How do you to turn a usb drive into a bootable linux drive

[Hotseff]

I have a fast question how do you partition an 128 GB USB Drive so that 20 - 30 GB so that I can turn the space into a fully bootable Linux USB Drive?

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Hotseff said:

I have a fast question how do you partition an 128 GB USB Drive so that 20 - 30 GB so that I can turn the space into a fully bootable Linux USB Drive?

https://rufus.akeo.ie/

[Guest]

Rufus is great.

Yumi may be a little easier.

https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/

 

I misread.

[Hotseff]

13 minutes ago, deXxterlab97 said:

https://rufus.akeo.ie/

I still want to be able to use at as a normal USB Drive as well though because I wanted to use it for school to backup files and then if I'm using say one of my families computers temporarily be able to boot up a version of linux but I am still grateful for your answer I was just wondering if you could only set aside some of the USB Drive for Linux.

[Hotseff]

18 minutes ago, Legendarypoet said:

Rufus is great.

Yumi may be a little easier.

https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/

 

I misread.

Thanks for the help didn't check out the site till after I checked out rufus

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

No need for 20-30GB, 5-6 should be plenty for a live stick. 

 

Windows only shows the first primary partition on USB drives (or the first logical one if no primary partitions are present), so you need to set the whole stick up to trick it into showing the one you want. 

It's doable, but it'll involve some work.  I know this guide seems overly long, but that's because I want to explain whatever may be unclear. 

 

Part 1 :

 

1) First, download your tools.  You'll be needing 2 things :

- EaseUS Partition Master (link).  The free download does the trick, no need to buy the pro or server version.

During installation it'll suggest buying the pro version.  Also "Join the Customer Experience Improvement Program" is selected by default and it'll prompt you to install more of their tools and join their newsletter.  Do with that as you please, I tend to turn that stuff off.

- Universal USB Installer (link).  Rufus etc MAY work, but I'm not sure how they handle partitioned sticks.  I know that UUI does it just fine, so I'm sticking with that.

- oh, and you'll be needing a Linux .iso too, of course.

 

2 ) Insert your USB stick and open Partition Master.  For this guide I'll be using a 32GB Verbatim drive

 

 

3 ) Right-click the USB stick, select "delete partition", in the pop-up window press "OK" to confirm. 

At this point you haven't actually deleted it yet.  The change will only happen if you click the "Apply" icon near the top left of the Partition Master window.  But we're not doing that just yet.

 

4 ) create a new logical partition for Windows (by that I mean "for use in Windows", not "containing a Windows install"). 

I'll be giving mine everything but the last 5GB of the stick. (NOTE : in step 8 I found out that 3GB would have been plenty for me really)

You can reduce the partition size either by using the down arrow next to "partition size" window, or by dragging the right-hand edge of the yellow square in the picture below.

Don't worry about the unallocated space before the partition, we'll get rid of that later. 

 

 

5 ) in the top left corner of the Partition Master window, click "Apply".  Confirm in the pop-up menu that you want to do the pending operations.

At this point all partition changes will be written to the USB drive.  This could take a while, just wait for the program to indicate that it's done. 

 

6 ) right-click the unallocated space and create a new primary partition. 

You'll get a prompt that says "Windows will only recognize the first primary partition" etc.  Just click "Yes" to confirm.

You'll want to give this partition all the size you have left, as this is what we'll turn into our Linux live stick.  Format-wise, I prefer FAT32 for this one.  NTFS may or may not work, in the past these live sticks were always FAT32 so I'm sticking with that.  It's not like you'll be putting 4GB+ files on this partition anyway.

The  Linux partition will not be assigned a drive letter at this point.  Don't worry about that.  It'll automatically get one after step 7.

 

 

7 ) once again, click "Apply" to actually create the partition.  Once it's done applying the changes, you'll end up with the stick looking something like this :

 

 

 

In the past I used to do all partition changes in one go, but while re-writing this guide I came across some errors if I tried it that way.  So I now do the changes one partition at a time. 

 

 

 

Part 2 :

 

Now we're switching to Universal USB Installer. 

 

8) Open the program (it's a standalone application, so no install needed). 

- Step 1 : select your Linux flavor.  I'll be installing Mint 18.1 32bit on mine (I prefer 32bit live sticks even though they only support up to 4GB of RAM, a 64bit stick is just useless if you encounter an old 32bit machine)

- Step 2 : browse to the location of your .iso file

- Step 3 : point to the USB drive you'll be installing onto. 

 

 

I gave my Linux a 1GB persistent file.  The persistent file will allow you to write changes to the drive, for example wallpaper changes or tools you want to install on your Linux live stick.  1GB should be plenty for most people, certainly is for me.  If you made the partition big enough, you can give it more.  Just know that larger persistent files will mean that it may take longer to boot or shut down (changes made while using the Linux live stick are stored in RAM and only written to the stick on shutdown).

 

Little tip : if you drag the persistent file size slider all the way to the right (4096MB), select "format as FAT32" or "Format as NTFS" and then de-select it again, the value will change to whatever the maximum actual size for the persistent file is.  If you have more than 4096MB after the install, it'll stay at 4096.  However if you have less, it'll show less.  In my case it jumped to 3500-ish MB, indicating that I could have made my persistent file up to 3.5GB ... or could have given the Windows partition almost 2.5GB more and made the Linux one almost 2.5GB smaller.  Oh well, I'm not going to re-do everything to take new screenshots.

 

IMPORTANT : DO NOT let UUI  actually format the drive, it will wipe all partitions and create one big partition that spans the entire stick, thereby undoing everything you did in steps 2-7.  (yeah, I found out the hard way)

 

9 ) click the "create" button and confirm the pop-up window.  Then wait until UUI confirms that it's done.  This could take a while, it needs to extract over 1GB of data from the .iso file and write that to the stick.

 

Once it's done, you'll have a Linux live stick with a huge hidden partition in front of it. 

The Linux partition will be labeled as "UUI" from now on.  Doesn't matter, you'll not be seeing that label in Windows anymore by the time we're done.

The partition should also have the "active" flag in the Status column.  If it doesn't, right-click it and change it to active.

 

Part 3 :

 

Now let's head back to Partition Master.

 

10 ) near the top left corner, hit the "Refresh" icon and wait for Partition Master to update the drive list. 

 

11 ) right-click the stick's Windows partition, select "Convert to primary"

 

12 ) right-click it again, select "Resize/Move partition".  In the pop-up menu, push the up arrow next to the "partition size". 

This will reclaim that unallocated space I mentioned in step 4.

 

13 ) near the top-left corner, click "Apply".  Confirm and let the program do the necessary changes.

 

 

You're all done now.  Congratulations, you now have a slightly smaller empty stick for use in Windows, with a hidden Linux Live stick.  

You can rename it and format it in Windows explorer, just like any other stick.   A format won't affect the partition scheme. 

 

Try it a couple of times until you find the partition size that works best for you.