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      Prepare USB drive or stick for Live-Boot and Installation

      Instructions on how to prepare a usb drive or stick for Live Boot and Installation from common operating systems

      Whether you want to live boot or install NoTouch from a USB drive, be it a USB thumb drive/USB stick/etc or anything else, this is what you need to do.

      Contents

      Requirements and downloadable files

      To create the a bootable USB drive such as a USB pen drive or "USB stick" you'll need the following:

      • USB flash drive, which fits your size requirements (e.g. 8GB), in FAT/FAT32 format
      • The Stratodesk NoTouch OS All-In-One package (ZIP file). Download it from the Stratodesk web site.

      The actual installation is easy. Please follow the instructions that match your computer operating system below.

      Windows users might be fine with just extracting the ZIP file with "Extract All..." and then doubleclicking on PrepareUSBdrive.cmd and following the instructions. A longer explanation is given below.

      Important notes

      Our procedure does not delete anything from the USB drive!

      However - if you apply it subsequently on the same drive, e.g. for a newer software version, you need to delete the older NoTouch version manually to avoid confusing the system.

      Furthermore, when deleting something from USB drives, do not forget to clean the trash (deleted files) or else they will still clutter the drive invisibly and may be responsible for not having enough free space!

      Yes, it is possible to customize and pre-load your own configuration - please see here if you are interested in that: Configuration preload

      Procedure on computers running Microsoft Windows

      You can download the installation package from our support portal or you can submit your name and email address for a free trail on our website. Then you will receive a download link for a ZIP-file which contains the necessary tools and files. Download this package and use the Extract All ... function to extract it.

      USB-Install-ExtractAll

      This will create a new folder with the extracted files. Now it is time to prepare your USB pen drive (USB-stick) or basically any bootable USB storage medium to boot NoTouch OS. Make sure that your USB drive is formatted with FAT/FAT32 filesystem. With the USB stick attached to your computer open the new folder and run the command PrepareUSBdrive by double-clicking on it.

      USB-Install-StartUSBcreation

      When you are asked if you want to allow the program to make changes to your computer select Yes.

      USB-Install-AllowStart

      This will start a tool named UNetbootin to create a bootable USB stick. All the settings should be prefilled but make sure the correct USB stick is selected in case you have more than one attached. Then just hit Start and the bootable USB stick will be created.

      USB-Install-UNetBootinStart

      When the tool has finished quit it with Exit. Now the USB stick is ready to use.

      USB-Install-UNetBootinExit

      Procedure on computers running Mac OS X

      While Stratodesk does not officially support installation on Mac, we are happy to see that this is easily doable.

      1. Download and extract the All-In-One ZIP package to a temporary folder.
      2. Download and install the free UNetbootin software package (Mac version) from http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
      3. Run UNetbootin to flash the NoTouch OS ISO file - you'll find that in the folder you extracted the All-In-One package into - to the USB drive. Follow UNetbootin's directions and make sure you pick the right ISO and the right USB device.

      Unetbootin-Mac-NoTouchInstall

      Procedure on computers running Linux

      While Stratodesk does not officially support installation on Linux, we are happy to see that this is easily doable.

      1. Download and extract the All-In-One ZIP package to a temporary folder.
      2. Download and install the free UNetbootin software package (Linux version) from http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ - Installing software on Linux is depending on your distribution. Please follow the instructions in UNetbootin's manual and your Linux distribution's manual.
      3. Run UNetbootin to flash the NoTouch OS ISO file - you'll find that in the folder you extracted the All-In-One package into - to the USB drive. Follow UNetbootin's directions and make sure you pick the right ISO and the right USB device.

      Using the USB drive/Troubleshooting

      Make sure you set your target machine's boot order to boot from USB first. Usually this is done in the system BIOS, which is usually accessed by hitting the Del or F2 keys immediately after turning on the machine. Refer to your hardware or BIOS vendor's specific instructions.

      In some rare cases a system still might not boot from USB. Try these steps to solve this problem:

      • Try to choose a different BIOS boot option such as USB-HDD or even USB-ZIP
      • Use a different USB drive. The vast majority of USB sticks are fine but there are some out in the wild that refuse to be bootable; especially on older Thin Client hardware.

      Did the USB pen drive have enough space? Did you clean the trash can / recycle bin so that deleted files were really deleted?

      Did you use an earlier NoTouch version before on this drive? If so, did you really delete it before reapplying the procedure?

      Should you still not be able to get it running, why not try a different USB drive? Especially these USB sticks/pen drives are now available in masses in every office as they are frequently used as swag/advertising items so it should not be difficult to find another one.