How to Create a Bootable USB Drive for Installing almost any OS

Download the ISO file for the respective Operating System

To begin with you will need to download the ISO file for the OS you want to install. If you want to install Linux, a quick Google search will provide you many popular websites to download the ISO files for the OS you are interested in installing. If you need to install Windows 7, You can download the Windows 7 ISO file from here.

Download Rufus

Once you have resourced or downloaded the ISO file for the OS that you want to install, you will then need to download a free tool called as Rufus which will help you to createa Bootable USB flash drives from an ISO image.

Download: Rufus for Windows

How to Create a Bootable USB Drive for Installing almost any OS

Once you have resourced the ISO file and installed Rufus, you can follow the instructions provided below to create a bootable USB Flash Drive.

• Step 1: Run Rufus with administrator rights on Windows.
• Step 2: Click on Device and select the USB Flash Drive.

• Step 3: For the Partition scheme select any of the following:

1. Select “ MBR partition scheme for BIOS or UEFI computers “ for BIOS boot mode.

2. Select “ GPT partition scheme for UEFI computer ” for UEFI boot mode.

• Step 4: Select the NTFS file system if the ISO file is more than 4GB in size.

• Step 5: Leave the cluster size as default.

• Step 6: Under the format options select the following.

1. Select “ Quick Format “
2. Select “ Create extended label and icon files “
3. Select  “ Create a bootable disk using “

• Step 7: Click on the drive icon beside “ Create a bootable disk using “ to select the ISO file.

• Step 7: Finally verify all the above settings and click on the Start button to write the Bootable ISO onto the USB flash drive.

Similarly you can also follow the above steps for creating Bootable USB drives for other operating systems such as Linux and more. One of the best things about Bootable USb flash drives is the free space on the USB drive is usable.

Now you can connect the USB flash drive to your PC and carry on with installing the OS.

List of Operating Systems supported by Rufus

Here is a list of operating systems that are officially supported by Rufus.

• Arch Linux
• Archbang
• BartPE/pebuilder
• CentOS
• Damn Small Linux
• Fedora
• FreeDOS
• Gentoo
• GParted
• gNewSense
• Hiren’s Boot CD
• LiveXP
• Knoppix
• KolibriOS
• Kubuntu
• Linux Mint
• NT Password Registry Editor
• OpenSUSE
• Parted Magic
• Partition Wizard
• ReactOS
• rEFInd
• Slackware
• Tails
• Trinity Rescue Kit
• Ubuntu
• Ultimate Boot CD
• Windows XP (SP2+)
• Windows Server 2003 R2
• Windows Vista
• Windows 7
• Windows 8
• Windows 8.1