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Why am I not able to make an USB-live?

I am trying to make a bootable USB-live from http://www.memtest86.com/download.htm

This is what I do on my terminal:

$ lsblk
$ cd ~/Downloads
$ sudo dd if=memtest86-usb.img of=/dev/sda bs=1M;sudo sync;sudo eject /dev/sda

But what I get is:

0+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes copied, 0.000149567 s, 0.0 kB/s

Any ideas?

Run
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  • Are you sure that /dev/sda is correct? That's usually your primary hard disk. – You'reAGitForNotUsingGit Apr 27 '17 at 01:59
  • @AndroidDev I think so. I wasn't sure before but see my question here https://askubuntu.com/questions/909346/how-to-tell-which-device-the-usb-drive-is-assigned-as – Run Apr 27 '17 at 02:05
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    Your command string doesn't care if dd fails or succeeds, using && instead of ; should only proceed if successful. I don't think there's a difference between sudo sync and plain sync, and eject is usually used for "CD-ROM, floppy disk, tape, or JAZ or ZIP disk", does it do anything for a USB? Mine doesn't – Xen2050 Apr 27 '17 at 04:23
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    Also, all the standard Ubuntu live ISO's have memtest included, you can run it from there. And is the .img file really in ~/Downloads? – Xen2050 Apr 27 '17 at 04:30
  • @Xen2050 And is the .img file really in ~/Downloads? yes sure it is. how can i use the memtest included in Ubuntu live ISO? I am using Kubuntu. – Run Apr 27 '17 at 13:30
  • Wasn't sure if dd would complain, apparently it does for "no such file" & "permission denied". It will happily copy an empty file, and output just like yours, might as well post that as an answer – Xen2050 Apr 28 '17 at 10:35

1 Answers1

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I think your .img file is empty (or there's something wrong with it), that's exactly what dd says when you tell it to read an empty file:

$ touch empty
$ dd if=empty of=e2
0+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes (0 B) copied, 0.000555823 s, 0.0 kB/s

The Ubuntu live ISO's should have a copy of memtest, under the "Test memory" entry in their menu, similar to this image (at least the used to, haven't booted a "raw" live iso in a while):

enter image description here

Xen2050
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  • I downloaded and extracted memtest86-usb.img in order to see what's in it. memtest86-usb.img is a 157.3 MB file. I could mount it and open several files in it after it was mounted, so I don't think it's an empty file or else something may be wrong with it. If you download it yourself and mount it, this will provide a better explanation than anything else I could say in a comment. – karel Apr 28 '17 at 10:49
  • @karel I'm not sure why else dd would act like it's an empty file, maybe teelou had something go wrong with their download and their copy's empty – Xen2050 Apr 28 '17 at 10:58