I’ve found out that unetbootin, which is the tool of choice for most usb stick generation, does have it’s problems. I’ve just tried to setup a network install usb stick for Fedora and Debian, and both were fine setting up via unetbootin, but did not boot successfully into the installer (although the splash screen did start.) For both, the initialisation seems to want something in the cdrom drive, but even after putting a disc in there, it doesn’t boot. This also happens when using the netbootcd boot usb.

The solution? Surprisingly simple, actually. To use dd or dcfldd:

dd if=debian-7.1.0-i386-netinst of=/dev/sdb dcfldd if=Fedora-19-i386-netinst of=/dev/sdb

This wipes the contents of the stick, but does ensure that its an extract copy of the iso, without getting rebuilt by unetbootin

Related articles

• NetbootCD (blenderfox.com)