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I am trying to convert an iso image so that I can use a usb stick to install ubuntu on my laptop. When I go to startup disk creator and click other the ubuntu iso file has no bytes so I cannot create a file to install ubuntu why?

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    What? If the iso file is zero bytes then you failed to download it. You don't create the file, you download it and the startup disk creator copies it to a flash drive.
    – psusi
    Sep 4, 2013 at 0:08
  • What do you mean by "convert"? Can you explain what you're trying to do and why?
    – Eliah Kagan
    Sep 4, 2013 at 1:51

2 Answers 2

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If you just want to create a Live USB for Ubuntu, use unetbootin instead. Easy to use, either download from internet and create, or create from a local ISO file.

Otherwise, you can use dd to do the same thing. For example sudo dd if=/path/to/Ubuntu.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=8M.

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  • This is possibly a Mac system, as that's the only situation where the ISO has to be converted to another form before being written to a USB stick, to make it bootable. USB flash drives written with UNetbootin are not bootabble on Macs (even with the Mac version of UNetbootin, as the documentation states). Similarly, on a Mac, dding the ISO image won't create something bootable (on Macs) either. Of course, this might not be a Mac...the author of this question has not (or not yet) provided many details to help us figure out the nature of the problem.
    – Eliah Kagan
    Sep 4, 2013 at 1:50
  • unetbootin has a OS X version anyway. For Mac OS X users, they may need to use Disk Utility.app to create USB Live. dd is available anyway...
    – Terry Wang
    Sep 4, 2013 at 1:56
  • Like I said, the OS X version of UNetbootin doesn't create media that will boot on Macs. Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7, or Linux, or Mac OS X 10.5+. Note that resulting USB drives are bootable only on PCs (not on Macs).
    – Eliah Kagan
    Sep 4, 2013 at 2:29
  • As a Linux user, I am not aware the issue on OS X. Thank you for pointing out.
    – Terry Wang
    Sep 4, 2013 at 4:33
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First plug-in the usb device and run the following command

sudo fdisk -l

This will give you list of all the partitions you have. Check the partitions carefully. Most probably /dev/sdb is the usb one(if no other usb storage is plugged-in).You should see something like this(if it is a 8 GB pendrive)

Disk /dev/sdb: 8.0 GB,blabla.....

Now to make a bootable usb

sudo dd bs=4M if=/path/to/filename.iso of=/dev/sdb

BE CAREFUL with of option. If you carelessly put something wrong you will be doomed.

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