Burn iso image to usb memory stick?

I've searched google a million times and I'm pretty certain this is impossible, but it seems so simple.

I'm not looking for a simple drag-and-drop files from the iso to the stick, for two reasons

1) I need to copy the MBR (or whatever it's called in linux)
2) The filesystem is not supported on windows

Basically I need to copy bit-for-bit from the iso file, including multiple partitions and stuff...

The reason I'm doing this is because my new computer refuses to boot anything except windows from the CD drive. I've tried Ubuntu, Tao live, Gparted, none work! they all freeze for some strange reason half way through the loading... I figure that maybe it's possible to boot from a USB stick...

Is there anyone at all who would know how to do this?

 

i wouldnt think its impossible, have you made sure that the usb stick has enough space? you could try alchol 120% and see if it will allow you to burn to USB.

 

Thanks

Yes, my usb stick is 8gb. I will give alcohol a shot but I doubt it will work...

 

You don't want to "burn" anything, but just want a one to one copy made, no? (that's bootable). No burning software will recognize a USB stick as media, since it's not.

Try using a hard drive imaging/shadow copy program (like Norton Ghost - except don't use Ghost, since it sucks); try some of these free ones:

http://www.downloadsquad.com/2008/09/05/5-free-apps-to-clone-your-hard-drive/

I like Acronis True Image (or Acronis Migrate Easy - True Image is a cloning backup solution that can regularly synch, and Migrate Easy is a one time cloning software) best, from the ones I've tried in the past (which is a lot), but it's not free.

 

Get ISOBuster, extract the contents of the ISO and copy it to the memory stick as it would appear on the DVD

http://www.isobuster.com/

 

Basically the whole file system is different.

USB drives have NTFS/FAT in windows, and ODs have ISO9660 (CDFS) and UDF.

I guess creating a MS-DOS bootable flash drive is generally done by creating a bootable MS_DOS floppy disk, and then copying the files onto a freshly formatted USB flash drive while making the appropriate/necessary modification to the MBR.

 

Thanks for your replies, everyone

I tried Acronis True Image, but it doesn't recognize my cd drive as a backup-able hard drive. For a while I was thinking maybe its possible to convert and iso into a tib file and have acronis true image restore it to the memory stick, but I can't find software that does iso -> tib

 

Oh wait; I thought you wanted to boot from a USB stick and/or backup? Not set up a bootable cd? You just want to backup your MBR to have a backup of it in case something happens? What is the real problem that you're trying to solve by backing up the MBR?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/166997 <- Microsoft's advice on how to backup the Master Boot Record (with Norton Disk Edit). Looks like they'd want you to make a floppy with a bootable dos disk (I would do that, and then burn that onto disk).

The real question is: why isn't your system loading anything but windows? Can you load windows from a cd/dvd? I'm thinking that it sounds like it's an issue with your cd/dvd rom not functioning properly. I would try and setup a bootable linux/variant on a USB drive and try booting from there (set usb drive to boot before hdd/cd in bios) and see if that works first (and then back up the MBR through linux/etc, as it's a lot easier than, say, having a DOS floppy disk).


edit: Actually, try this first:

BootIT NG (Terabyte Unlimited): http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/index.htm Their backup/restore allows you to backup the MBR of any drive. 30 day trial. Good luck!

 

It looks like you are trying to boot to a LiveCD but your CD drive refuses to boot any other operating system except a Windows CD, which is odd. It doesn't sound like a CD drive issue. What are you using to burn the liveCDs? I recommend Ashampoo, Nero, or Alcohol 120 to burn bootable CDs.

I'm not familiar with how LiveCD works, but I would not be surprised there is a way to make it boot Ubuntu off a USB drive, since I do it myself. But it is not a LiveCD installation that I use. I just use an regular Ubuntu installation off a 8gb flashdrive with a bunch of random utilities I've stuffed into it along with a Windows PE installation I can boot into.

 

Thanks for your replies people

I'm using nero to burn, and these DVDs all work properly on other computers, all except windows. I think it's a motherboard/bios problem (I updated, no fix). I'm using the P5Q and I'm gonna send it back to get it exchanged for a gigabyte or something, but meanwhile I need to cope with it. its not the cd drive because i tried with a few other drives

I'll try to be as clear as possible to what I want:

I want an exact copy of a bootable linux cd (live cd, ubuntu, etc) from an iso or other CD. This includes the boot partition and all CDFS or whatever filesystem linux uses. I basically want to turn my USB stick into a cd drive or something, so I can boot the install cd from the usb stick. The title I put is exactly what I want to do "burn iso image to usb memory stick"

Before when I was talking about acronis, I thought it would be possible and "backup" the CD to a .tib file and then "restore" that file onto the usb stick, but it's impossible since acronis doesn't recognize cd drives as backupable.

 

Exact ?

You can check out www.pendrivelinux.com

 

OH! Got it; you actually want to set up a bootable USB drive for *nux, which doesn't involve an actual cd or the cdrom drive at all, but does require a valid linux installation for the standard method:

http://learn.clemsonlinux.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Install_from_USB_drive

Or you can use a utility called "UNetBootin" (Live USB creator) which is designed exactly for this situation: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/linux/create-a-bootable-ubuntu-usb-flash-drive-the-easy-way/ <- That looks like exactly what you need

 

Thanks for the replies people.

Tarentum, the unetbootin thing seems to be exactly what I need but for some reason it only takes about a second to load everything which doesn't make any sense. I'm using it straight from an ISO and I think it only burns the windows-readable-filesystem sector, because the whole thing together would definately take more than one minute to upload, let alone less than a second.

Note: the files I see on the flash drive are the same I see when I click on the CD from windows, a bunch of little instruction files and stuff for booting. these total up to about 1mb, but the rest of the disk is in another filesystem (I presume). it doesn't seem to "burn" that part

Great find nonetheless.

 

Hm, maybe it can't read the iso? Sure you've specified the right location? Have enough space on the USB drive? Tried other *nux distros? Might be just an error with one distro/iso. Check UNetbootin's faqs: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ and wiki. Maybe contact the guy Good luck.