Make sure you have backed up important data before you proceed. All content that is on it is lost therefore.

Note: The selected device will be formatted during the process. If you select a Windows installation ISO for instance, you may get the option to create a standard Windows installation disk, or setup Windows to Go. Rufus may display additional options if it identifies the image correctly.

Most are fine however for most use cases, but you can change the volume label for instance, enable disk check to check for bad blocks on the USB drive, or disable quick format.Īdvanced options let you change the cluster size and file system, and the partition scheme.

You may then modify other settings to your liking. Click on the browse button next to the option, and use the local file browser to pick an ISO stored on it. You need to specify an ISO image for that. The most important one is the 'create a bootable disk using' option under format options in the lower half of the interface. It displays all of its options directly, making it easy to configure them to your liking. Launch the program after download and archive extraction. You can use it to format USB drives without making them bootable at all. Rufus is one of the easier programs for the job. Update 2: Rufus 3.5 introduces support for downloading Windows ISO images directly from within the program's interface. The new version changes the interface slightly, adds some new features and improvements, and drops Windows XP and Vista support. There are plenty of programs for the job Microsoft's own Windows Media Creation Tool supports it, and so do tools like Linux Live USB Creator, LiLi, XBOOT, Windows Bootable Image Creator, and RMPrepUSB. It appears that I have never reviewed Rufus before here on Ghacks, even though I mentioned it a couple of times in the past when it came to the creation of bootable USB media.īootable USB media is quite common these days, as more and more PCs and laptops seem to ship without optical drive.

Rufus software