Is it possible to take ANY ISO image file and make a boot USB key?

Question

I've done this countless times with Windows 7 installations: booted the image from a USB key and installed. No problem.

I want to do this with a FreeNAS 0.7.2 live CD, but I am having the hardest time. I have the ISO. I've done the following so far using Windows 7 x64 to try to make the USB drive:

1. When the Command Prompt opens, enter the following command:
DISKPART and hit enter.
LIST DISK and hit enter.
2. Once you enter the LIST DISK command, it will show the disk number of your USB drive. In the below image, my USB drive disk number is Disk 1.
3. In this step you need to enter all the below commands one by one and hit enter. As these commands are self explanatory, you can easily guess what these commands do.
SELECT DISK 1 (Replace DISK 1 with your disk number)
CLEAN
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
SELECT PARTITION 1
ACTIVE
FORMAT FS=FAT (NOTE should this be NTFS or FAT???)
(Format process may take few seconds)
ASSIGN
EXIT

I'm able to do all this with no problem. Then I take my ISO image of the LiveCD and extract it to my newly prepared USB stick. However when I try to boot from it, it tells me DISK BOOT FAILURE.

Am I missing something?

Answer 1

There is UnetBootin that will do it for you.

UNetbootin allows you to create bootable Live USB drives for Ubuntu, Fedora, and other Linux distributions without burning a CD. It runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. You can either let UNetbootin download one of the many distributions supported out-of-the-box for you, or supply your own Linux .iso file if you've already downloaded one or your preferred distribution isn't on the list.