Rufus allows you to select the type of format (NTFS, FAT32, FAT, exFAT). The menus here in Rufus are similar to those which may be found in Microsoft's own Windows formatting wizard. It's ideal for creating bootable USB drives. Rufus is a free and open-source tool for formatting USB disks so that they may be used to install alternative operating systems or run a live distribution of Linux. Rufus is an easy-to-use and configurable tool which quickly creates bootable USB drives from ISO images.Bootable USB creation utility which supports ISO image files for a number of new and old BIOS and operating systems including Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Android and others. We created a bootable USB version of the Windows 8 Professional image, for instance, and found the program was around 25% faster than another popular boot drive creator, UNetbootin. And the program even includes some advanced format options which may help your drive be recognised on older PCs, although normally these shouldn't be necessary.Īnd if this is a task you need to carry out often, then you'll be pleased to hear that Rufus is reasonably speedy. There's now support for both UEFI and GPT boots. If you need more control, though, you're able to configure how the USB drive will be formatted (file system, cluster size and so on).

Getting started could be as simple as browsing to your ISO image and clicking the 'Start' button: the program will then walk you through everything else it needs to know. It'll automatically detect your USB drive, for instance, so you may not have to select that. Rufus doesn't require any installation, and is generally very straightforward to set up. USB keys are also easier to carry around, less likely to be damaged, and faster, which may be important if you need to use the disc often. This won't help you much if your target system doesn't have an optical drive, though. Of course if you have an ISO image then you could simply burn this to a CD or DVD. Rufus is a simple utility which makes it easy to build bootable USB drives from ISO images.

Rufus software download