A Windows Only Method For Creating A Live Kali USB With Persistence

[KizarnyTizeeth]

Hi all,

I had a tremendous difficulty attempting to use a Kali virtual machine to install Kali to a usb 3.0 flash drive. It just wouldn't work for me. So I read up on creating live USB's with persistence and cobbled this method together. It may work for you if all else fails.

You will need:

• USB Flash Drive of at least 8gb (I used a Lexar 16 gb USB 3.0 connected to a USB 2.0 port)
• A windows PC (I used Win 7, Service Pack One)
• MiniTool Partition Wizard
• DiskPart
• Win32 Disk Imager
• Kali Image v 1.0.7 or greater (I used kali-linux-1.0.9a-amd64.iso)

Step One--Run diskpart from windows (Only necessary if multiple partitions already exist)

• Select Start → run → diskpart

From diskpart prompt, use capacity to determine the number of your USB drive ‘x’

list disk

Select your USB drive

select disk x

Effectively remove all data

clean

And finally, create the primary partition

create partition primary

Step 2--Quick format your USB drive FAT32 from My Computer


Step 3--Render Kali Image on to USB Drive

Start-->run>win32diskimager

• Select Kali Image Path
• Select USB drive to be written letter
• Select write

Step 4--Test your Kali Live USB

• Select Live USB during boot

Step 5--Return to Windows, open MiniTool Partition Wizard

• Select Kali Imaged USB drive from the GUI
• Select the unallocated, ie rightmost, partition. (Note size, you’ll need it next step)
• Select a file format of either ext2 or ext4
• Label/Name the partition ‘persistence’
• Apply changes (top left of GUI)

Step 6--Boot into Kali Live USB again

Open Terminal

 lsblk

Match partition size to available space, referenced as sdbx (sbd5 for
mine)

mkdir -p /mnt/my_usb
mount /dev/sdbx /mnt/my_usb
echo "/ union" > /mnt/my_usb/persistence.conf
umount /dev/sdbx

Step 7--Verify that persistence.conf has been written to the ‘persistence’ partition

Step 8--Boot with Live USB Persistence, celebrate

Note: I have tried this three times on two different flash drives and its worked 2/3. If it fails for you once try switching ext2 with ext4. I used one drive extensively and it worked flawlessly

This post has been edited to correct an error. Modifications have been submitted in the color red.