How-To Create a Bootable USB Drive
Etcher is a cross platform tool, which means it will work on Windows, Mac, and Linux distributions. It is a GUI (Graphical User Interface) tool that allows you to burn or flash your favorite operating system to a SD card or USB drive. This will come in handy if you're trying to install a new operating system on a system that does not have a DVD ROM Drive. A lot of new laptops do not have a DVD ROM Drive, so it's important to know how to make yourself a bootable USB drive or SD card in case your system crashes or if you decide to change your operating system.
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Etcher is very easy to use. You do not have to be an advanced computer user to install and use the program.
Download & Install Etcher
You can download and install Etcher from https://www.balena.io/etcher/. Just click the big green download button. You can click the down arrow with the green download button to select the operating system that matches your system.
You can download and install Etcher from https://www.balena.io/etcher/. Just click the big green download button. You can click the down arrow with the green download button to select the operating system that matches your system.
When the download completes, go to the location you downloaded it to and double-click it to install the program on your computer.
How to use Etcher
If you have an Etcher icon on your desktop, double-click it to start the program. If not, you can use Windows search feature to find and execute Etcher. After the program loads, click on the blue Select Image button to allow you to locate and select your source image or ISO file.
If you have an Etcher icon on your desktop, double-click it to start the program. If not, you can use Windows search feature to find and execute Etcher. After the program loads, click on the blue Select Image button to allow you to locate and select your source image or ISO file.
An Open dialog box will appear, which will allow you to locate your image file. In my example below, I selected ubuntu-mate-18.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso file and then I clicked the Open button.
The next step involves selecting your ISO file or image file. This will be either a SD card or USB drive that you will use as your bootable medium.
A Select a Drive dialog box will pop-up that will allow you to select your SD card or USB drive. In my example, I selected the USB 2.0 Flash Disk USB Device - 4.13 GB and then I clicked the Continue button. Caution: Everything on the selected drive will be completely erased, so make sure you select the correct drive.
Click the Flash button to start the flashing process. This will take the files inside my .iso file and put them on my USB drive as installable or bootable Ubuntu MATE 18.04.1 LTS flash drive. Etcher does all the work for me.
It will take a while for this process to complete, so be patient. You will see a progress bar that indicates the progress of the flashing process.
The progress bar will display Finishing... while it completes the flashing process. DO NOT remove your USB drive because the verification process will began immediately after the flashing process completes.
Etcher will now go through the validation process to ensure that all of your files were correctly installed on your device. Your progress bar will indicate the progress of the validating process.
The progress bar will display Finishing... while it completes the validation process.
You will see Flash Complete! when the process is over. You will see a green dot with a white check inside if everything was successful. You have the option to Flash Another device if you need to create another bootable media for someone else.
Etcher goes through the process of safely removing your USB drive so that you can safely remove the USB device with corrupting your files. You will not see the drive in your File Manager unless you unplug the device and re-insert it in your USB port on your system.
I hope this helped you create your first bootable SD card or USB device.
Take care!
Take care!