Rufus, or Reliable USB Formatting Utility (with Source), is a small and fast utility that helps create bootable external drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks etc. The program is ideal for use with installation media from ISOs (Windows, Linux etc.) for working on a system without an OS, flashing device BIOS or other firmware, or you want to run a low-level system utility.
Functional on 64-bit systems.
Rufus Portable also available.
Category: | |
Runs on: | Win7 / Win8 / Win10 / Win11 |
Writes settings to: | Application folder |
Dependencies: | Administrator rights |
Unicode support: | Yes |
License: | GNU GPLv3 |
How to extract: | Download the "Portable" rufus-X.Xp.exe to a folder of your choice and launch. |
What's new? | See: https://github.com/pbatard/rufus/releases |
Latest comments |
PapaiMark
on 2022-07-02 20:15
Use v 2.x on machines older than 2011 (core, core2, quad) to make bootable usb.
Midas
on 2022-07-10 12:17
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14›
@PapaiMark: as there is both a changelog link and a dedicated forum thread, changes info like what you posted are better suited for the later, thus avoiding drowning any user comments in the steady stream of updates. |
Universal USB Installer creates a "Live", or bootable Linux distribution without installation, on an external USB drive. A long list of distributions are available organized by the major groups including Ubuntu, Redhat and SuSE, as well as specialized distros for system management, rescue, security and more.
Category: | |
Runs on: | Vista / Win7 / Win8 / Win10 / Wine |
Writes settings to: | None |
Stealth: ? | Yes |
License: | Freeware/Open Source |
How to extract: | Download the EXE to a folder of your choice. Launch Universal-USB-Installer-X.X.X.X.exe. |
Similar/alternative apps: | YUMI (Your Universal Multiboot Installer) |
What's new? | See: https://www.pendrivelinux.com/universal-usb-installer-easy-as-1-2-3/#Changelog |
Latest comments |
webfork
on 2020-10-24 19:44
@JudyGarland: Have you tested on WinXP? I ask because sometimes we list "system requirements / runs on" rather than "supported". For example, a lot of tools here on the site were built before it came out, but we'll list Win10 if it's functional in testing.
JudyGarland
on 2020-11-01 11:39
@webfork: I copy and paste from 'basic (system) requirements' section:
webfork
on 2020-11-03 23:24
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10›
@JudyGarland: thanks for the additional detail. As usual, billon sorted it out. |
UNetbootin allows you to create a bootable operating system on a USB drive without burning a CD. Can use regular ISO files or download from any of the major Linux and FreeBSD distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, NetBSD, etc.) as well as bootable system utilities for repair, recovery, testing and more.
Also available for Mac and Linux.
Category: | |
Runs on: | Vista / Win7 / Win8 / Win10 |
Writes settings to: | None |
Stealth: ? | Yes |
Unicode support: | Yes |
License: | GNU GPLv2 |
How to extract: | Download unetbootin-windows-XXX.exe to a folder of your choice and launch. |
Similar/alternative apps: | Universal USB Installer, Rufus |
What's new? | Code changes at https://github.com/unetbootin/unetbootin/commits/master. |
Latest comments |
h3kt0r
on 2020-11-15 04:00
Latest version won't launch under windows XP.
mukhi
on 2021-10-30 09:04
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15›
v702 failed to create a bootable USB drive with the official Ubuntu 20.04 ISO. Rufus succeeded though. |
YUMI (Your Universal Multiboot Installer) can be used to create a multi-boot USB flash drive containing multiple operating systems, antivirus utilities, disc cloning, diagnostic tools and more. Aside from a few distributions, all files are stored within the Multiboot folder, making for a nicely organized Multiboot Drive that can still be used for other storage purposes. YUMI uses syslinux to boot extracted distributions stored on the USB device and reverts to using grub to Boot Multiple ISO files from USB, if necessary.
YUMI works much like Universal USB Installer, except it can be used to install more than one distribution to run from your USB. Distributions can also be uninstalled.
Category: | |
Runs on: | Vista / Win7 / Win8 / Win10 / Wine |
Writes settings to: | None |
Stealth: ? | Yes |
License: | GNU GPL |
How to extract: | Download YUMI-X.X.X.X.exe to a folder of your choice and launch. |
Similar/alternative apps: | Universal USB Installer |
What's new? |
|
Latest comments |
Checker
on 2015-04-17 18:53
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8›
I came ... I saw ... I updated ;) |
ISO2Disc is a powerful and lightweight software designed to create a bootable CD/DVD or USB flash drive from any bootable image. This includes Windows Setup ISO, Linux, Ubuntu, Windows PE, BartPE, or any customized boot image. The program also allows the creation of a "Windows To Go" USB drive from Windows 8/8.1 ISO image.
Category: | |
Runs on: | WinXP / Vista / Win7 / Win8 / Win10 |
Writes settings to: | Application folder |
Dependencies: | Administrator rights |
Stealth: ? | Yes |
License: | Freeware |
How to extract: |
|
Latest comments |
hamasaki
on 2019-09-12 20:01
Add comment
3›
What software do you guys use to extract? Universal Extractor, 7Zip, InnoExtractor and PeaExtractor all fail. |
imageUSB writes exact bit-level image files to multiple flash drives. The program preserves all unused and slack space during the cloning process, including the Master Boot Record (MBR) and can perform flawless mass duplications of all UFD images, including bootable UFDs.
The program can also "zero" a USB drive, which is an efficient wipes to erase data with less harm to overall drive life. In addition, imageUSB has the ability to reformat even hard to format drives and reclaim any disk space that may be lost previously.
Category: | |
Runs on: | Vista / Win7 / Win8 / Win10 |
Writes settings to: | None |
Unicode support: | Yes |
License: | Freeware |
How to extract: | Download the ZIP package and extract to a folder of your choice. Launch imageUSB.exe. |
Similar/alternative apps: | UNetbootin |
What's new? |
|
Linux Live USB Creator allows you to create a bootable drive with any of a long list of distributions. The program is faster than similar tools and can use almost any bootable ISO (excluding Windows XP or Mac OS X). Additionally, the program supports the Linux "Persistence" feature, which works like a Live distribution while saving your data and settings. Persistence enables you to keep your settings between sessions, while reduces the wear on USB flash media by keeping writes to a minimum.
Note:
Category: | |
Runs on: | WinXP / Vista / Win7 / Win8 |
Writes settings to: | Application folder |
Dependencies: | Administrator rights |
License: | GPL |
How to extract: | Download the ZIP package and extract to a folder of your choice. Launch LiLi USB Creator.exe. |
Similar/alternative apps: | Unetbootin |
What's new? |
New Linux supported:
|
Latest comments |
erdraug
on 2011-05-01 17:02
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10›
v2.7 is out |
Win32 Disk Imager is a simple disk imaging utility to write IMG files to SD and USB cards and allow booting from these devices. Just point to the IMG file and then select the removable device to write to.
Note that this utility is intended for flash media and cannot burn CD-ROMs.
Note: We recommend reading information available on the author's website before use. Use care with imaging tools like this one.
Category: | |
Runs on: | WinXP / Vista / Win7 / Win8 / Win10 |
Writes settings to: | None |
License: | Freeware |
How to extract: |
Download the ZIP package and extract to a folder of your choice. Launch Win32DiskImager.exe. Optionally, delete unnecessary translations. |
What's new? |
See: https://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager/files/ |
Latest comments |
joby_toss
on 2013-05-03 06:35
Check the link Midas pointed above: https://answers.launchpad.net/win32-image-writer/+question/74814
Midas
on 2013-05-03 09:50
Also, Bootice provides a quick way to cure pendrive woes:
siegfried
on 2017-05-20 15:40
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9›
It's not Stealth 'cause It writes to registry: |
MultiBootUSB can put one or more bootable tools into a single USB drive, including any of a variety of Linux, FreeBSD and other operating systems.
The program uses Syslinux for installing MBR and 7-Zip for extracting ISO images. It also uses a Windows version of CPIO program for installing certain distros. USB/ISO can be tested without reboot via a built-in QEMU program.
Category: | |
Runs on: | WinXP / Vista / Win7 / Win8 / Win10 |
Writes settings to: | None |
Unicode support: | Yes |
License: | GNU GPLv2 |
How to extract: | Download the installer and extract to a folder of your choice. Launch MultiBootUSB.exe. |
What's new? |
See: https://github.com/mbusb/multibootusb/releases |
Latest comments |
AndTheWolf
on 2015-05-08 17:14
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4›
Now at 7.5.0 (the link here, http://softlayer-dal.dl.sourceforge.net/project/multibootusb/7.5.0/Windows/multibootusb-7.5.0.exe is correct, but the description still shows 7.3.0) |
ISO to USB is a small software that can burn the ISO image file directly to the USB drives, these USB drives include USB flash drives, memory sticks and other USB storage devices, it also supports to create a bootable USB disk with Windows operating systems.
Category: | |
Runs on: | WinXP / Vista / Win7 / Win8 / Win10 |
Writes settings to: | None |
Dependencies: | Administrator rights |
Stealth: ? | Yes |
License: | Freeware |
How to extract: |
|
Similar/alternative apps: | UNetbootin, Rufus |
Latest comments |
Midas
on 2014-07-28 21:16
Looks like you need to update your 'innounp.exe' inside Universal Extractor folder...
FuD
on 2021-03-14 06:15
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4›
This software is terrible. It is taking over 5 hours to format a 64 gig thumb drive and burn a 4 gig ISO. I can copy data to and from this usb 2.0 drive exponentially faster than this PoS software is taking to burn & format same damned data. |