Rufus

Rufus: The Fast USB Boot Drive Creator That Actually Works

Rufus allows you to create bootable USB drives from ISO files. It is faster than most alternatives and handles everything from Windows installations to Linux distributions. I keep returning to Rufus each time I need to reinstall a machine. You download it, run it, and it just works.

What Rufus Does

With Rufus you format and create bootable USB flash drives - not you, Rufus takes care of this. You need to install an operating system? Boot a rescue disk? Run diagnostic tools? This small utility handles all of that.

Who is behind Rufus?

Mr. Pete Batard is the person behind Rufus - he started the project back in 2011 and nowadays, Rufus is one of the most popular USB related tools.

Some Features	Description
ISO to USB	You can write bootable ISO files to USB sticks
Portable	No installation -launch it off a single .exe
ISO Downloader	It can download official Windows images
Partition Options	Choose between a few such as MBR, GPT, UEFI, BIOS
Persistent Partition	Support for Ubuntu and Debian
File Systems	Popular ones such as FAT32, NTFS, exFAT, UDF
Speed	Faster vs most alternatives
Logging	Full logs, errors, and events
Multilingual	Translated into 35+ languages
Command Line	Offers CLI support for scripting

What Makes Rufus Different

Speed

I think speed sets Rufus apart from other alternatives. For example UNetbootin took me a few more extra minutes to create a bootable drive. Rufus finished the same task in under 3 minutes. I ran a few quick tests and Rufus outperformed Universal USB Installer as well.

Boot fixes

Of course, it would be a shame to mention only the speed. But Rufus will solve some boot related issues too. For example, it supports both BIOS and UEFI systems, it will work with GPT and MBR partition schemes, and includes Windows 11 bypass options for TPM and Secure Boot requirements.

Security

Rufus also validates your ISO files. Click the checksum button next to "SELECT", and Rufus computes MD5, SHA-1, and SHA-256 file signatures (hashes). You can then verify these signatures against official ones to make sure that your ISO hasn't been corrupted or tampered with. Quite a nice security feature.

The interface

I don't know where to start but will try to split the description of the interface.

The short version (if you used it before)

You don't need to install it. You download the executable, plug in your USB drive, select your ISO file, and hit start. That's it. The whole process typically takes 2-3 minutes.

The medium version (if you're using it for the first time)

As soon as you open Rufus it will show a simple window where you pick your USB drive and point to an ISO file.

If you don’t have one, it can even help you download a proper Windows image from Microsoft servers. It has support for all the boot types you’d expect — BIOS, UEFI, Secure Boot.

There is also a tiny advanced section with a bunch of switches hidden behind a log menu.

The longer version

Rufus has a single window - you get access to everything - all options are there. Device selection is at the top, boot selection below that, then you got partition scheme and format options. Advanced settings are hidden behind an expandable section so I would say it is quite user friendly as it is not intimidating for the new user plus it doesn't clutter the main interface.

The log feature is quite useful when things don't go as you expect. Just click on the small "Log" button next to "START", and you will get detailed information about the problem.

Most apps (refering to most software titles) are not so user friendly when it comes to logs or identifying errors. You get the error and the next moment you are searching for that specific error.

Error messages in Rufus are quite helpful. Instead of showing you some random errors, you get a clear explanation of what went wrong and it will also offer a suggestion (for how to fix it).

For example, if you are trying to boot a UEFI-only drive in BIOS mode, Rufus will detect this and it will show you a message explaining what you need to change.

Also good to mention, I always used Rufus to:

• create Windows installation drives
• Linux live USBs
• rescue disks

But Rufus can also help you with some popular Linux distributions such as: Ubuntu, Fedora, and Debian. Less common ISOs sometimes will need DD mode (write the image file directory to a USB drive) instead of ISO mode (extracting the content of an ISO image), but Rufus can detect this as well.

Rufus also supports persistent storage for Linux distributions. Set the persistence partition size when your create your drive, and you can save files and settings that persist between reboots.

Windows 11 Support (still the most popular operating system as I am writing this)

Note: This had to be mentioned as well. Rufus can handle Windows 11 (restrictive) requirements better than Microsoft (better than their utility named Media Creation Tool). When you choose a Windows 11 ISO, Rufus will detect it and offer some bypass options for all requirements:

• TPM 2.0
• Secure Boot
• 8GB RAM
• Online Microsoft account

These bypasses seem to work well. I used them twice to install Windows 11 on older laptops that officially don't support it, and the install went well.

A few Rufus Alternatives

Name	Platform	ISO Download	UEFI	Multi-ISO	Notes
Ventoy	Windows, Linux	No	Yes	Yes	Drop ISO files directly - support for multiple images
balenaEtcher	Windows, macOS, Linux	No	Yes	No	Beginner friendly but slower
UNetbootin	Windows, macOS, Linux	No	Limited	No	Older app I used it a lot in the past, works for Linux mostly
YUMI	Windows	No	Partial	Yes	Good for multi-boot setups
Media Creation Tool	Windows only	Yes	Yes	No	You can use it only for Windows ISOs

balenaEtcher is a good cross-platform but with a different focus on a more general-purpose tool. While it can also create a bootable drive it is slower vs Rufus.

Ventoy allows you to create multi-boot drives where you can store multiple ISOs on one USB stick.

UNetbootin works across various platforms and offers built-in downloads for popular Linux distro, but it is slower than Rufus.

Media Creation Tool can be used only for Windows and sometimes it takes longer.

If you need a tool only for Windows, Rufus will win on speed and features. If you need multi-platform or multi-boot Balena Etcher or Ventoy are both good alternatives.

Final Thoughts

Rufus is great at one thing - you can use it to create bootable USB drives fast. Probably faster than most tools I tried. The speed advantage alone makes it worth using, but the advanced options, and log and Windows 11 support makes it great.

If you work with bootable drives a lot, especially on Windows, Rufus is a must-have tool. You can make a bootable USBs faster than anything else.

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