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I have a Macbook Pro8.1 and I would very much like to have a dual boot system on it.

I prefer the USB Media installation method, as it's the only option I have at the moment.

I've followed the instructions here:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/help/create-a-usb-stick-on-mac-osx

These are the terminal commands that I have used :

hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o ~/Desktop/ubuntu-12.10-desktop-amd64+mac.img ~/Desktop/ubuntu-12.10-desktop-amd64+mac.iso
sudo dd if=/Users/sary/Desktop/ubuntu-12.10-desktop-amd64+mac.img of=/dev/rdisk2 bs=1m

This is my setup :

  • installed Refind

http://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/getting.html

  • Formatted the USB in " Disk Utility " :

    Selected '1 Partition' and 'MacOS Extended (Journaled)'.

  • Partitioned the USB as :

    GUID Partition Table (GPT)

  • This is the ISO img that I used :

    Ubuntu 12.10 amd64+mac version " ubuntu-12.10-desktop-amd64+mac.img " .

After a shutdown, Refind shows up and it's working properly.

But, when I select the USB Media drive it leads to a black screen that reads "Non-system disk " .

I would like to know what exactly I am doing wrong, or missing, here?

  • Should the USB format be in "Mac OS Extended (Jounrnaled)" , "MS-DOS (FAT)" or "ExFat" ?

  • Should it have 1 or 2 partition Layout?

  • If it must be formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled), does it mean the partition scheme should be set to "GPT" or "MBR" to have an Ubuntu bootable USB drive ?

Thanks.

1 Answer 1

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The quickest way I have found is to use UNetbootin. I imagine it's not officially supported by Ubuntu but it does work for this purpose and as long as you have Refind installed you will be able to boot it.

Just as an aside, Refind will see the Stick as about 3 or 4 different bootable OS's due too Ubuntu having an EFI capable version of GRUB. For some reason when booting using syslinux and UNetbootin they do not work. Simply choose the penguin image instead of any of the 'Cubes'.

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