Re: A reasonable use of a "live image"?

[Richard Owlett <rowlett@cloud85.net>]

Richard Owlett wrote:
> Ben Armstrong wrote:
> > On 27/02/13 04:03 AM, Hermann Schwärzler wrote:
> > > There actually does exist a dd for windows. You may
> > > download this zip-file
> > >
> > > http://www.chrysocome.net/downloads/dd-0.6beta3.zip
> > >
> > > extract the including dd.exe to any location (preferably
> > > somewhere in
> > > the command search-path) and should be able to just use
> > > it (no
> > > installation needed) in a command window.
> > > For "of=..." you have to use the drive-letter of the USB
> > > stick (e.g.
> > > "of=f:").
> >
> > I have had inconsistent results reported to me by users of
> > this (some
> > say it works, others not).
>
> The problem may have been identified.
> See thread 'Running dd (in Windows DOS-box): "Error opening
> output file: 5 Access is denied" '
> [🔎] 512E735A.2030308@gmail.com">http://lists.debian.org/[🔎] 512E735A.2030308@gmail.com
>
> >  On the other hand, I've had nothing but good
> > reports about this tool, so that's what I always recommend:
> >
> > https://launchpad.net/win32-image-writer
>
> I tried it. My 2nd try worked.
> Investigating to see if initial failure was bug or "operator
> error".

I've investigated. Although it probably works _exactly_ as 
the programmer intended, who can know as there is *NO* 
documentation in the downloaded zip file. The problem turned 
out to be that I did not assume the "Read" and "Write" 
labels on the buttons meant the same thing to the programmer 
and myself. I assumed that for some reason one had to 
explicitly read the source before explicitly writing to the 
destination medium. (I've seen stranger ;). Having tried 
again by pressing "Write" I obtained a bootable device. 
However (probably due to the programmer making no mention 
anywhere about using an *.iso file as input) examining the 
device with Gparted under Squeeze show NO allocated space on 
the device.

The closest thing I found to useable instructions were at 
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/debian-live-flash-drive-install-from-windows/ 
. These also presume you are working from a *.img rather 
than a *.iso file.