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USB Installation Media Creation

Introduction

If you are unsure how to write an ISO to a USB flash drive, this guide will show you how to do this using Rufus. Many modern systems do not include an internal optical drive and require a USB drive or optical drive to boot operating system installation media.

As many laptops and desktops begin to not ship with an internal DVD drive, an external drive is now required if it cannot be added on or additional hardware is required. Using a USB drive is a practical workaround for these systems and allows for future tweaks (Ex: including drivers).

Unless your application REQUIRES a DVD, it is generally better to get a 16GB USB flash drive and avoid all of the hassles that come with using optical media since it is no longer convenient on optical drive-less laptops and now requires another purchase.

Read me: Important note about legacy operating systems.

Important: OSes without USB boot support are not guaranteed to work. While the risk of a problem is low, results outside of Linux and modern Windows/MacOS releases are NOT GUARANTEED.

This guide was originally written just for Linux. However, it can be used with any operating system that supports USB boot and is not tied to one specific operating system in practice. Since these operating systems may create unforeseen issues, you are on your own.

Guide notes

  • If you have a used USB drive, format it outside of Rufus before use.
  • CD/DVD creation is not covered. If required, refer to Revision 1.
  • This guide is on Revision 3. If you are using Rufus 2.x, refer to Revision 2.

What you need

  1. USB Installation Media Creation, Download Rufus: step 1, image 1 of 2 USB Installation Media Creation, Download Rufus: step 1, image 2 of 2

    • A new USB drive is recommended. If you reuse a spare drive, format it before use.

    • To write the ISO to the drive, download Rufus. Place this somewhere it is easily found.

  2. USB Installation Media Creation, Download your ISO: step 2, image 1 of 3 USB Installation Media Creation, Download your ISO: step 2, image 2 of 3 USB Installation Media Creation, Download your ISO: step 2, image 3 of 3

    • Torrent clients require additional configuration not covered in this guide.

    • After downloading Rufus, download the ISO being written to the drive.

  4. USB Installation Media Creation, Locate the ISO: step 3, image 1 of 2 USB Installation Media Creation, Locate the ISO: step 3, image 2 of 2

    • Default download location: Windows 7/8.x/10: Downloads

    • Plug the USB drive in.

    • Locate the downloaded ISO. This is typically in the default download location.

  5. USB Installation Media Creation, Writing the ISO file: step 4, image 1 of 3 USB Installation Media Creation, Writing the ISO file: step 4, image 2 of 3 USB Installation Media Creation, Writing the ISO file: step 4, image 3 of 3

    • This procedure will erase your USB drive!

    • If you are having problems with legacy hardware, select Add fixes for older BIOSes.

    • Open Rufus and click SELECT. Find the ISO and click Open.

    • Rufus will ask you to choose ISO or DD mode. If unsure, choose ISO mode.

    • After configuring the writing process, click start. Click OK on the formatting warning.

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