Comment 76 for bug 1325801

I've tried 'Disks' alias gnome-disks in Lubuntu 14.04.1 and Vivid.

I could make it create an iso file from a partition, but not from the whole drive. Trying from the whole drive gave me an error both running as a regular user and with sudo. (I tested with a Tiny Core iso file, which is small so it was fast.)

When I restored from the image of the partition I got a working boot drive. (I cloned the Ubuntu mini.iso in between so that the pendrive was changed.) I think this is not logical (and not corresponding to how dd is used). Restoring a partition should not restore the whole drive, but I guess it is intended to work this way.

I could make it flash, clone alias 'restore' a boot USB drive from another iso file (I tested with the Ubuntu mini.iso (because it is small
so it was fast).

-o-

Conclusion:

I'm glad that I learned about this feature of 'Disks'. It is certainly possible to use in order to make a USB boot drive. There is an extra 'final warning window', so it should be safe enough to use. And best of all, it offers a working solution, when the Startup Disk Creator suffers from this really bad bug (# 1325801) plus several minor bugs.

-o-

But of course, I still think that my mkusb is better ;-)

One important extra feature of mkusb is the ability to use general compressed image files (an iso file often contains the compressed container squashfs, but is not itself compressed). Another extra feature of mkusb is the ability to check if the content of the iso file matches that of the pendrive, and suggest updating for iso-testing. And there are several informative windows including a final warning with red background.