M
bash: /home/fun#: No such file or directory
root@fun-OptiPlex-170L:/# sudo dd if=/home/fun/Downloads/linuxmint-19.2-mate-64bit.iso of=/dev/sdb/1 bs=4M
dd: failed to open ‘/dev/sdb/1’: Not a directory
root@fun-OptiPlex-170L:/#
/dev/sdb/1 is definitely wrong. If anything, it should be /dev/sdb1. But since you want to burn the iso to the whole stick, and not its first partition, /dev/sdb would appear to be correct.
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