Gddrescue for USB - How to recover?

[Arthur_Cheung]

I’ve followed your guide to make a mate USB installation disks. ( https://ubuntu-mate.org/how-to-create-bootable-usb-drive/ ). However, the USB become read-only and I need to find a Microsoft machine to recover it for other use.

I’ve searched through the Internet and tried gnome-disk-utility, fdisks,… but still cannot work out a solution in linux on my own.

How can I do this in Mate?

Thanks.

PS. Would you please post a solution for recovering the USB in a step by step manner on your web page, following the paragraphs of the ddrescue page, is preferred so that I can go there and copy and paste in future every time I do the installation.

[wolfman]

Hi @Arthur_Cheung,

you do know that the instructions you were following are for RaspberryPi don't you?, I ask because you posted your help request in the normal help & support section.

If you want a normal Ubuntu installation USB stick then please take a look here:

How to use Unetbootin

If unetbootin doesn't work for you, try "mintstick". You should (can) also install udisks2 in Ubuntu 15.10 and higher!: http://pkgs.org/search/mintstick http://pkgs.org/download/udisks2 Firstly, download your preferred version of Ubuntu Mate OS, 32 or 64 Bit (if you are unsure, download the 32 Bit version) (Ubuntu/Debian/Voyager/PinguyOS etc) in the form of an ISO file, remember where you store the file!. (I am not talking about using the Unetbootin download function, I am talking about you d…

To clean the USB stick first; use Gparted:

GParted partition guide for Linux and Windows users

PLEASE NOTE: THIS GUIDE DOES NOT DEPICT THE INSTALLATION (CREATION) OF A UEFI PARTITION. IF YOU HAVE A COMPUTER WITH UEFI/BIOS, MAKE SURE YOU ALSO CREATE A UEFI/BIOS PARTITION AS WELL. SEE FURTHER REMARKS ABOUT UEFI PARTITIONS IN THE GUIDE!. Linux beginners should also look here: You can only partition on an unmounted drive using an installation disk of your Linux flavour with a partitioning tool included, use the Gparted tool in live mode, or you can download a copy of Gparted from the link…

[Arthur_Cheung]

Aiya!!! It is very handy so I do this to my thumb!!!

Thank you for your information.

[Arthur_Cheung]

FYI, the method of making USB installation disk by your ddrescue guide is very good, except the trouble of recovering the thumb.

I’ve made many linux machines by using this.

[wolfman]

Hi,

I have to ask you again, is it for Raspi though?.

[Arthur_Cheung]

Sorry that I overlooked this is for Pie only when I come across this page.

I am using the USB for installing linux on PCs. I was using ubuntu startup disk creator as well as unetboot but both sometimes fails, warning me the USB is read-only, especially when I need to test new releases.

When I came across this page, I found that ddrescue a linux live image into a USB is the best method in terms of reliability and versatility. It needs no attention during writing. It never fails. It works even in a “read-only” USB. This is very good on testing new releases on bare metal.

Since then, I had never came back to neither starup disk creator nor unetboot again.

[wolfman]

hi Arthur,

did you fully format the USB stick before you started using ddrescue?.

[Arthur_Cheung]

For recovering the USB in windows, I delete all partitions and perform quick format.

In linux, I just use ddrescue to overwrite different sisters without recovering them in between.

[wolfman]

Hi Arthur,

maybe you should try pre-formatting your disks before using ddrescue just to be on the safe side!.