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I have Ubuntu on my hard drive but when I try to boot from Kali on my USB drive it takes me back to the GNU GRUB of Ubuntu.

I've tried booting from my USB in the BIOS and using boot order. I'm losing my patience because I really need to use Kali. Please help I really need to fix this problem.

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  • 1
    How did you install kali iso to the USB? Which version of kali did you download?
    – mchid
    May 28, 2016 at 0:29
  • The most recent one. I used pendrivelinux.com. I know it works because just used it on my desktop. May 29, 2016 at 2:02
  • I assume your system is 64bit?
    – mchid
    May 29, 2016 at 10:23

1 Answer 1

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Okay, since pendrivelinux is not working, use the Ubuntu computer to create the USB device instead.

1.

Boot up Ubuntu, press CTRL + ALT + T to open a terminal and then run the following commands.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install aria2
aria2c -x5 'http://cdimage.kali.org/kali-2016.1/kali-linux-light-2016.1-amd64.iso'

2.

Next, disconnect the USB device from the computer and then run the following command to list your disk drives:

lsblk

The output should look something like this:

sda      8:0    0  93.2G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   4.3G  0 part [SWAP]
├─sda2   8:2    0     1K  0 part 
└─sda5   8:5    0  88.9G  0 part /
sdb      8:16   1  29.7G  0 disk /media/mchid/external-storage

Then, plug the USB device into the computer and then run the following command:

lsblk

This should now list the device identifier for your usb device such as /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, /dev/sdd, or something else.

As you can see here in this example, the USB device is listed as an 7.5GB drive at /dev/sdc yours may be listed as something else!

sda      8:0    0  93.2G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   4.3G  0 part [SWAP]
├─sda2   8:2    0     1K  0 part 
└─sda5   8:5    0  88.9G  0 part /
sdb      8:16   1  29.7G  0 disk /media/mchid/external-storage
sdc      8:32   1   7.5G  0 disk 
└─sdc1   8:34   1  86.1M  0 part /media/mchid/otLfrQ46J7eGcYnz-1235-asdlfkj

3.

Your USB device should be listed as /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, /dev/sdd, or maybe even /dev/sde. What ever it is listed as be sure to use the correct device for the following commands because these commands will erase all the data on the drive!

For this next example, I will use /dev/sdc as an example, however, you may need to use /dev/sdb or something else!

sudo umount /dev/sdc*

If it says "not mounted", just ignore the message.

sudo mkfs -t vfat -I /dev/sdc
sudo -i
cat kali-linux-light-2016.1-amd64.iso > /dev/sdc
sudo -k

Reboot!

I just tested this method and this iso to verify it works as sometimes iso files won't boot unless you add syslinux but this is a newer iso and I have tested that it works fine.

Here is the SHA1Sum for the iso: 4132238042deba9e3bc1702afbdb1b4672b64bcb

Click here for more info.

This installs the kali linux "light" version which is lightweight and super fast. It's kind of ugly but you can change the desktop configuration to make it look cool if you want. All the kali linux tools are available and installed.

This uses the XFCE4 desktop instead of Gnome and is the same desktop used for Xubuntu and Ubuntustudio as well.

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