Copy .iso on USB drive

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phiber

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Hi Guys,

I am trying to make a bootable flash drive so I can install FreeNAS on my AMD box.

What I have tried (and failed at):

Use dd to write the ISO file to the usb disk.

dd if=~/Desktop/FreeNAS-amd64-LiveCD-0.7.2.5543.iso of=/dev/disk4

When I plug in this USB it just doesn't seem to want to boot of it for some reason. I have also tried writing a DMG that i created of this iso (hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o ./Desktop/out.dmg ./Desktop/FreeNAS-amd64-LiveCD-0.7.2.5543.iso) but also that won't boot.

I have tried making it an DMG and restoring it onto a usb flash drive as well using disk Util's restore function. I get an error, something along the lines of it cannot identify the source.

Anyone have an experience doing this in OS X or knows of any utility that could help me out? I don't have a optical drive on the AMD and would really like to get this right, so i can have bootable live disks on usb drives (will really save me the hassle of writing millions of disks).
 
Venomous said:
How big is the file?

Flashdrives don't appreciate files bigger than 4GB. ...
Click to expand...

Files 150 mb... Grabbed the .img of FreeNAS and ran the following without any luck:

gunzip -c ~/Desktop/FreeNAS-i386-embedded-0.7.2.5543.img | dd of=/dev/disk3

I am starting to think the problem might be my MicroServer.

EDIT: with the gunzip command it actually gives me a flashing _ becomes a * and few other chars and then just reboots... so it looks like it wants to boot and then dies on me :( Will try these sticks on another machine tomorrow, and if they work there, then i know my microserver is up to no good.
 
Last edited:
Came across it earlier, doesn't have an OS X version... will dig out the windows box tomorrow and give it a shot.
 
i dont see why dd wouldnt work aslong as you dont install it to a partition
dd if=file.iso of=/dev/sdx
not
sdx1, sdx2 etc..
 
Grim147 said:
i dont see why dd wouldnt work aslong as you dont install it to a partition
dd if=file.iso of=/dev/sdx
not
sdx1, sdx2 etc..
Click to expand...

Haven't been installing it to the partition. Do i need to drop a bootable partition onto the drive though? And if so how would i go about doing that ?
 
phiber said:
Hi Guys,

Anyone have an experience doing this in OS X or knows of any utility that could help me out? I don't have a optical drive on the AMD and would really like to get this right, so i can have bootable live disks on usb drives (will really save me the hassle of writing millions of disks).
Click to expand...

It is MBR, right? I mean Utilities => Disk Utility => Partition => Options => Select Master Boot Record as partition scheme. Then try the Restore option or the dd above. But first check that partition scheme
 
Try Disk utility first, restore the Iso to a partition as suggested by gregory.
 
Why don't you download the IMG file instead and write it straight to USB/HD?
 
Last edited:
You win. It can't be done.

No, let me start and say that I have tried everything, which no doubt phiber did too. And I simply cannot make a USB bootable on a PC other than the Hackintosh method for installing OS X into Netbooks. I will keep at it though and report if I succeed.
 
GreGorGy said:
You win. It can't be done.

No, let me start and say that I have tried everything, which no doubt phiber did too. And I simply cannot make a USB bootable on a PC other than the Hackintosh method for installing OS X into Netbooks. I will keep at it though and report if I succeed.
Click to expand...

haha, yea i have given up making this thing on my macbook. Need to get my hands on some windows tools and try it out.

Tried MBR, tried IMG, get an error when trying to do a restore to the disk in disk utility...
 
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