On 10/26/2016 10:35 AM, Matyas A. Sustik wrote: > I need to boot into a hard drive diagnostic tool which is provided only as > an ISO image by the manufacturer. Since my laptop does not have a CD drive, > I hoped I could use a USB flash drive to run this tool from. > > My search turned up resources on this, but it seems the answers were about > booting a Linux rescue disk or such. > > I tried just to dd the iso to the usb drive (/dev/sdc) but that did not do > the trick. Was that supposed to work just like that? > > There is unetbootin, but I rather do not install more software until I can > run the hdd diagnostic. My drive is dying according to smartmon. (Also it > is only for sid and I am on stable.)
There are two related, complex topics involved: 1. Bootable media. 2. Operating systems. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but there is no general method or tool for converting a bootable CD image with a given operating system (with applications) into a bootable USB flash image (with the same operating system and applications). But, there may be methods and/or tools for specific operating systems (with applications). Do you know what operating system the HDD manufacturer diagnostic bootable CD is based on? I've seen DR-DOS and FreeDOS variants for such. 'UNetbootin' looks like it is targeted at Linux. I suggest: 1. Ask the manufacturer for a bootable USB flash drive ISO. 2. In the mean time, buy an external optical drive with an interface that is supported by your computer (e.g. USB 2 or USB 3), burn the HDD manufacturer's CD ISO image to CD-R media, and boot that. Reading between the lines, it sounds like you have only one computer. The computer hobby is similar to the automotive hobby -- you need at least two, so that you always have a ride while wrenching on the others. David
