burning - How to "burn" ISO/img/cue+bin to USB drive?

17
2014-02
  • Pyrolistical

    I don't get it. Why is it so complicated to create a bootable usb from a disc image?

    Disc images have boot sectors, so why can't you just write the raw LBA values from an image directly to a USB and be done?

    I haven't see any tool for Windows that lets me do this.

    • Answers
  • Pyrolistical

    Ok I see the problem. The LBA sizes are different on USB and CD-ROM drives. 512 vs 2048.

    So a boot sector designed for a CD won't run on a USB drive.

  • Mr Virus

    Try Unetbootin, it works for Linux distros. Also surf on over to the hak5 website, they had a couple of episodes dealing with what they call the USB mutlipass for putting multiple isos on a usb drive.

  • alfplayer

    It is possible but not straightforward: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=6436

  • 8088

    FlashBoot, although not free, is a great tool to make USB drives bootable. It supports converting a CD image to the USB drive.

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  • rrhobbs

    Ah, I would definitely recommend UltraISO Its asks you to pay, but is free to try for as long as you like with no features missing, and no annoy ware (ie. pop-ups every few minutes), It is really easy to use and will write bootable iso's to thumb drives and cd/dvd's (Ive used it for win7 and ubuntu), it will also give you full control over the iso to selectively copy items over.

    * As of 5/1/2012 unregistered software is crippled with 300mb limit

  • EMP

    Pyrolistical, your own answer is correct - bootsectors for different types of drives (CD, HD, floppy, etc.) are different. That's not to say that you can't do a similar thing to ISO images with other types of drives. WinImage should be able to do it, though I haven't actually tried with a USB drive. (Google reports it as an "attack site" for some reason - I'm not sure why.)


    • Related Question

    How can I keep multiple live/bootable ISO images on a single USB drive?
  • Keck

    I am looking to create a USB flash drive that I can put multiple live CD ISO images on and select which boots from startup. The ideal candidate supports Linux and Windows-based ISO images, and is relatively simple. It also must have some reasonable process for adding and removing an ISO image from the drive/list.

    Things that I'm not looking for in this specific question:

    • UBCD4Win or other swiss-army knife live CDs. The point is to boot any one of multiple CDs, not to boot a (certainly useful) utility CD.
    • Installing a single live CD to a USB drive. I'd like to have multiple ISO images, selectable at startup.

    I don't have a specific purpose in mind, possibilties include a single drive with a Knoppix variant, Ubuntu desktop, UBCD4Win for DOS, the Offline NT Password Cracker, etc.

    Flexible and easy to use are the name of the game!


    • Related Answers
  • Brandon Skari

    This is an interesting question. I can see it being very useful to have a single USB "master" LiveCD, instead of having so many different DVDs and pen-drives scattered around.

    There seem to be a number of different approaches to this, all of them doable:

  • Peter Mortensen

    YUMI – Multiboot USB Creator (Windows) also allows you to do it. Once set up, all you have to do is put the ISO image file on the drive.

  • Sahabia

    A hard disk drive enclosure made by Zalman was made for exactly this purpose. It is named ZM VE200 (USB 2.0), ZM VE300 or ZM VE400 (USB 3.0). I use it on a daily basis to test laptop computers I repair. I've never been disappointed by it, but only by some old BIOS that prevent the laptop to boot from external devices and USB port that do not supply enough juice.

    With an HDD formatted with NTFS or FAT inside and with a directory named "_iso" where you write ISO files, you are then able to boot from this external hard disk as if it was an external CDROM. It simulates an external optical disk drive with the right ISO in it .. fortunately you do not have to burn.

    The product page best explains its purposes: http://www.zalman.co.kr/eng/product/Product_Read.php?Idx=674

    My experience with this is quite good. I used to burn a lot of CDROM before buying this useful gadget. Now, I just collect ISO files in the right folder, all on the same device:

    The only thing to check is the power consumption of the hard disk drive you put in it. But that's a common thing to look at when you deal with external hard drives.