Tried to make USB stick from OS X

When trying to make a USB stick for Mac I got this error:

MacBookPro-UserName:~ UserName$ hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o ~/ubuntu/USB-Overdrive-302.img ~/ubuntu/ubuntu.iso
hdiutil: convert failed - No such file or directory

Any help appreciated.

4 Answers

You're showing a file missing, which indicates the command had the wrong path to the .iso file

We are only using hdiutil to convert the Ubuntu ISO to an IMG format which mac can use.

Use the hdiutil command to convert the .iso to an IMG file in a directory on your hard drive.

Then use the dd command to actually copy the files over.

How to install Ubuntu on MacBook using USB Stick

Make sure you have the paths right - the tip to drag and drop the file or copy and paste the file into the terminal window is a good one: It will give you the exact location, not a relative one.

Try

hdiutil convert -format UDRW -o <distnation-name> <source-name>

This worked for me. Note that the destination comes before the source.

You are using the wrong syntax. Move the input file name to first argument,

so it's convert input.iso -format UDRW -o output.iso

If you don't care about what's on the drive, USB boot sticks can be created on most unix based systems without any extra software just run from terminal:

dd if=/path/to/ubuntu.iso of=/dev/usbdevice

It works like a charm but THIS WILL DELETE ANYTHING ON THE USB DEVICE. Also make sure that the path to the actually usb device, not a partition. For example if the usb device was sdb you might see a primary partition, sdb1 in /dev. of=/dev/sdb1 will not work. You must write to the actually usb device with of=/dev/sdb or the usb device will not be recognized as a boot disk.

When you want to use the usb device for anything else, you can make a partition with the remaining space and it will still function as a boot disk or you can reformat the entire disk and use it again for whatever purpose. dd is a real gem that is often overlooked. Keep it simple.