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Creating a bootable Windows 7 SD card. Creating a bootable SD card. The flash drive is not readable and is not detected by the application.

Introduction

Nowadays, many cheap Chinese-made devices have appeared on the gadget market, built on chips from Allwinner running Android OS. Despite the numerous manufacturers under whose brand these devices are sold, they have one thing in common: a complete lack of technical support from the manufacturer. The OS for them is compiled by the Chinese, who are in no hurry to update the software to newer versions, although, based on information on the Allwinner website, these chips support up to Android 4.2.2. Something tells me that they are not going to update the software at all.

I bought one of these devices - RoverPad w74l - from DNS to experiment with Android. This is a tablet based on Allwinner A13. I would say that this is a very good tablet for all kinds of Internet - sitting, reading books, etc. The lack of technical support did not particularly surprise me, because I already have a tablet from another “Russian” manufacturer - 3Q, which, if I open The top cover, poorly fitted by the true manufacturer, is "Pegatron Lucid". Technical support from “Russian” companies is provided exclusively on the forum by the users themselves. And there is also 4PDA, where people, to the best of their ability, help each other solve technical issues that would be nice to have resolved by official technical support.

I decided to present part of my research in the field of firmware development for such devices in several articles, since writing in detail and with pictures on the forum would be somewhat impolite on my part.

What is this series about?

So, what will we talk about? During my acquaintance with the internal structure of the tablet, several not very convenient things became clear. Firstly, the firmware is uploaded via LiveSuit. The program, frankly speaking, is not a fountain, or even a trickle... In addition, if you worked with the tablet via ADB, having previously installed drivers from Google, LiveSuit will not be able to install its own driver, therefore, the firmware will not work. As a way out of this situation, you can use VMWare, which can attach USB devices to the guest OS, or sew on another computer (I used a netbook for this purpose). Secondly, when modifying the firmware, you often have to re-upload it into the device, which is very time-consuming and unproductive. Moreover, before that it needs to be reassembled, so it’s a total inconvenience. It’s the solution to this part of the question that will be discussed further, namely how to make a bootable microSD card from an image for LiveSuit, from which you can boot the tablet without using the built-in flash memory. Thus, changes in the firmware come down to changes in files on the microSD, and once you pull it out of the slot, the tablet will boot from its memory as if nothing had happened. Next, after making the changes, I will show you how to make a LiveSuit image from this SD card, which can already be uploaded to the internal flash of the device and used.

Preparation of the workplace

Let me start with the fact that the tools for what we are going to do can be completely different, so I will briefly describe the whole process point by point.

First, you need to break the firmware image into its components. This is done using the kitchen, which will be discussed below, in Windows OS;
further work with the resulting images will take place in Linux OS, since there will be a need to work with symbolic links of the ext4 file system, which Windows does not support. And there are a lot of options. You can install Linux (I used Ubuntu server x64) on another physical computer. The decision is “head-on”, but has the right to life. You can use a virtual machine, and here again there is a choice with its pros and cons. To mount an SD card into a guest system, the virtualization tool needs to be able to work with USB, and not everything is so good here. VirtualBox from Sun (or from Oracle, depending on your choice) has one serious drawback when mounting USB devices (found out through personal bitter experience). The USB driver from VirtualBox does not allow the USB controller of some manufacturers to be initialized correctly when the OS starts. The result is that after a reboot, USB on the host does not work until you reinstall it manually. WMVare Workstation - works very well with USB, no problems arose at any stage (except that sometimes the SD is not immediately mounted in the guest OS, so sometimes there is a need to disconnect it from the guest and then connect it again). But Hyper-V from Microsoft cannot give USB to guests, which is due to the notorious security reasons, therefore, when working with this software, you will first have to create a RAW image of an SD card and work with it, and then write it sector by sector on map. Of the three above, the best option for me is VMWare Workstation with Ubuntu server x64 installed. Although, I did the same thing on VirtualBox and Gentoo, the principle is the same. Ubuntu deploys faster, and since all operations with images are done in the console, so as not to waste resources on the GUI, I chose the server option.
Next, the SD card is mounted in Ubuntu, divided into partitions, the partitions are formatted, and data from the firmware images is extracted onto them. The bootloader is then written and the init scripts are patched to work with the SD card. After this, the card can be used to boot the tablet.
then all sorts of manipulations are performed with the firmware files, the results of which can be visually observed by loading the tablet from it. At this stage, you will often have to drag files from the guest OS to the host OS and back. I used WinSCP for this, it’s very convenient.
and, finally, modified images of partitions from the SD card are created, the initialization scripts in them are corrected back and a new LiveSuit image is assembled, which is uploaded to the tablet.

Tools:

Linux Ubuntu 13.04 x64– torrent file for download http://releases.ubuntu.com/13.04/ubuntu-13.04-server-amd64.iso.torrent (I used version 12.10, but this is completely unimportant);
WMVare Workstation– https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/evalcenter?p=vmware-workstation9 here you can download a trial version;
Putty– http://the.earth.li/~sgtatham/putty/latest/x86/putty.zip SSH client. Very convenient for organizing a multi-window terminal;
WinSCP– http://winscp.net/download/winscp515setup.exe a tool for transferring files to the guest OS and back;

This is a general list of tools. It will be replenished in the process of presentation, but first things first.

Begin

This work is based on a fairly large number of sources, but two articles were the foundation that served as the beginning:

https://www.miniand.com/wiki/Allwinner/Unpacking+and+building+LiveSuit+images article about disassembling and assembling images for LiveSuit. I used the method described here. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the article was written for a different device, so it is suitable for disassembling the image, but for assembly you will have to work more thoroughly with the kitchen files;
http://linux-sunxi.org/Boot_Android_from_SdCard and this is where it is described how to make a bootable SD card from Android, however, again, for another device, that’s why I used both articles.

I will mention other sources throughout the text in those places where information from them was, in fact, used.

Immediately after installation, run the following commands:

$sudo su
# apt-get update
# apt-get upgrade
# apt-get install sshd – if you did not select an SSH server at the end of the installation
# apt-get install mc – this will install midnight commander – a two-panel file manager that can also be used in the Putty terminal.

If you installed the Russian version of Ubuntu, then in the Putty session settings in the Appearance section, be sure to set the encoding to UTF-8, otherwise Cyrillic characters will be displayed in a very peculiar way.

The preparatory stage is over, let's get down to business.

A sudden failure to start Windows on a business trip will not be a problem if you take a flash drive with the OS with you. It, unlike the installation DVD, takes up very little space in your bag or laptop case.

Which flash drive is best for recording a Windows image?

A Windows installation flash drive will help bring the system back to working order in an hour if it suddenly crashes. The storage requirements are as follows:

memory capacity of at least 4 GB (the image itself takes up 3 GB, but flash drives of “multiple” sizes are not available, this is not a hard drive);
The flash drive must support USB 2.0 speed (using USB 1.2 will take up to several hours to record a copy of Windows).

Preparing a flash drive for recording a Windows image

Do the following:

Fast formatting takes up to 15 seconds. After completing the procedure, you can begin recording the Windows image. You can also format a flash drive with a third-party program or using the Command Line.

Setting up booting from a flash drive in the UEFI interface

Before giving advice on setting up UEFI to boot your computer from a flash drive, it’s worth briefly talking about this program. The user of the latest PC will in any case encounter it the first time they try to reinstall Windows.

How is UEFI different from BIOS?

UEFI is similar to a new generation BIOS, but with mouse support. Unlike BIOS, where control is carried out only from the keyboard, in UEFI you can also control it with the mouse, as in the Magic Partition application, which worked with hard disk partitions. UEFI has a more modern graphical shell, vaguely reminiscent of the first versions of Android. Thus, Asus is promoting its modification of the Asus EFI program, which looks more impressive than the BIOS.

The purpose of UEFI is low-level interaction between operating systems and the hardware itself, as in the BIOS. Without the settings of this program, “built into” the PC motherboard or laptop/tablet, your computer device will not start.

Many Windows/Android tablets are equipped with UEFI firmware, which makes it possible to either replace Android with Windows and vice versa, or use both operating systems alternately on the same gadget.

How to set UEFI to boot a PC from a flash drive

This is achieved in two ways: simple drag and drop using the media index in UEFI and using advanced settings.

Shuffling drives in UEFI

Do the following:

When exiting, the UEFI program will ask you to confirm that you have saved your settings if anything has changed.

Via the UEFI advanced settings submenu

Do the following:

Video: two ways to boot a PC using a flash drive

Burning a Windows 10 installation flash drive using standard Windows tools

The developers met the wishes of users halfway and built into Windows 10 a wizard for recording installation flash drives - the Media Creation Tool. Before this, you could only use third-party applications, for example, UltraISO or WinSetupFromUSB, as well as Command Line. However, all programs created to solve this problem continue to develop.

Using the Windows Media Creation Tool

Using the Media Creation Tool, burning a Windows 10 image to a USB flash drive is greatly simplified. Do the following:

Download the MCT application from the Microsoft website.
Download the Media Creation Tool app
Launch the Media Creation Tool application and select to burn the installation copy of Windows 10 to a USB flash drive.
Select Create Installation Media
Select the installation language, version of Windows 10 and bit depth of your PC.
Select your PC architecture, installer language, and Windows 10 version
Select the media type (flash drive only or advanced selection with the ability to burn the image to DVD). When choosing the second option, you will still have the opportunity to specify a flash drive or memory card when recording.
DVD creation is offered to those who have a disk drive and blank DVD-R discs
Determine the USB flash drive for recording the Windows 10 image, if there are several of them.
The drive you select will erase all data
The Installation Media Builder will proceed to download the Windows 10 image from the Microsoft website. Wait until the ISO image downloads. To download quickly, you need as high-speed Internet access as possible, otherwise the download will take up to several days, because the image itself weighs at least 3 GB.
Do not disconnect the Internet while downloading the Windows image to the USB flash drive
After downloading the Windows 10 ISO file, click Next to start burning the image.

Video: Burning Windows 10 to a USB flash drive using the Media Creation Tool

Burning an installation flash drive using the Windows Command Line

This method is loved by professionals who operate by entering commands. But the third-party applications discussed above do the same thing - clearly and automatically.

Preparing a flash drive using the Windows Command Line

Do the following:

Burning Windows 10 to a USB flash drive via Command Line

To write a copy of Windows to a USB flash drive, you need the Boot Sector Registration Tool (bootsect.exe program). Do the following:

Video: recording Windows 10 to a USB flash drive via DiskPart

Burning a Windows 10 USB flash drive using third-party applications

In the Media Creation Tool “combine” there was no need to rack your brains over UEFI: everything superfluous was removed, even a small child could write Windows 10 onto a flash drive, and such a flash drive would be detected by any gadget or PC “wired” for UEFI. In third-party applications - Rufus, UltraISO (try to use the latest versions) - UEFI support is enabled optionally.

Burn Windows 10 to a USB flash drive using Rufus

Rufus will bring the BIOS/UEFI setup to the front. You don’t need to look for it in additional settings. Do the following:

You can now enter UEFI by restarting your tablet or computer and begin installing Windows.

Video: recording Windows 10 to a USB flash drive in Rufus

Creating a multiboot USB flash drive for Windows 7/8/10 using the UltraISO application

For “multi-system” Windows flash drives, you need corresponding images that occupy dozens of gigabytes. You are unlikely to be able to burn such a flash drive if it does not reach at least 16 GB.

As an example, recording using the UltraISO application and assembling Windows 7/8/10 from a certain Startsoft. Do the following:

Once the recording is complete, you can use the USB flash drive to (re)install Windows. The installer will prompt you to select any version of Windows, including 10.

Of course, you can also create flash drives with one version of Windows. And not only in the UltraISO program. Everything is decided by the image file (single or multi-build of Windows, “packed” into an ISO file).

Video: recording Windows 7/8/10 to a USB flash drive using UltraISO

Burn Windows 10 to a USB flash drive using WinSetupFromUSB

The WinSetupFromUSB program is distributed through the winsetupfromusb website. Do the following:

Download, extract and run the application. It does not require installation.
Select a USB flash drive to copy Windows. In the format settings, you can specify both the FAT32 and NTFS file systems. Do not confuse the required flash drive with others if they are connected
Select the ISO file that contains your copy of Windows.
Select the Windows system image, not the contents of the disk in the image
Click the button to start writing a Windows image to a USB flash drive. Pressing "GO" will start recording
The WinSetupFromUSB program, like any modern application, warns about clearing existing data from the media. Confirm your request. Cleaning the flash drive is done for reliability
The second request to delete data and partitions must also be confirmed.
Confirm the request to delete data and partitions
Start creating a copy of the Windows image. At the end of the process, the program will notify you that a copy of Windows has been successfully written to the media. Click "OK"

Before writing a copy of Windows, the WinSetupFromUSB application will delete partitions (if there were any) on the flash drive and recreate a single partition that occupies all the memory on it, then clear all data through a quick format. This mandatory procedure is done for reliability - the Windows image takes up at least 3 GB, and you need free space to copy it. If the flash drive is partitioned and full, it may cause the recording to fail and you will waste your time. For this purpose, preliminary clearing of the media memory is necessary.

After recording a copy of Windows, the unallocated space can be used by creating a separate folder and downloading drivers and application programs that you used into it (if there is enough space), without disturbing the structure of the Windows distribution on the flash drive. It is not recommended to store valuable files on it in a single copy - be sure to store backup copies of them on other media.

Video: writing Windows 7/8/10 to a USB flash drive using WinSetupFromUSB

Creating Bootable SD Cards with Windows

Theoretically, creating bootable memory cards - (mini/micro)SD, MMC (MemoryStick) and many others - is possible. Required:

the presence of a USB card reader that supports all of the above types of memory cards;
the memory card, regardless of its type, must have a capacity of at least 4 GB;
All devices support at least USB 2.0 standards.

But it's not that simple. If a laptop or tablet has a slot for an SD card or a built-in mini-card reader connected directly to the main/motherboard of the device or PC, it is not always possible to assign booting from the BIOS. And although there is an item “Bootable Add-In Cards” in the bootable devices menu, for example, in Award BIOS, these are by no means flash drives or even a built-in card reader.

The function of booting from embedded expansion cards in Award BIOS cannot be used to boot Windows from a flash drive

Using an adapter with an SD memory card as a flash drive

The most affordable option is a USB-microSD adapter: a microSD memory card will work like a flash drive. There are different adapters - from the simplest, miniature ones, designed for one SD card, to universal ones, with several slots for cards and other adapters of different formats.

With its help, a memory card works no worse than a standard flash drive

In this case, the above methods for writing a regular Windows flash drive also work with SD memory cards - you only need support for USB 2.0 speed (up to 35 MB/sec) from both the USB port, the adapter and the SD card itself. Use any of them.

Errors when writing a Windows installation flash drive

Below are the most critical errors with tips on how to resolve them.

The flash drive is not readable and is not detected by the application.

The most common mistake is that the Media Creation Tool (or other) program does not see the flash drive. Causes:

The flash drive is damaged - a manufacturer defect or any mechanical failure;
The flash drive has exhausted its resource - it was often formatted, the storage chip is worn out;
frequent “hot” shutdowns when writing/erasing data, which “killed” the flash drive;
The flash drive operated at extreme temperatures, often overheated, and moisture condensed on it, which led to premature destruction of the materials from which the electronic media itself, its printed circuit board and contacts were made;
USB port is faulty - there is not enough power, the USB bus controller has failed, the contacts are worn out, the USB port socket is loose;
the additional device (USB-Hub or USB card reader when using an SD card instead of a flash drive) is faulty, or its external power supply is not turned on if it is powered from a separate adapter;
you recently serviced the computer yourself and did not reconnect the USB port controller to the motherboard of your PC or laptop if the port has a detachable cable;
failure of the microUSB port of the tablet, if you are using a tablet;
unreliable connection - the USB connector and/or plug is dirty;
viruses received over the network or from other infected drives that damaged data and the boot sector (boot record, media partition table);
from active and long-term use, “broken” or weakened sectors have formed on the flash drive - “remapping” or software repair of the flash drive is required;
an outdated version of the program with which you tried to write Windows files to a USB flash drive.

For various reasons, a flash drive can fail.

The last point requires clarification. For example, the first versions of WinSetupFromUSB do not support Windows 10 - they were created when Windows 8.1 and 10 did not yet exist.

Error during the process of writing the installation flash drive

It happens that writing a Windows distribution to a flash drive is interrupted or is slow and bad. Causes:

the outdated version of the program did not warn that the flash drive was too “small” to write a copy of Windows onto it;
sudden power loss or data loss due to an unreliable connection of the flash drive to the USB port;
error in the ISO image file - the ISO archive is damaged or has an invalid format, taken from an unverified source, infected with a virus, the developer/builder made an error;
The flash drive and/or port support outdated USB 1.2 speeds, and recording is greatly slowed down, taking up to several hours;
unexpected wear of the flash drive - appears at the pre-formatting stage or during the process of writing “broken” sectors.

The last point involves checking the flash drive using the Victoria or HDD Scan/Regenerator programs, followed by software repair (remap/restore weakened and “bad” sectors). However, such a flash drive should be thrown away - it is not suitable for such important tasks as reinstalling operating systems, preloading the OS (LiveUSB technology, often used to recover data from a single partition C when the OS crashed on it) and running other utilities without and/or bypassing the OS available on the PC or gadget disk.

Installing a Windows installation flash drive is a hassle, but it's worth it. Use the tips from the article to create it, and then if you have problems loading the system, you can easily deal with them.

Almost any user can do this, regardless of his or her knowledge and experience. You just need to download the ISO image and burn it to a CD or DVD. But if we want to make a bootable USB flash drive, then the procedure has its own nuances, depending on the operating system.

If we copy an ISO image or the files it contains to a USB drive, we will not get anything good. We need to turn the flash drive into a boot partition. Typically, this process deletes all information from the USB drive or SD card.

How to create installation media with Linux, having only Windows

For those who want to make a bootable USB flash drive with Ubuntu from Windows, it is recommended to use Universal USB Installer. It allows you to work with almost any Linux distribution. An alternative option is UNetbootin.

To create a bootable Linux flash drive, download an ISO image of the selected distribution from the Internet. Launch one of the programs mentioned above, point it to the location of the .ISO file, and then select the USB drive that you want to make bootable. Everything else will be done without your direct participation.

Under Linux, you can use programs with similar functions. For example, Ubuntu has Startup Disk Creator, which can create flash drives with this operating system. There is also UNetbootin, which runs on Linux. Therefore, you can use this utility.

What if we have an IMG file?

Some operating system distributions are distributed as an IMG file rather than an ISO. IMG is an image designed to be written not to an optical disk, but directly to a flash drive.

To transfer it to a USB drive or SD card, use the Win32 Disk Imager program. You just need to download the IMG file, tell this tool where it is located, and select the desired flash drive. All files on the media, when IMG is written to it, are destroyed. Using this tool, you can also create IMG images using a bootable USB flash drive or SD card as a basis.

More experienced Linux users can use the dd command to write an IMG image to any removable media. Insert the removable media and run the following command (on Ubuntu):

Sudo dd if=/home/user/file.img of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

Instead of /home/user/file.img, specify the path to the IMG file, and instead of /dev/sdX, specify the path to the SD card or flash drive. Be careful when specifying the path to removable media. If you specify a disk with the system or data instead, you will erase them completely.

Create a bootable USB flash drive with Windows 7 from an ISO file

You can use a Microsoft tool that allows you to download an image of Windows 7 and create a bootable disk or flash drive. To run this tool, you will need an ISO installation file from Windows 7. I hope you have the license key to install this operating system?

Bootable USB flash drive Windows 8 or 8.1

If you have a license key or 8.1, you can download the operating system image from the Microsoft website and immediately create an installation flash drive. First, you need to download the appropriate tool from the Windows update page. Naturally, you will need a license key for this. Launch the tool, enter the key, and choose to create a USB installation media.

Please note that Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 have different keys. Therefore, if you want to create a Windows 8.1 installation flash drive with a key for Windows 8, you will have to go through a roundabout route. The easiest way is to install Windows 8 first and then upgrade to Windows 8.1 for free. There's nothing complicated about it.

Burning a Windows 8 installation flash drive from an ISO file

If you already have an ISO file with Windows 8 or 8.1, then you can use the tool that I mentioned in the paragraph about Windows 7. This eliminates the need to download a large file.

Just feed it an ISO image with Windows 8 or 8.1.

DOS

If you need to boot your computer with good old DOS (for example, sometimes this is the only way to update the BIOS or use special low-level utilities), you can use Rufus to create bootable media.

This tool will write FreeDOS to a flash drive - a free, open-source analogue of MS DOS. It can run all programs created for DOS.

Mac OS X

To create a bootable USB flash drive in Mac OS X, first update your operating system to the latest version. To do this, use the App Store on your computer. Next, run Apple's "createinstallmedia" utility or the third-party DiskMaker X program.

Removable media with an OS X image can be used to “clean” install the operating system on a computer or update other machines, without downloading files from the Internet to them.

Making a bootable USB flash drive from Windows on Mac

If you plan to install Windows on your Mac, then use Boot Camp to burn the installation media. This program walks you through the process of creating a USB flash drive to install Windows with drivers for Apple computers and integrated Boot Camp utilities.

This USB drive will allow you to install Windows on Mac computers, but don't try to use it on computers that don't have the apple in its mouth.

In this article I have mentioned only the most popular solutions. But there are other ways to create a bootable USB flash drive for a particular operating system.

If to create bootable disks you needed an iso image and an empty disk, then with USB drives it’s not so simple... You can’t just copy files from the iso to a flash drive and it will start booting, the USB must also be bootable. In today's article we will look at options for creating bootable USB drives and SD cards:

Linux ISO

To create bootable Linux USBs from Windows, it is recommended to use the universal USB Intaller. It can be used to create bootable USBs from various Linux distributions. If you need an alternative, then use

Download an ISO image of the Linux distribution you want to use to create a bootable USB. Run USB Installer => select the desired distribution => select iso => and select your USB drive => then after clicking Create the program will do all the necessary operations, and after completion you will have a bootable USB

You can use similar tools on Linux. For example, Ubuntu includes a tool for creating bootable USBs called Startup Disk.

You can also use UNetbootin, it also works on Linux

From IMG file

Some operating systems do not come as an ISO image, but as an IMG image file. The image file can only be written to the storage device.

To write IMG files to USB drives and SD cards, use . Launch the program, select the downloaded Img file - recording to your drive will immediately begin, overwriting everything that was on the drive.

If you want to write the contents of IMG to USB from Linux, insert the drive and run the command on Ubuntu:

sudo dd if=/work/my/file.img of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

Where /work/my/file.img is the path to your img file, replace it and indicate where the file is located. /dev/sdX - indicates the drive to which recording will take place, carefully select this parameter! If you specify the path to the drive incorrectly (by specifying the system drive instead), then recording will occur along the destination path, overwriting all old data.

With Windows 7, 8 and 10 ISO

You can use the Windows USB/DVD Download Tool to create a bootable USB flash drive. You will need an ISO image of Windows and a key, as you probably already understood - if you find a non-licensed Windows somewhere, then using this utility you will not be able to make a bootable drive. It is best to use Rufus, this utility is universal for different versions of Windows and is not picky about which iso we want to burn to the drive.

But if you have a disk with licensed Windows, then use the standard Windows USB/DVD Download Too utility

Windows 8 or 8.1

Here, too, everything is simple, if you have a product key, then download from the Microsoft website a utility that itself downloads the image and creates a bootable drive. All you need is to download the tool, run it, enter the key and specify the drive you want to make bootable

If you have an ISO image and a product key, you can use Windows USB/DVD Download Too to burn, or if you have an ISO but no key, then Rufus.

If you need to boot from Dos and use various tools to restore your system, then Rufus will come in handy. As I already said, the utility is universal; you can use it to create a bootable drive (disk, memory card, etc.). The utility itself allows you to run any Dos programs, with its help you can write a constructor for system recovery, error correction, loading a Live CD, etc.

To create a bootable drive on Mac you can use DiskMaker X.

Let's summarize: there are many utilities for creating bootable drives, but the most universal and suitable for many systems is Rufus. Using rufus you can create various bootable drives, quickly and efficiently :). I hope you find an option for yourself and create a bootable drive! If something doesn’t work out, or you know easier ways, write comments. Good luck to you!

Almost any user can make a boot disk, regardless of their knowledge and experience. You just need to download the ISO image and burn it to a CD or DVD. But if we want to make a bootable USB flash drive, then the procedure has its own nuances, depending on the operating system.

How to create installation media with Linux, having only Windows

What if we have an IMG file?

Some operating system distributions are distributed as an IMG file rather than an ISO. IMG is an image designed to be written not to an optical disk, but directly to a flash drive.

More experienced Linux users can use the dd command to write an IMG image to any removable media. Insert the removable media and run the following command (on Ubuntu):

Sudo dd if=/home/user/file.img of=/dev/sdX bs=1M

Create a bootable USB flash drive with Windows 7 from an ISO file

Bootable USB flash drive Windows 8 or 8.1

If you have a Windows 8 or 8.1 license key, you can download the operating system image from the Microsoft website and immediately create an installation flash drive. First, you need to download the appropriate tool from the Windows update page. Naturally, you will need a license key for this. Launch the tool, enter the key, and choose to create a USB installation media.

Burning a Windows 8 installation flash drive from an ISO file

If you already have an ISO file with Windows 8 or 8.1, you can use the tool I mentioned in the Windows 7 section to create bootable media. This eliminates the need to download a large file.

Just feed it an ISO image with Windows 8 or 8.1.

DOS

If you need to boot your computer with good old DOS (for example, sometimes this is the only way to update the BIOS or use special low-level utilities), you can use Rufus to create bootable media.

This tool will write FreeDOS to a flash drive - a free, open-source analogue of MS DOS. It can run all programs created for DOS.

Mac OS X

To create a bootable USB flash drive in Mac OS X, first update your operating system to the latest version. To do this, use the App Store on your computer. Next, run Apple's “createinstallmedia” utility or the third-party program DiskMaker X.

Removable media with an OS X image can be used to “clean” install the operating system on a computer or update other machines, without downloading files from the Internet to them.

Making a bootable USB flash drive from Windows on Mac

This USB drive will allow you to install Windows on Mac computers, but don't try to use it on computers that don't have the apple in its mouth.

In this article I have mentioned only the most popular solutions. But there are other ways to create a bootable USB flash drive for a particular operating system.

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