Create Bootable USB in Kali Linux

Hi Everyone. Today I am going to show you how to create bootable usb in Kali Linux using line utility. There are several 3rd party utilities available in the market, some of them are UNetbootin, Universal USB Installer, YUMI and RMPrepUSB. These all are GUI-based utilities. But, today I am going to create a linux bootable usb using dd (device driver). dd is a simple command line program that is pre-installed in almost linux based operating systems. It is a simple, yet versatile and powerful tool. It can be used to copy from source to destination, block-by-block, regardless of their filesystem types or operating systems. Below screen-shot shows you how to create bootable usb using dd command.

Tested on: Kali Linux 1.1.0a (64-bit)
I logged in as a superuser. For normal user, please run sudo or su command to complete the task.

STEP:

• Before we begin, please check the partition of your hard drive. Open terminal and run fdisk -l. 

• Now, plug in formatted (in fat32) usb drive and re-run fdisk -l to identity your usb drive name in partition table. Mine detected as sdb (Disk /dev/sda).

• Now, goto the location where you have placed your iso file. I chose Debian 8.1 (64-bit) Disc 1 to create bootable iso.

 

• Type dd command to create bootable usb. syntax: dd if=filename.iso of=/dev/sdx bb=y, where filename is the image of the file (in iso format), x represents external drive and y represent block size of the external drive (in kb as K or in mb as M). Please check screen-shot.

• Once program begin, you will find blinking cursor on the next line. Be patient for a while until it finishes creating bootable usb. Once finished, you will get the status of the operation.

• If operation is successful, run sync and then eject /dev/sdx. Plug in your usb drive. If operation is successful, you will see bootable usb icon on your desktop.