Can’t boot from Redo on pen drive
I have put Redo on a pendrive using both Unetbootin and Tuxboot.
However, when I select that drive, it goes to the Ubuntu boot menu.
Is there something I am doing wrong ?
The md5sum for the .iso is correct.
I have even tried installing to several brands of pen drives.
When you download a debian-based iso file (and ubuntu, thus ubuntu-mate, is debian-based), generally speaking i don’t think you want to use unetbootin to prep a usb-stick. The way i prepare a useb-stick to boot a debian-based iso file is to use dd. For example if the usb-stick is on /dev/sdb i would use,
sudo dd if=/myIsoFile of=/dev/sdb bs=10M
That command (always check the manpage before you run some command a stranger suggests) copies the iso file onto /dev/sdb using a 10-meg buffer. It’s been maybe two years since this became something of a “preferred method” of preparing a usb stick, and there are numerous websites that describe it. In any case, i’ve used it to prepare a dozen or so usb sticks for installs and i’ve never had trouble with it. I’m not 100% sure but i think there was a dd command update a while back that made the new simpler approach possible.
Good luck, if you still can’t get the iso to boot let us know, somebody will be able to figure out something. 
For some reason, this is not working.
andy@7:~/Downloads$ sudo dd if=/redobackup-livecd-1.0.4.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=10M
dd: failed to open ‘/redobackup-livecd-1.0.4.iso’: No such file or directory
ls
total 511648
-rw-rw-r-- 1 andy 261480448 03-30-2017 redobackup-livecd-1.0.4(1).iso
-rw-rw-r-- 1 andy 270584 03-29-2017 hannah_prays_for_a_son_wordsearch.jpg
-rw-rw-r-- 1 andy 66036 03-29-2017 Week 9 lesson.docx
-rw-rw-r-- 1 andy 320692 03-29-2017 archive.zip
-rw-rw-r-- 1 andy 284814 03-29-2017 TSDA Houston Location Flyer 2017.pdf
-rw-rw-r-- 1 andy 261480448 03-29-2017 redobackup-livecd-1.0.4.iso
-rw-rw-r-- 1 andy 5 03-28-2017 test.txtif=/home/andy/redobackup.iso
I do not understand what that command does ?
you use dd to write an iso to a device. In your example the if= (input file) parameter was incorrect and provided an example. Your file, redobackup.iso, probably exists in your home dir (/home/andy). The correct command is, dd if=/home/andy/redobackup.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=10M If your file exists in some other dir, you have to provide the correct path to that file, eg. /home/andy/Downloads/redobacup.iso
HTH
Ok, I thought if I was in the dir that file was it, it would work.
Learned something new.
To find where is your USB stick you can use : lsblk
This will list all active block devices with their mount point.
Be very carefull to use the right target (of=/dev/…) or you could end up erasing your hard disk…
Regards,
BT
and I forgot, after the dd finishes, you should flush the buffers to disk to make sure everything is written to your USB key. So type : sudo sync
And anything not written to the disk will be written right now.
Good luck!
It did not work. Will trying flushing buffers to disk next.
Sync did not help either.
I am looking for an exorcist.
GParted is showing sdc as unallocated file system.
I thought a partition table was needed to make a bootable pen drive ?
While my file manager is showing the Redo Backup files on the pen drive.
Something ain’t right here.
Does the pen drive have to formatted to a specific type for dd to work ?
I have already tried formatting it to fat 32.
This would happen if you have copied an iso file on the fat 32 file system on your usb key.
First unmount the usb stick and do the dd :
umount /dev/sdc
sudo dd if=/home/andy/redobackup.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=10M & sudo sync
dd will write block by block on the device directly. It doesn’t use any filesystem only a position on the disk (cylinder, head, block). The only thing you need is a container : the USB key. And it needs to be unused by any other process.
Check this post if you want to have more details :
Ubuntu_howto
Regards,
BT
PS: Note that destination is “of=/dev/sdc” not “/dev/sdc1” wich would not work also …
Will see what happens.
andy@7:~$ sudo dd if=/home/andy/Downloads/redobackup-livecd-1.0.4.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=10M & sudo sync
[2] 2702
andy@7:~$ 24+1 records in
24+1 records out
261480448 bytes (261 MB, 249 MiB) copied, 2.82854 s, 92.4 MB/s
No luck. 
I am going to put Clonezilla on a pen drive.
If it boots to Clonezilla, I will conclude that Redo Backup just does not work from a pen drive.
It works when put on a CD.
Thanks for all your help.
I successfully installed Clonezilla to my pen drive.
No problem booting to it.
Conclusion:
Despite what their website says, Redo Backup can NOT be installed to a pen drive.
I’m not so sure about your conclusion. It sounded like you were seeing a funky fiesystem on /sdc after writing to the USB-stick on that device. That does not mean the stick will not boot, you have to test it to find out if it will boot. With the advent of GPT and UEFI and all that stuff, sometimes i’ve seen a partition flagged as unknown, or as a mac filesystem, but that doesn’t mean it won’t boot.
Once again, great “full” explanation of terminal commands (dd in this case) and what they (1) are for and (2) what they do. Thanks samuvuo.
So how do I test the stick to see if it boots ?