Creating USB Drive Install Image for Fedora





Last Updated on 04/22/2014 by dboth

Although the Installation Guide for Fedora17 (as well as other versions) describes the steps required to create a USB memory stick or flash drive installation device using a couple methods if you already have Linux installed on at least one host, I have found that the best instructions are the simplest. To successfully create a USB flash drive from which any arbitrary release Fedora can be installed you should follow these directions.

Warning! This procedure will overwrite and destroy all data stored on the USB flash drive!

Download the appropriate image, which should be a DVD install ISO image. Then cd (change directory) into the directory in which the image is stored.

Insert the USB memory stick into a USB port. Use the dmesg command to determine the device name assigned to the memory stick. For this example this is /dev/sdk.

To create the image on the USB device, use the following command, being sure to use the correct name of the ISO image and USB device path:

dd if=Fedora-17-i386-DVD.iso of=/dev/sdk

The name of the ISO image in this example is Fedora-17-i386-DVD.iso where 17 is the Fedora release number, and the path to the device is /dev/sdk. You should be sure to use the correct ISO image name and path, as well as the correct device path for your circumstances.

Note that we use the device name and not that of any existing partitions on the device, which would look like /dev/sdk1 or /dev/sdk2, for example.

Warning!!: Be certain that you enter the command correctly. An incorrectly entered dd command could destroy the entire contents of your hard drive. The dd command is nicknamed  “disk destroyer” for a reason.





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