3.4. How Do I Make Fedora Media?
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3.4. How Do I Make Fedora Media?

You can turn Fedora ISO files into either CD or DVD discs. You can turn Fedora Live ISO files into bootable USB media.

3.4.1. Making CD or DVD Discs

To learn how to turn ISO images into CD or DVD media, refer to http://docs.fedoraproject.org/readme-burning-isos/.

3.4.2. Making USB Media

To make bootable USB media, use a Fedora Live image. You can use either a Windows or Linux system to make the bootable USB media.

[Note] USB Image Writing is Nondestructive

Writing the Live image to the USB media is nondestructive. Any existing data on the media will not be harmed.

Before you begin, make sure you have sufficient free space available on your USB media. You do not need to repartition or reformat your media. It is always a good idea to back up important data before performing sensitive disk operations.

  1. Download a Live ISO file as shown in Section 3.3, “Which Files Do I Download?”.

  2. Download the Windows liveusb-creator program at http://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator.

  3. Follow the instructions given at the site and in the liveusb-creator program to create the bootable USB media.

USB media often comes in the form of flash devices sometimes called pen drives, thumb disks, or keys; or as an externally connected hard disk device. Almost all media of this type is formatted as a vfat file system. You can create bootable USB media on media formatted as ext2, ext3, or vfat.

[Important] Unusual USB Media

In a few cases with oddly formatted or partitioned USB media, the image writing may fail.

  1. Download a Live ISO file as shown in Section 3.3, “Which Files Do I Download?”.

  2. Install the livecd-tools package on your system. For Fedora systems, use the following command: 

    su -c 'yum -y install livecd-tools'

  3. Plug in your USB media.

  4. Find the device name for your USB media. If the media has a volume name, look up the name in /dev/disk/by-label, or use the findfs: 

    su -c 'findfs LABEL="MyLabel"'

    If the media does not have a volume name, or you do not know it, consult the /var/log/messages log for details: 

    su -c 'less /var/log/messages'

  5. Use the livecd-iso-to-disk command to write the ISO image to the media: 

    su -c 'livecd-iso-to-disk the_image.iso /dev/sdX1'

    Replace sdX1 with the device name for the partition on the USB media. Most flash drives and external hard disks use only one partition. If you have changed this behavior or have oddly partitioned media, you may need to consult other sources of help.

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