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I would like to turn this 32GB USB 2.0 flash drive into a 32 GB partition with Ubuntu installed on it which I can boot and read/write persist as any normal hard drive install would be expected to do. The trick is that I don't want to have to install Ubuntu to create this thing. Can I create it from a live boot of a CD? If so, I'll take the challenge to the next level by saying I'd like to avoid that as well. There has to be a way to create it from Windows to USB right? (I have ISO of 10.4)

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closed as too localized by Luis Alvarado♦ Mar 14 at 17:15

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3 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

UNetbootin is what you want. Runs on Windows and Linux and creates bootable flash drives from ISO images, 10.04 included. However, the default setup does not use persistent space, so changes made will be lost on shutdown. An appropriate way to work around this is to follow these instructions.

I believe you may be able to add persistent to the boot options alone, but I haven't tested this and the other method is what seems to work for most.

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cool but the biggest .zip file available for the instructions provided is a 512mb.zip, I was hoping to have all 32GB of the USB drive be read/writable, or maybe I'm confused? – ioSamurai Sep 14 '10 at 20:57
after some more digging I found this: pendrivelinux.com/how-to-create-a-larger-casper-rw-loop-file but it seems to indicate the biggest amount of space I could use would be 4GB, unless, again, I am misunderstanding this but I think the size of the casper-rw file is the amount of persistent space I will be given, right? – ioSamurai Sep 14 '10 at 21:02
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ooh, also found this: pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3 maybe this will do the trick, it's pretty current as of this month – ioSamurai Sep 14 '10 at 21:04
up vote 1 down vote

+1 to PenDriveLinux. They've been working on this for a while, they have half a dozen solutions. I've personally used one or two from a windows install (within a Ubuntu-hosted Virtual machine!) and works great.

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up vote 0 down vote

Following creates persistence partitions of any size:

Boot Live CD.

Plug in flash drive.

Start Partition Editor

Create 1GB+ FAT32 partition, (on the left side of the bar). (larger size is optional)

Create a 4GB+ ext2 partition to the right of this, labeled it "casper-rw". (ext3 and ext4 also work).

Create another ext2 partition in the remaining space and label it "home-rw". (optional, creates a separate home partition)

Close Partition Editor.

Un-mount and re-mount flash drive.

Start "Create a live usb startup disk", (usb-creator).

Select "Discard on shutdown".

Press "Make Startup Disk.

When usb-creator finishes, run "gksu nautilus"

Select disk / syslinux / text.cfg and add "persistent" as shown below:

append noprompt cdrom-detect/try-usb=true persistent file=/cdrom/preseed/ubuntu.seed boot=casper initrd=/casper/initrd.gz quiet splash --

Shutdown, remove CD, reboot.

You might like to make the first, (Fat32), partition larger as it is the only one a Windows machine can see.

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