Rufus

Rufus stands for Reliable USB Formatting Utility. It is a free and open-source tool used to format and create bootable USB flash drives or Live USBs using ISO files. It is available only for Windows platforms. But, it can be used to install or run Windows, Linux, DOS operating systems. It is lightweight software (Approximately 5 MB).

It is useful in the following cases:

To create a USB installation media from an ISO file.
To install an OS on a system that does not have any operating system.
To flash a BIOS
To run a low-level OS

It is a lightweight tool having extraordinary features and fast performance. It is faster than its competitor tools such as UNetbootin, Universal; It is also faster than Linux bootable USB from ISOs.

In this section, we will see how to download and install Rufus. Further, we will see how to create a bootable USB drive using Rufus.

Before diving into the topic, let’s understand its system requirements & features:

System Requirements

To install Rufus, we are required a system that has Windows 7 (32 bit or 64bit ) or later. Once it is downloaded and installed, it is ready to use.

Features of Rufus

Some useful features of Rufus are as following:

Free & Open-source
Portable
Create DOS bootable USB sticks
Create BIOS or UEFI bootable drives
Create Windows to Go drives
Check USB media for corrupted blocks.
Perform MD5, SHA-1 and SHA-256 checksums

How to Download & Install Rufus

Rufus provides the easiest way to make a USB drive bootable. No installation is needed to use the Rufus. Just download the Rufus and run the executable file.

To download the Rufus, visit https://rufus.ie/, scroll the page and find the download link:

Rufus

Click on the Rufus download link; it will start downloading the executable file.

Rufus

After successful download, run the executable file. It will open the Rufus. We can use it now. The user interface of Rufus will look as follows:

Rufus

The first field contains the device (external media) that we want to make bootable. It will be automatically detected by the Rufus.

The second field contains the ISO file. It will not be detected automatically. We have to browse the folder where we have stored the ISO file by clicking on the Select option. Let’s understand how to create a bootable device.

How to Create Bootable USB Drive Using Rufus

Creating a bootable drive using Rufus is a straight forward process. Follow the below steps to create a bootable drive.

Step1: Download an ISO file

The first step is to download the ISO file. We have to download an iso file to install it on our machine. For Ubuntu, visit https://ubuntu.com/ to download the Ubuntu ISO file. We may copy the ISO file from other resources if we have.

Step2: Insert USB

Insert a USB drive that we want to make bootable. It should be atleast 8GB of storage.

Step3: Run Rufus

Now, run Rufus executable file. It will open Rufus.

Rufus

It will automatically detect the device, but we have to select the ISO file from our system.

Step3: Select the ISO file

To select the file, click Select in the Boot Selection option, and select the file from the file system:

Rufus

Select the file and click Ok to continue.

Step4: Create Bootable

we are all set to create a bootable drive. After selecting the device and iso file, it will take some time and display the status Ready. However, many other options are available in Rufus; leave them to the default value.

Rufus