Startup Disk Creator wants to wipe drive?

Question

Today I went to write an 18.04 ISO onto a USB drive from my 16.04 installation, and Startup Disk Creator wanted to wipe the entire drive:

Now, perhaps my memory is incorrect, but I seem to recall that when I was on 14.04, Statup Disk Creator worked without needing to wipe the entire drive.

Has the behavior of Startup Disk Creator been changed since 14.04?

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 14 '19 at 16:59

1

The option to NOT erase the USB was dropped in between Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04

According to the accepted answer to Where is the persistent option for Startup Disk Creator in 16.04? the underlying process used by the Startup Disk Creator changed in Ubuntu 16.04. The newer version of this app uses the dd command line utility in the background.

As a result of this change the USB drive is wiped clean when it is used to make a startup disk. The new background process also does not allow for creating persistent Live USB.

Hope this helps

answered Mar 14 '19 at 16:59

user68186

33,360

So here's a related question.... if Startup Disk Creator just uses dd now, what's the beneifit of using it over just doing dd if=someImage.iso of=/dev/sdc bs=4M? – You'reAGitForNotUsingGit Mar 14 '19 at 22:47
Apparently there is no difference other than the nice graphical user interface. – user68186 Mar 14 '19 at 23:56

Startup Disk Creator wants to wipe drive?

1 Answers1

The option to NOT erase the USB was dropped in between Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04