Rufus: How to Create a Bootable USB Stick

Who else and who less at some time has heard of bootable or bootable USB sticks. If you are one of those who likes to mess with your computer or are trying to solve a problem with your computer because it does not start, then surely you are already more familiar with these things. Basically they are units that by themselves can run automatically even if we do not have any operating system installed, so they are very useful for installing an operating system. Now, to create such a unit, we are going to have to use some software like Rufus . Next, we are going to show what Rufus is, how we can download and install the tool and how to create a bootable USB drive step by step.

Although it may seem to us that it has a pet name, the truth is that it is the tool par excellence of all those who want to create a boot unit for the installation of an operating system. Not only for its smooth operation and simplicity when using it, but also because it is a software that we can get completely free of charge.

What is Rufus?

If we look back on the life of this tool, we have to go back to the end of 2011 to talk about its birth. Specifically, it was in December of that same year when the first official version of Rufus was released.

A tool that originally emerged to replace the HP USB disk storage format tool for Windows, which was mainly used to create bootable USB flash drives for DOS. In this way, initially it only offered support for MS-DOS but little by little it was adding support for ISO images, UEFI boot, etc.

rufus-bootable-stick

Today, Rufus supports a variety of boot image files, for Linux distributions, Windows installation, plain disk images and even allows the installation of MS-DOS or FreeDOS on a flash drive. It also allows you to format flash drives in different file formats such as FAT, FAT32, NTFS, exFAT, etc.

In addition, it is available in two versions, one installable and one portable , that is, we can take it in any USB memory to run it on different computers without installation. That without having to have a large capacity memory, since the latest version of Rufus in both installable and portable version occupies only 1.1MB.

In short, it is a software or utility that allows us to format and create bootable USB media in special cases in which we have to create USB installation media from bootable ISOs of any operating system, boot a computer that does not have installed no system, update the firmware or BIOS of a computer from DOS or we have the need to run a low level tool.

How to download and install Rufus

As we have already indicated, Rufus is available in two versions, one installable and one portable. In this case, to start using the portable version, all we have to do is download it and save it on a flash drive, for example, and we will have it ready to be able to run it from there without problems.

Now, if what we want is to download and install the tool on our computer, then the first thing we have to do is go to the official Rufus website and proceed with the download of the latest stable version. This will save us an .exe file on our disk on which we must double click once the download is finished.

Rufus

Next we will be asked to accept the notice that will appear from the user account control and if we want Rufus to be updated automatically when there are new versions of the tool. This done, in a few moments the Rufus window will appear on our desktop.

As we have been able to verify, the download and installation of Rufus cannot be easier, since it is a matter of moments and does not require complicated configurations or heavy installation processes.

How to use the tool step by step

Once we have the Rufus interface open on our desktop, the first thing we have to do is connect the USB memory that we are going to use and download the ISO image of the system for which we want to create the executable USB. Therefore, if we have not already done so, we will have to proceed previously to download the ISO in question and save the image file to our disk.

From the Microsoft website it is possible to download the Windows 10 ISO easily, while for Linux distributions we can find them on the official websites of each of them. Next, we must verify that Rufus recognizes our connected USB memory and appears in the Device drop-down.

In this case, we select it and we can now display the list of Boot Choice options to select the option Disk or ISO image , which is the one that interests us in this case although we will also see that we can choose between installing FreeDOS or a non-self-executing image.

Rufus

Once this is done, click on the SELECT button and this will open a modal window in which we have to go to the path where we have saved the ISO image file and that we will use to create the bootable USB.

Now we have the USB device that we are going to convert into a boot drive and the image of the system that we are going to use. This is enough for now, but if we have some knowledge, we can deploy the advanced properties to detect external USB hard drives, make the USB compatible with old BIOS versions or use Rufos MBR with BIOS ID. However, if we do not know very well what we are doing with each of these options, it is best that we do not display these options or change anything as set by default.

Next, we will have to choose the formatting options, that is, the file system that we want to give to our USB memory before starting the installation of the system image. If we display the options under the File System field, we can choose the Windows NTFS format or leave FAT32 which is the one that will be set by default.

Rufus

Next to the file system we find the Cluster size field, which allows us to change the size of the cluster at the time of formatting. Here it is again advisable to leave the default values if we do not know what we are doing.

With all this ready, the only thing we have left for Rufus to proceed to create the bootable USB with the indicated system is to click on the START button. Automatically the process of creating the boot unit will begin, being able to see its progress with the green bar that appears on the Rufus window itself and once finished, we can already disconnect the USB and we will have it ready to use it.