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Rufus – Create bootable USB drives the easy way from any ISO image

  • venjaseppecalrai
  • Aug 20, 2023
  • 4 min read


If you create a DOS bootable drive and use a non-US keyboard, Rufus will attempt to select a keyboard layout according to the locale of your system. In that case, FreeDOS, which is the default selection, is recommended over MS-DOS, as it supports more keyboard layouts.




Rufus – Create bootable USB drives the easy way




There are two main ways you can create a bootable CD/DVD or USB for Windows 11. The first method is similar to using the Windows Media Creation Tool. Download the Windows Media Creation Tool, and follow the steps mentioned in the previous section.


You can also use a tool like Rufus to create a bootable USB drive (read dedicated section below) using the downloaded Windows 11 ISO. However, you will need to have a USB with atleast 6GB of storage to create a bootable drive.


Creating a Windows installation bootable USB drive is incredibly easy thanks to an application called Rufus. Assuming you have your Windows ISO (or Linux/other bootable ISO) ready, the whole process should take no more than 5 minutes.


USB drives are popular as portable storage options. But, do you know that it can be used as a bootable device as well? There might be scenarios where your computer might not boot. It might stick on the BIOS screen, or you might get bluescreen. In these scenarios, a bootable USB can be a real savior. USBs are meant for a much more elevated usage level rather than using it for simple uses like storing movies, documents, or music files. In this article, we will unlock the most preserved feature of a USB drive, making it bootable.


Currently, a USB bootable disk is used as a rescue disk when the operating system is not booting due to OS corruption or even drive failure. It is not limited to that, and Windows USB bootable drives are also used as the portable operating system. It means users can carry their own windows operating system on a USB drive, plugging it into any computer.


Rufus (Mostly a reliable USB formatting utility ) is a free utility for creating USB bootable drives and Live USBs using an ISO file. It's a very lightweight software with only 5 MB. Some of the key functionalities of Rufus are:


One of the great alternatives to Rufus is EaseUS OS2Go, which also creates bootable installations in portable USB Windows. With bootable USB created by EaseUS OS2Go, your Windows desktop will be on the USB drive. You can connect the USB drive to any computer and boot your portable Windows, just like accessing an actual desktop. You can even access native Windows features along with the underlying Windows system. This is a much-required option, and if you can't access your computer remotely due to limitations, you can definitely carry your portable USB Windows.


Step 4. Then EaseUS OS2Go will start to create the portable USB drive. It usually takes a while depending on your OS and Network condition. When the progress reaches 100%, the USB drive should be bootable now.


Both Rufus and EaseUS OS2Go are used for creating bootable USB drives, but with a difference. The bootable USB created by Rufus is ISO mounted, which can be used for fresh OS installation or repairing an existing corrupted operating system. Thus, it's one of the best options as rescue disk or recovery disk. On the other hand, EaseUS OS2Go creates a bootable disk to use as portable USB Windows everywhere you go on any device.


Different applications can create a bootable disk. Most of these applications are platform-dependent, and you can create bootable disks only for the platform it supports. Most of these are free applications. It includes tools like Rufus, Etcher, Universal USB Installer, and RMPrep USB, which are dominantly used for creating Windows bootable USB disks. Rufus and Universal USB Installer can be used for both Windows and Linux. In contrast, another popular tool, USB Startup Disk Creator, is used for creating Linux USB bootable disks. Similarly, EaseUS OS2Go is used for creating any Windows bootable USB drive for booting Windows on any PC or Mac.


Rufus (The Reliable USB Formatting Utility, with Source[5]) is a free and open-source portable application for Microsoft Windows that can be used to format and create bootable USB flash drives or Live USBs.


Rufus supports a variety of bootable .iso files, including various Linux distributions and Windows installation .iso files, as well as raw disk image files (including compressed ones). If needed, it will install a bootloader such as SYSLINUX or GRUB onto the flash drive to render it bootable.[9] It also allows the installation of MS-DOS or FreeDOS onto a flash drive as well as the creation of Windows To Go bootable media.[10] It supports formatting flash drives using FAT, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT, UDF and ReFS filesystems.[11]


My question is if I proceed with option 1 will it create any compatibility issues?I have 2 separate drives, one dedicated to Linux-Ubuntu and the other Windows.Can the same UEFI BIOS manage 2 different OS's, drives with different partitioning schemes, ie will I have any issues switching between boot drives? 2ff7e9595c


 
 
 

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