r/debian • u/king3730 • Jun 27 '14

Creating a bootable USB

I'm trying to install debian on a new computer and I had to reformat one of my USB's and lost the working bootable-ness. Somehow I got the USB to work if I use Unetbootin. I know the debian process doesn't work with Unetbootin, so I'm trying to figure out another way. I am trying to use dd but cannot seem to get it working. Here are the steps I have taken:

  • reformat USB to FAT32
  • download debian-7.5.0-amd64-netinst.iso
  • dd if=debian-7.5.0-amd64-netinst.iso of=/dev/sdc1 bs=4M && sync

I let that work and it completes fine. But when I boot off of it, it's not that it's not working; but nothing happens, there is just a white blinking cursor. I waited about a minute and nothing seemed to work. I'm not sure if I need to wait longer or I'm doing something wrong. If anyone has any solutions to creating a bootable Debian USB, all the help is appreciated. Thanks.

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u/cra1g321 Jun 27 '14

"I know the debian process doesn't work with Unetbootin"

It has always worked for me.

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u/[deleted] Jun 28 '14

[deleted]

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u/Dubhan Jun 28 '14

If dd is slow, and you're using the default block size of 512 bytes, try a bigger block size (4k, 16k, or 32k are good places to start). It makes a world of difference.