How to Make a Bootable USB Drive using Rufus

Not infrequently, there are times when we are faced with problem that make us need to boot the computer using USB flash drive (flashdisk). For example, when we have to re-install Windows, Linux, BIOS updates, password recovery or simply to check and analyze the operating systems installed. One of the free and portable software that we can use is Rufus.

Rufus is a small and lightweight utility that can be used to format and create a bootable USB flash drive (flash, memory stick, etc.). Using Rufus we can do various things, such as:

• Installing the operating system from USB of either Windows or Linux
• Do some work with hardware such as hard drives that do not have any operating system
• To flash the BIOS or to do firmware updates from DOS
• Running the software that requires low-level access, such as low level format

SOME ADVANTAGES OF RUFUS

Despite its small file size, Rufus has several advantages, including:

• The process of creating a bootable USB is relatively faster
• There are some options including FreeDOS, so it is useful for upgrading the BIOS or to do other DOS utility
• The size is very small (only 146 KB without FreeDOS and 407 KB with FreeDOS) and it is portable (no need to install)
• There is a feature to check any presence of "bad blocks"
• Can be used to create a bootable USB of operating systems (Windows and Linux) as well as the recovery utility. See the description below for a complete list.

Various systems are supported by Rufus, some of them: Arch Linux, Archbang, CentOS, Damn Small Linux, Fedora, FreeDOS, Gentoo, gNewSense, Hiren's Boot CD, Knoppix, Kubuntu, NT Password Registry Editor, OpenSUSE, Slackware, Tails, Ubuntu, Ultimate boot CD, Windows 7, Windows 8 Developer Preview, Windows Vista, and others.

HOW TO USE RUFUS

To use of this software is very easy, after the USB is attached, run Rufus. It will appear as it does when we are going to format in Windows, with some additional features, such as USB Flash drives information, file system, cluster size options, Create a new label, check the presence of bad blocks, quick format, adding optional label and icon, as well as an ISO file selection.

When creating a bootable USB, there is option to create a bootable MS-DOS, FreeDOS, or from an ISO image file. Where do we get the ISO file? To get an ISO file that contains the operating system, we can make it from a windows installation CD / DVD, Linux or any other by using software such as CD Burner XP.

After the setting selecting is finished, just click the Start button to begin creating a bootable USB flash drive and wait until the process is complete.

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