According to Installation guide | Qubes OS , it appears that there is no way for a Windows user to create a USB stick that supports media checking before installation. That sure seems like a big downside.
As a former/current Windows user, I can see the benefit for Windows users to be able to get/purchase a USB stick properly created with the media checking (i.e. created via dd on linux). The issue would be that they would need some way to validate that the usb stick wasn’t tampered with. Is there any way to validate the contents against the published hashes?
Relate issue:
opened 11:32PM - 06 Jun 16 UTC
T: enhancement
help wanted
C: installer
P: major
r3.2-dom0-stable
From the developer of Rufus:
> By the way, since that extra directory seems to … throw off your disc validation, which is probably why people did report that images created with dd tools (not just Rufus) on Windows "failed", whereas it was just the disc validation being thrown off, I would suggest that you relax your validation check for this specific Windows behaviour on the ESP, else the only solution you'll be able to advise for Windows people to create Qubes bootable media that pass the check will be to use something else than Windows, so that the ESP is not automatically re-mounted in an OS that is designed to create an extra directory there.
[Full message](https://www.reddit.com/r/Qubes/comments/4mpfkb/installing_qubes_with_rufus_problem_to_usb_stick/d3y4zct)
I don’t think it’s possible on Windows:
opened 12:13PM - 23 Jun 18 UTC
closed 12:47PM - 23 Jun 18 UTC
Checklist
---------
- [x] I looked at https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/wi… ki/FAQ to see if my question has already been answered.
- [x] I performed a search in the issue tracker for similar issues using keywords relevant to my problem, such as the error message I got from the log.
- [ ] I clicked the "Log" button in Rufus (last small blue button before _START_) and copy/pasted the log into the line that says `<FULL LOG>` below.
- [ ] The log I am copying is the FULL log, starting with the line `Rufus version: x.y.z` - I have NOT removed any part of it.
Additionally (if applicable):
- [ ] I ran a bad blocks check, by clicking _Show advanced format options_ then _Check device for bad blocks_, and confirmed that my USB is not defective.
- [ ] I also tried one or more of the following:
- [ ] Using a different USB drive.
- [ ] Plugging the USB into a different port.
- [ ] Running Rufus on a different computer.
- [ ] If using an image, I clicked on the `(✓)` button to compute the MD5, SHA1 and SHA256 checksums, which are therefore present in the log I copied. I confirmed, by performing an internet search, that these values match the ones from the official image.
i would like an option for rufus to read back and verify all the written data, after completion, to make sure that all data is intact on the target device after writing. i realize that will take (much?) more time, and i'm not saying this option should be enabled by default, but it would be nice to have such an option nonetheless.
(and finally, may i remove the checklist stuff? it really isn't applicable to this feature request)