how to dd to partition and in what format

Asked by Zora

I'm in the process of installing ubuntu onto a mac.

My cd drive doesn't work so I have to use a usb drive. I've followed the instructions to make a bootable copy on the usb drive (it's worked, except I got an error message at the last step, it worked in terminal but the drive could not be read, and I was given the options to eject, ignore or initialize).

I've read in this guide: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/How%20to%20install%20Ubuntu%20on%20MacBook%20using%20USB%20Stick

That I have to 'dd the whole usb stick to the partition'. On the drive I wish to install ubuntu on there is a bootcamp partition in format Ms Dos (FAT), the other two partitions are in mac osx journaled.

So how exactly do I dd the usb to the partition, and what format should the partition and the usb stick be in? Thanks

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mycae (mycae) said :
#1

dd if=/dev/YOUR_USB of=/dev/YOUR_MAC_PARTITION

you can get a list of partitions using the fdisk command, using gparted, or using the cfdisk program.

Ensure you have backed up - if you get this wrong, you could overwrite the wrong partition and lose any data stored on the disk.

Note that your partitions are numbered, and the device is not. so, for example, /dev/sda is a drive, and /dev/sda3 is a partition.

Note that the dd operation may take time too. There is a trick for getting a progress bar if you have the pv ("pipeview") program installed

dd if=/dev/sdX | pv | dd of=/dev/sdY

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Zora (nondescript) said :
#2

Thank you, I'll try this now.

I dd it to the bootcamp partition which is in Ms-dos Fat format, right?

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Zora (nondescript) said :
#3

Tried it, it says 'permission denied'.

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mycae (mycae) said :
#4

Hi Zohra,

I neglected to mention that you require an administrato console to run this command.

to do this, you need to use "sudo" to escalate your rights, you should do something like

user@computer:~$ sudo -s
user's password:
root@computer:~#

Can you help with this problem?

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