Step by Step to Use Rufus to Create a Bootable USB Drive

A bootable USB drive (or “Live USB”) refers to any USB hardware device whose file
systems have been reformatted, enabling it to install an entire operating system. The
bootable USB drive folder can be viewed in a File Explorer window and contains various
setup files and preloaded commands. You can’t use a bootable USB to store normal
text, image, music or video files unless you reformat it.

1. Download Rufus if you haven’t already. Scroll down the page to where you can select
the latest updated links or any older versions. Along with a regular installer, Rufus also
comes in a portable variant. Download the portable version if you don’t want to install
Rufus on your system. In this case, we are downloading the portable version. After
downloading the .EXE file, install and open Rufus.

2.You will get an alert asking whether you would like to allow Rufus to check for
updates online. Click “Yes” to proceed.

3. Plug in the USB drive to instantly see it in the top drop-down menu in Rufus.
Once you see the drive, click on the “Select” button.
 4. In the Browse window menu, locate the folder where you stored your ISO file.
Select it and click on the “Open” button. In this case, as we wanted to create a
Linux Mint bootable USB drive, we are selecting the ISO.

Note: This tutorial assumes you already have the ISO file. If you don’t have the ISO file,
you can download it from the developer website. Also, make sure the USB drive you are
using is at least 8GB and that it has no important data in it.
 5. Optional: click on the little “Check” icon next to the “Boot Selection” drop-down
menu to compute and see the MD5, SHA1, and SHA256 checksums of the ISO
file. This is used to verify whether the ISO file was tampered with previously.

6. Wait a few seconds for the computation to be over.

Good to know: Facing the exasperating infinite reboot loop problem in Windows? We
show you how to fix it.

7. If no red flags show up, it means the operating system/software edition is safe to
use on your PC.
8. Going back to the main process, select “MBR” from the “Partition scheme” drop-
down menu and “BIOS or UEFI” from the “Target system” drop-down menu. If you
are trying to use this bootable USB drive on an old system, select the “Add fixes
for old BIOSes” checkbox under the “Advanced Drive Properties” section.

9. Optional: change the USB drive name using the “Volume Label” field. Additionally,
under “Advanced Format Options,” make sure the “Quick Format” checkbox is
selected. As the name implies, Quick Format formats the drive quickly by skipping
the check for bad sectors.
10. Click on the “Start” button

11.Depending on the ISO file, Rufus may prompt you to download additional files.
For instance, to create a bootable Linux Mint drive, Rufus prompts you to replace
a file named “vesamenu.c32” as shown here. Click on the “Yes” button, and Rufus
will take care of everything.

12.In the next prompt, select the recommended “Write in ISO image mode” option
and click on the “OK” button (if it shows on your screen.)
13.As soon as you start the process of formatting, you will get a warning that all data
on the device will be destroyed. It’s nothing to worry about, as you can recover
the data later, so click “OK.” If you wish to reuse the USB drive again for data
storage, follow the steps in this tutorial.

14.As soon as you click on the button, Rufus starts to create the bootable USB drive.
Depending on your USB drive, it can take a few seconds or minutes to complete
the creation process.
 15.Once done, you will not see a completion message but will hear a completion
sound, and the progress bar will turn fully green.

16.From the Windows 11 or Windows 10 File Explorer, verify whether a new bootable
drive was created.

As you can see, it is pretty easy to create a bootable USB drive using Rufus. No matter
how complicated the operating system/software edition is, Rufus will convert it into a
usable drive, provided the drive has enough space