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Grumbel
Asked: 2021-11-12 07:41:41 +0800 CST

How to write a disk-image to SD/USB safely?

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I am looking for a tool to write disk image to SDcard or USBstick safely. I have the following requirements:

  • graphical user interface (i.e. no clonezilla or dd)
  • tool is specialized for removable storage (i.e. no gparted)
  • tool is self contained and small (i.e. not integrated in a big file manager)
  • checks if disks are mounted before writing
  • deals with the auto-mounter and prevents from starting while read/write is in progress
  • checks and displays the current content of the disk before overwriting it

I am aware of cloneziller, dd, gparted and Co., none of them are satisfactory. I am not looking for a way to just write a disk, but specifically for a tool that is specialized for this task and that handles all the footguns safely. Does anything like this exist for Linux?

Edit: Closest matches I have found so far (none directly available in Ubuntu):

software-recommendation

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    mkusb is a candidate

    The main purpose when I developed mkusb was to help writing to the correct target device.

    • mkusb-dus can clone from plain CD/DVD disks, iso or img files, and also compressed img.gz and img.xz files (without any preprocessing). It fixes the backup partition table at the end of the drive for GUID partition tables, GPT.

    • mkusb-plug can clone from files (but it lacks the extra features to manage compressed files and to fix the GPT.)

      A special feature is that you start mkusb-plug before plugging in the target drive. Then it identifies the drive, when plugged in, which makes it quite footgun-proof.

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