During a disaster-recovery drill, a systems administrator must create a bootable USB installer for the company's Linux distribution so that it can boot on both BIOS and UEFI servers. The ISO image, /home/sysadmin/distro.iso, has already been downloaded and verified. The 8 GB flash drive appears in the inventory as /dev/sdc and currently contains no partitions or file systems. The administrator wants to write the image in a way that preserves the ISO's partition table and bootloader so the firmware can recognize it immediately. Which single command accomplishes this goal?
The dd utility copies the entire disk image-including its partition table and bootloader-to the raw device, making the stick bootable. Writing to a partition (/dev/sdc1) excludes the MBR/GPT and bootloader. Using cp or mounting and copying files transfers only file contents and omits the disk structure needed by firmware.
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What is the purpose of the 'dd' command in Linux?
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Why is it important to use '/dev/sdc' instead of '/dev/sdc1' when creating a bootable USB with 'dd'?
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What does the 'bs=1M conv=fsync && sync' option in the 'dd' command do?