dd to create bootable linux usb, resulting filesystem unrecognozed?

Question

I tried to create a bootable usb of kali linux using "dd if=kali.iso of=dev/sdb bs=512k" as per http://docs.kali.org/installation/kali-linux-live-usb-install but the resulting filesystem is unrecognized by gparted and the usb is undiscoverable in finder.

In linux what innate utilities exist to create bootable media? How do they differ from external applications? I would greatly appreciate the help.

Solution

You could also try with

cp kali.iso /dev/sdb ; sync

if you are not sure that the image is an hybrid one you could also try this before copying

isohybrid kali.iso

Comments

[pabouk - Ukraine stay strong]

The ISO image must be hybrid bootable. I.e. be able to be booted both from a CD (as a normal ISO) and from a USB flash drive. Are you sure that the image has this capability?

[Scott - Слава Україні]

This is hard to make sense of. First of all, you’ve used up your quota of capital letters for the next three months. (2) You say /dev/sda1 needs to be copied in place of dev/sdb (by which, of course, you mean /dev/sdb), but then you show the command you used as of=/dev/sdb1. (3) Are you sure that this command should use “s-d-(letter)-1” instead of “s-d-(letter)”? Really really sure? Did you actually get this to work? (4) If you don’t know what it means to verify an MD5, maybe you shouldn’t even be talking about it. (5) etc…