- How To Create Bootable Ubuntu 18.04 USB Stick On Windows
- Create A Bootable Ubuntu 20.04 USB Stick On MS Windows 10 ..
Flash the image to a USB drive. This can be a USB stick, or a USB SSD. I would recommend using Balena Etcher on Windows and MacOS. If you are using Ubuntu, the built-in Image Writer will work just fine. Download Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu for Raspberry Pi and IoT devices, Ubuntu Core and all the Ubuntu flavours. Ubuntu is an open-source software platform that runs everywhere from the PC to the server and the cloud.
This is a step by step tutorial shows you how to install the real Ubuntu OS on USB stick to create a ‘Windows To Go' style USB drive. Tested with Ubuntu 14.04
How To Create Bootable Ubuntu 18.04 USB Stick On Windows
Requirements:
Backup files from disk utility. Before getting started, you need to prepare something:
- A 8GB+ USB Drive.
- A Ubuntu Live CD/DVD/USB. In the case below, I created a bootable Ubuntu Live USB from the .iso image.
- A computer with an operating system installed.
And always backup your data on the USB flash drive!
To get started:
In my case I have a newly bought 16GB USB stick, a 4GB old USB stick, and a laptop multi-boot with Ubuntu based systems.
1. I don't have a Ubuntu CD/DVD, so I decided to burn the Ubuntu .iso image into the old USB stick. To do so:
- Download Ubuntu image: releases.ubuntu.com
- Download UNetbootin: unetbootin.sourceforge.net. For Ubuntu, install it from Software Center.
- Plug in the USB stick.
- Start UNetbootin, and burn the .iso image into USB
2. Plug in the bootable USB drive to your computer and boot into the Live Ubuntu system.
IMPORTANT: For Windows 8 pre-installed machine, you have to disable 'fast startup' and 'secure boot' features.
To disable 'fast startup', go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Power Options > System Settings > Choose what the power buttons do and uncheck the Turn on fast startup box.
To disable 'secure boot', follow this screenshot tutorial.
3. Now you're in the Ubuntu Live system. Plug in the 8GB+ USB stick. Then launch Gparted from the Unity Dash.
In the top-right drop-down box select the USB drive (16GB in my case), and you should see something like below:
I have two USB flash drives plugged in the computer, the Hard Disk is /dev/sda, 4GB Live USB is /dev/sdb, and the 16GB USB drive is /dev/sdc.
4. From the right-click context menu, un-mount partitions on the USB drive and then delete them.
Click the green check mark button to apply changes, finally you have an unallocated flash drive, like:
When done, close Gparted partition manager.
5. Click the desktop shortcut 'Install Ubuntu' to bring up the Ubuntu installation wizard.
Follow the wizard until it asks you to choose where to install Ubuntu. Select the last option 'Something else' and click Continue to bring up partition table.
6. In the partition table, scroll down and highlight the 'free space' under the USB drive (/dev/sdc in the case) and click the plus sign to create below partitions one by one:
- a FAT32 (or fat16) partition (required)
- must be /dev/sdc1 (or sdX1)
- mount point /NAME_HERE (/UDISK in the case)
- set the memory size by yourself, it can be used for normal data storage.
- leave others default.
- a EXT4 partition for Ubuntu (required)
- mount point '/' (without quotes)
- memory size 5G+
- leave others default.
- a swap partition (optional).
- You can skip this if RAM is large enough and you don't need hibernation feature.
And very important is select install boot-loader to the USB flash drive (/dev/sdc in the case).
7. When everything's done, click Install Now and confirm to format the partitions (Pay attention on which partitions to be formatted).
Click continue and finish the wizard. Once the installation complete, restart your computer and boot with the ‘Ubuntu To Go' USB drive and enjoy!
- Download Ubuntu image: releases.ubuntu.com
- Download UNetbootin: unetbootin.sourceforge.net. For Ubuntu, install it from Software Center.
- Plug in the USB stick.
- Start UNetbootin, and burn the .iso image into USB
2. Plug in the bootable USB drive to your computer and boot into the Live Ubuntu system.
IMPORTANT: For Windows 8 pre-installed machine, you have to disable 'fast startup' and 'secure boot' features.
To disable 'fast startup', go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Power Options > System Settings > Choose what the power buttons do and uncheck the Turn on fast startup box.
To disable 'secure boot', follow this screenshot tutorial.
3. Now you're in the Ubuntu Live system. Plug in the 8GB+ USB stick. Then launch Gparted from the Unity Dash.
In the top-right drop-down box select the USB drive (16GB in my case), and you should see something like below:
I have two USB flash drives plugged in the computer, the Hard Disk is /dev/sda, 4GB Live USB is /dev/sdb, and the 16GB USB drive is /dev/sdc.
4. From the right-click context menu, un-mount partitions on the USB drive and then delete them.
Click the green check mark button to apply changes, finally you have an unallocated flash drive, like:
When done, close Gparted partition manager.
5. Click the desktop shortcut 'Install Ubuntu' to bring up the Ubuntu installation wizard.
Follow the wizard until it asks you to choose where to install Ubuntu. Select the last option 'Something else' and click Continue to bring up partition table.
6. In the partition table, scroll down and highlight the 'free space' under the USB drive (/dev/sdc in the case) and click the plus sign to create below partitions one by one:
- a FAT32 (or fat16) partition (required)
- must be /dev/sdc1 (or sdX1)
- mount point /NAME_HERE (/UDISK in the case)
- set the memory size by yourself, it can be used for normal data storage.
- leave others default.
- a EXT4 partition for Ubuntu (required)
- mount point '/' (without quotes)
- memory size 5G+
- leave others default.
- a swap partition (optional).
- You can skip this if RAM is large enough and you don't need hibernation feature.
And very important is select install boot-loader to the USB flash drive (/dev/sdc in the case).
7. When everything's done, click Install Now and confirm to format the partitions (Pay attention on which partitions to be formatted).
Click continue and finish the wizard. Once the installation complete, restart your computer and boot with the ‘Ubuntu To Go' USB drive and enjoy!
For installing Ubuntu Linux from a USB stick, first, we need to create a bootable USB drive. Like Windows, Ubuntu can be installed from a USB flash drive and most of the people opting this method because of the lack of CD DVD ROM in the modern notebooks and computers. Moreover, handling USB drive is much convenient than CD-ROMs. Here in this step by step tutorial, we will show, how to install Ubuntu Linux from a USB memory stick. The USB memory stick sometimes also called Pen drive, USB flash drive or USB mass storage device.
Prerequisites
- A USB drive of at least 4 GB to install Ubuntu. Although its depend upon, what type of Linux OS installation you want and the size of the USB drive is depends on that.
- The USB Memory stick should be blank and completely formatted
- Downloaded Ubuntu Linux ISO image
Create A Bootable Ubuntu 20.04 USB Stick On MS Windows 10 ..
Step By Step Installation of Ubuntu from a USB Stick on Windows 10
Step 1: First of all download the open-source Linux Ubuntu ISO from the Ubuntu official website. The different flavours of Ubuntu available are Kubuntu, Lubuntu, Mythbuntu, Ubuntu Kylin, Ubuntu GNOME, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu MATE, Ubuntu Studio and Xubuntu. The installation procedure is the same for all the Ubuntu flavours but in performing this tutorial we use the standard Unity Ubuntu.
Step 2: After downloading the Ubuntu ISO, the second step is to get the Ubuntu bootable USB-creator. There are a couple of good free and open-source software options are available such as Linux Live USB Creator, Unetbootin, Rufus and Win32 Disk Imager. You can use any of them but for the tutorial, we are using the Rufus as an Ubuntu startup disk creator. Link to get the open-source Rufus USB installer.
Step 3: After downloading the Rufus install and run it.
Setting up the Rufus USB installer
- Select the USB drive or stick in which you want to install the Ubuntu.
- From a 'Create a bootable disk using' option select an ISO image from the drop-down.
- Click on the CD-ROM icon to select the downloaded Ubuntu ISO image.
- Click on the start button to begin the Ubuntu bootable USB creation process.
Step 4: After hitting the start button, the Rufus start processing the ISO image, it might ask to download two files ldlinux.sys and lidinux.bss. Click on 'Yes'.
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Step 5: Hybrid image confirmation… The Rufus detected the Ubuntu ISO images as an ISOHybrid image which means the same image file without any conversion can use for DVD and USB stick without any modification. Leave the pre-selected recommended option as it is and click on OK.
Step 6: Next step, the Rufus will ask confirmation to destroy any data, if present in the USB memory stick. Click OK and after that, it will start the creating Ubuntu bootable USB stick or pen drive.
Start the Ubuntu Installation from USB
Step 1: Without removing the USB stick, reboot the computer and change the boot order from bios. Key to getting the boot menu depends on your motherboard model. For example, here we are using the Gigabyte and the F12 is the key to select the boot order. You can google about your motherboard model or you can also find it from the first boot screen of the computer. Normally key need to press is one of the following: F1, F2, Del, Esc, F10, F11, or F12.
Note: If the USB does not appear in the boot menu then you need to enable it from the bios.
Once the boot menu appears, select the pen drive or USB stick which we used to create the Ubuntu bootloader.
Step 2: If everything is fine, you will see the Ubuntu boot screen.
Step 3: To Install the Ubuntu select the option 'Install Ubuntu'.
If you want a dual boot configuration of Ubuntu and Windows 10 then at Installation type window, select the first option 'Install Ubuntu alongside them'. It will preserve your Windows 7 or Windows 10 OS with all data and give you Operating system selection menu every time you boot the computer. This also applies to other Operating systems using an Ubuntu dual boot environment.
