Hybrid ISO that boots off a flash drive or hard disk

Bootable ISO files cannot usually be transferred to a USB storage device to create a bootable USB stick. However, special types of ISO files called hybrid ISOs can be flashed to create a bootable device.

We can convert standard ISO files into hybrid ISOs with the isohybrid command. The isohybrid command is a new utility and most Linux distros don't include this by default. You can download the syslinux package from http://www.syslinux.org. The command may also be available in your yum or apt-get repository as syslinux-utils.

This command will make an ISO file bootable:

    # isohybrid image.iso

The ISO file can now be written to USB storage devices.

To write the ISO to a USB storage device, use the following command:

    # dd if=image.iso of=/dev/sdb1 

Use the appropriate device instead of /dev/sdb1, or you can use cat, as follows:

    # cat image.iso >> /dev/sdb1