How to create a bootable USB stick that really works?

Question

I would be very grateful if someone could help to create a bootable USB stick that really works. Instead of booting I get the following error message:

Gfx.c32: not a COM32R image
boot:

I'm using the built-in Startup Disk Creator in Ubuntu 14.04. As the USB device I'm using an empty 8GB USB flash drive. The ISO image that I'm trying to install is Ubuntu 18.04.

I followed the instructions of the Startup Disk Creator app. It automatically chose the image and the USB device. After some time I got the message Installation complete.

The problem is that when I set the USB device as the first bootable device I get the message indicated above at the beginning of this post.

PS: I have looked up the answers to an equivalent question, but they didn't work for me. Is there a new version of Startup Disk Creator which has fixed bug 1325801?

Did you verify the downloaded image (ISO) was valid? ie. md5sum it? (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM) — guiverc, May 20 '18 at 06:11
Could it be that your processor is 32bit? So you would have to choose the 32bit version of Ubuntu (probably under alternative downloads). — muclux, May 20 '18 at 06:18
If you can't get a 32-bit ISO image switch to a more lightweight flavor of Ubuntu that still has a 32-bit ISO image available. — karel, May 20 '18 at 07:36
@Richardgw What you have discovered is known bug 1325801. See @ sudodus comment on it and his answer below. — N0rbert, May 20 '18 at 09:46

sudodus · Accepted Answer · 2018-05-20T09:50:10.390

The Ubuntu Startup Disk Creator in 14.04 LTS is buggy, and you are affected by a known bug, that is squashed by re-writing the Startup Disk Creator (from an extracting tool) to a robust cloning tool in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (and newer versions).

I suggest that you use another tool, for example mkusb according to the following links.

help.ubuntu.com/community/mkusb

help.ubuntu.com/community/mkusb/persistent

If you run standard Ubuntu live, you need an extra instruction to get the repository Universe. (Kubuntu, Lubuntu ... Xubuntu have the repository Universe activated automatically.)

sudo add-apt-repository universe  # only for standard Ubuntu

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mkusb/ppa  # and press Enter
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install mkusb mkusb-nox usb-pack-efi

The following links explain what is happening, when you create a USB boot drive, and describe some tools.

Having trouble booting from flash drive

help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/iso2usb

Thank you sudodus your answer is the best and has given me the solution, I will use the mkusb tool — Richardgw, May 20 '18 at 20:17

How to create a bootable USB stick that really works?

1 Answers1