Create a bootable USB stick on Ubuntu

Tutorials
1
Key Value
Summary Use your Ubuntu desktop to create a bootable USB stick that can be used to run and install Ubuntu on any USB-equipped PC.
Categories desktop
Difficulty 2
Author Canonical Web Team webteam@canonical.com

Overview

Duration: 1:00

With a bootable Ubuntu USB stick, you can:

  • Install or upgrade Ubuntu
  • Test out the Ubuntu desktop experience without touching your PC configuration
  • Boot into Ubuntu on a borrowed machine or from an internet cafe
  • Use tools installed by default on the USB stick to repair or fix a broken configuration

Creating a bootable Ubuntu USB stick is very simple, especially from Ubuntu itself, and we’re going to cover the process in the next few steps.

Alternatively, we also have tutorials to help you create a bootable USB stick from both Microsoft Windows and Apple macOS.

Laptop Ubuntu desktop
Laptop Ubuntu desktop1000×512

Requirements

Duration: 1:00

You will need:

  • A 4GB or larger USB stick/flash drive
  • Ubuntu Desktop 14.04 or later installed
  • An Ubuntu ISO file. See Get Ubuntu for download links

Download an Ubuntu ISO
Download an Ubuntu ISO915×686

Launch Startup Disk Creator

We’re going to use an application called ‘Startup Disk Creator’ to write the ISO image to your USB stick. This is installed by default on Ubuntu, and can be launched as follows:

  1. Insert your USB stick (select ‘Do nothing’ if prompted by Ubuntu)
  2. On Ubuntu 18.04 and later, use the bottom left icon to open ‘Show Applications’
  3. In older versions of Ubuntu, use the top left icon to open the dash
  4. Use the search field to look for Startup Disk Creator
  5. Select Startup Disk Creator from the results to launch the application

Search for Startup Disk Creator
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ISO and USB selection

Duration: 2:00

When launched, Startup Disk Creator will look for the ISO files in your Downloads folder, as well as any attached USB storage it can write to.

It’s likely that both your Ubuntu ISO and the correct USB device will have been detected and set as ‘Source disc image’ and ‘Disk to use’ in the application window. If not, use the ‘Other’ button to locate your ISO file and select the exact USB device you want to use from the list of devices.

Click Make Startup Disk to start the process.

Make USB device
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Confirm USB device

Duration: 3:00

Before making any permanent changes, you will be asked to confirm the USB device you’ve chosen is correct. This is important because any data currently stored on this device will be destroyed.

After confirming, the write process will start and a progress bar appears.

USB write progress

Installation complete

Duration: 1:00

That’s it! You now have Ubuntu on a USB stick, bootable and ready to go.

If you want to install Ubuntu, take a look at our install Ubuntu desktop tutorial.

USB write complete
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Finding help

If you get stuck, help is always at hand:

3 Likes
2

it’s so much easier to just use the disk image writer tool. Just download the ISO (make sure it’s a bootable ISO…you’ll find out if it doesn’t boot), find it in “file Manager”, right click on it, select the application “disk image writer” select the target device and you’re done. This is in 18.04 desktop. The Startup Disk Creator tool doesn’t work reliably in my experience. Disk Image Writer has never failed me.

2 Likes
3

Add the duration time of 1 min to this chapter. I suppose should be done like “Duration: 1:00”.
Otherwise, when reading the guidelines, remaining tome is 0 mins for this chapter, although there are several chapters after this one.

4

I don’t know if I accidentaly uninstalled it, but on 20.04 (upgraded from 19.04, then 19.10) I did not have startup disk creator installed, despite the tutorial claiming it should be present on 18.04 and newer.

5

Are you on standard Ubuntu or one of the flavors?

1 Like
6

There is no easy way to get an Ubuntu Desktop image of you follow the link “Get Ubuntu”.

The process is not straight forward.

7

what if usb is partitioned, can still use one as bootable?

8

It would be nice if this clarified that it will NOT make a bootable USB drive of another distro. I tried a handful of methods to get it to recognize a PopOS iso and finally went to StackExchange for the answer.

1 Like
9

That would also be equally untrue.

There are many types of ISO files, and all Ubuntu and flavor of Ubuntu ISOs will work with the procedure outlined here, along with any other distro that uses the same type of ISO file.

If a person wants to write a non-Ubuntu ISO I would expect them to use the procedure that matches the type of ISO they downloaded, which they’ll get from the web site where they got their ISO.

The procedure documented here works for any Ubuntu, or any flavor of Ubuntu such as those found at https://ubuntu.com/download/flavours (ignoring any bugs/issues with development daily ISOs)

2 Likes
10

When I was running windows, and wanted to make a bootable drive in windows, I searched for “how to make a bootable usb in windows”. Running Ubuntu, I searched for “how to make a bootable usb in ubuntu”, and this was the result that came up. I would expect it to make a bootable USB in general, given the information in the tutorial and how I found it, not to specifically and exclusively make a bootable Ubuntu USB. It would be a lot more clear if this was explicitly stated in the tutorial text.

2 Likes
11

Completely agree — I thought the same when attempting a generic iso!

Update: Whilst browsing today I came across a recent tool that is completely open source and that will solve this problem. Developers git is here: https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy. Attached is a screengrab of the features. Bonus is all one has to do is copy the .iso file to the USB device with the application and it does the rest. Pretty user friendly!

2020-09-19%3A09%3A12
2020-09-19%3A09%3A12943×846 105 KB

12

This tutorial should mention how to install Startup Disk Creator if it is not present on the system (e.g. from Ubuntu Software or sudo apt install usb-creator-gtk)

2 Likes
13

Actually, IMHO ‘Gnome-Disks’ is important. All one has to do is mount an .iso and burn it to any removable disk, works on USB sticks too — I find it far better than the Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator which is really for Ubuntu images. I believe it is ‘Disks’ that gives one the context menu item when clicking on an *.iso to save the archive to a ‘disk’, or open it (decompress).

14

I want to download a bootable live usb image, on the web page from this page, I see few download links, I’m not sure at all if each .iso file contains or not a bootable live image. Please clearly specify to each files what do they correspond to. I’ll maybe try all files, that’s very boring.

Maybe my problem happen only on french browser because, maybe the link to the page for downloading is different between french and english, as I’m french.

Best regards

15

Startup Disk Creator isn’t very useful. If you want to create a live USB with something other than Ubuntu, it most likely wont work.

17

Am I missing something @janstes?

That link sends me to ubuntu.com/download which then provides sections to the individual versions of Ubuntu (server, desktop, core …), some with walkthroughs, and those link to pages that provide buttons to get the ISOs?

Where are you seeing “manual install” ? Thanks for you help with this.

18

The resultant of the process is a bootable device but will
it uefi or legacy and mbr or gpt? or there option only for windows?

19

wow I want to change the operating system and download the iso in windows 10 and I want to make a bootable usb … where does that appear in your manual? porque!! porqueee ere asi!!

1 Like
20

I’d suggest looking at the tutorials

with plenty more available at https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/

4 Likes
21

I’m glad I read the other replies here.
There is a distance between the understanding of the writer of the tutorial and a novice consumer.
There are pictures of pages to be used, but no clue as to where those pages are to be found on the website.
Still searching.