This quick step by step will show you how to make a bootable USB stick from a downloaded ISO image file using an Apple Mac OS X.
Note: this procedure requires an .img file that you will be required to create from the .iso file you download.
Tip: Drag and Drop a file from Finder to Terminal to 'paste' the full path without typing and risking typos.
hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o /path/to/target.img /path/to/source.iso
Note: OS X tends to put the .dmg
ending on the output file automatically. Rename the file by typing:mv /path/to/target.img.dmg /path/to/target.img
diskutil list
to get the current list of devicesdiskutil list
again and determine the device node assigned to your flash media (e.g. /dev/disk2)diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN
(replace N with the disk number from the last command - in the previous example, N would be 2)sudo dd if=/path/to/downloaded.img of=/dev/rdiskN bs=1m
(replace /path/to/downloaded.img
with the path where the image file is located; for example, ./ubuntu.img
or ./ubuntu.dmg
)./dev/rdisk
instead of /dev/disk
may be faster.dd: Invalid number '1m'
, you are using GNU dd. Use the same command but replace bs=1m
with bs=1M
.dd: /dev/diskN: Resource busy
, make sure the disk is not in use. Start the 'Disk Utility.app' and unmount (don't eject) the drive.diskutil eject /dev/diskN
and remove your flash media when the command completes