Comments on: UNetbootin on Mac OS X # fix to create a BackTrack5 USB stick to boot elsewhere

By: Dan

Dan — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 12:15:53 +0000

same for me..
I do the fdisk and dd without trouble but I can’t mount the disk afterwards and can’t use Unetbootin.. it wont let me click “OK” – it clicks but nothing happens.

By: Otmane

Otmane — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 12:51:57 +0000

@4help

Hello,

I followed exactly what you wrote and all worked fine, but when I restart my computer to boot from my usb drive (holding alt button pressed), it doesn’t appear that can boot from it !! I have USB 2.0 port.

Please Help

By: Carlos

Carlos — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 15:00:13 +0000

Ok thank you I’ll try BackBox and I’ll try to test backtrack in a mini fire wire external disk maybe works too, there are in Amazon some cases mini and pretty with firewire that fits in the palm of the hand.
Thank you

By: 4help

4help — Sat, 09 Mar 2013 11:57:06 +0000

Carlos,
Unfortunately backtrack does not currently work on laptops that only have USB 3, including the retina MacBook Pro. It’s up to the backtrack developers to update their OS for USB 3 and as far as I can see, this won’t be happening anytime soon. Your best option is to use another OS such as BackBox. BackBox works well on my retina MacBook Pro and comes with many of the same tools backtrack has.

By: Carlos

Carlos — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 03:25:08 +0000

Hello good solution but I have 2 questions I see in the main post:
fdisk -e /dev/rdisk1
and you have here:
fdisk -e /dev/disk1
without the “r” on disk1 what is the diiference is not supposed to be rdisk1 instead disk1 only?
My other question I have a retina macbook pro I tried to burn with unetbootin with windows and YUMI and say Unable to find a medium containing live file system after the backtrack choice menu I’m not tried yet this method but I’ll try but how you know the retina has 2 USB 3.0 ports for sure I don’t have USB 2.0 what you suggest to make run in retina macbook?
Thank you

By: Bear

Bear — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 09:52:26 +0000

Worked though. No other errors. Thanks everyone.

By: Bear

Bear — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 08:48:51 +0000

Computer:recovery user$ sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk1
fdisk: could not open MBR file /usr/standalone/i386/boot0: No such file or directory

By: Andres

Andres — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 02:36:33 +0000

As soon is a I follow all the steps, my usb get brocken and MacOS X does not let me mount it again. It is a shame…

By: Sashmo

Sashmo — Mon, 18 Feb 2013 04:09:51 +0000

This worked for me.

By: roberta

roberta — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 13:46:16 +0000

Many many thanks for your help. Jumped to the next steps after your post. Thanks.

By: Nicholas McCready (@nmccready)

Nicholas McCready (@nmccready) — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 03:38:46 +0000

Holy crap you guys saved my day. The error was a non issue on linux mint for “fdisk -e /dev/disk1″ as mint is an EFI install. However, the “f 1″ is why unetbootin was not working on my pc machine where the usb was created on my mac.

By: 4help

4help — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 22:51:48 +0000

@Don
1. Download backtrack 5 R3 iso
2. Open terminal
3. Execute diskutil list
Output should be something like: diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.3 GB disk0
1: EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1
2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 419.0 GB disk0s2
3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3
/dev/disk1
#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
0: FDisk_partition_scheme *7.8 GB disk1
1: DOS_FAT_32 U 7.8 GB disk1s1

4. Identify your USB, mine is /dev/disk1
5. Execute sudo diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1
6. Execute sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk1 , then f 1, then write, then exit.
7. Sudo diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1
8. Download syslinux from http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/boot/syslinux/syslinux-5.00.zip and unzip it by double clicking.
9. Navigate to the syslinux/mbr folder using terminal:
cd /Users/yourusername/Downloads/syslinux-5/mbr
10. sudo dd conv=notrunc bs=440 count=1 if=mbr.bin of=/dev/disk1
11. Open Unetbootin and enter your password, select “disk image”, click on the three dots, select the previously downloaded backtrack 5 R3 .iso and click open.
12. Enter the amount of persistence space that you want for your usb. The persistence will be used to store changes after reboot. You can make it as large as you like because unetbootin will round it down to fit on your usb.
13. Select your usb drive in the box, probably /dev/disk1s1 and click ok.
14. Wait for unetbootin to finish. It might take a long time and seem like it’s frozen but it’s not.
15. Exit unetbootin and shutdown your mac.
16. Power on your mac and as soon as the screen turns white, start holding the alt/option key.
17. Choose your usb. (A yellow usb or hard drive icon on the right) There might be two, if one doesn’t work, try the other.

This works fine as long as your mac doesn’t have usb 3.
Remember to replace /dev/disk1 with the number you get but make sure it’s not disk0.

By: alecm

alecm — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 17:13:00 +0000

Did you read the bit that said: Download syslinux ?

See the original post at http://perpetual-notion.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/unetbootin-on-mac-os-x.html for details.

By: Popo

Popo — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 17:03:01 +0000

dd conv=notrunc bs=440 count=1 if=mbr.bin of=/dev/rdisk1s1

dd: mbr.bin: No such file or directory

please hep

By: Don

Don — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 01:13:54 +0000

Kindly write out instructions to create Backtrack 5 R3 a bootable usb for Mac OS. I will appreciate it

By: OHB

OHB — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 00:04:47 +0000

@XaRuS
First you must cd to the mgr directory: Downloads/syslinux-5/mbr
Then execute:
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk1
Then:
sudo fdisk -e /dev/rdisk1
Type your password.
fdisk: 1> f 1
fdisk:*1> write
fdisk: 1> exit
dd conv=notrunc bs=440 count=1 if=mbr.bin of=/dev/rdisk1