10 Best Bootable USB Creation Tools

Making of bootable pen drive is easy. You can install a new operating system using the bootable USB. The software listed here takes the ISO image file and write it to the USB drive in a way that your PC can boot from the USB drive.

The USB drive is Easy to create, erase and reuse. Can install multiple OS on same USB at a time. Faster booting and installation speed. Portable and easy to handle.

How to create bootable USB From ISO?

The type of bootable USB drive you are creating depends on the motherboard you are using.

• You need the ISO image file of the target operating system you want to install. That can be Windows 10, Windows 7 or any flavor of Linux like Ubuntu or Mint.
• If you don't have any, you can download the latest version of Windows 10 from Microsoft.
• Once you have the ISO image to start with, open any software from the list below.
• Insert the USB pen drive of minimum 4GB size.
• The bootable USB drive making software will automatically detect and list the drive. Make sure you select the correct drive as all the data on the drive will be destroyed.
• Now click on 'select' button and locate the ISO image file of the operating system from your hard drive.
• Select the appropriate option for partition scheme and other options and hit start. It will take around 15 minutes depending on your operating system size.

If your motherboard is comparatively new, you may have to deal with the UEFI or the legacy BIOS if your computer is not that new. Both way, you can easily create bootable USB drive using all of the listed software here.

For Old Motherboards Using Legacy BIOS

➤ First select the ISO image file, from the disk icon behind 'create a bootable disk using' option. ( Do this first only because, if you select other options first, and the file later, the settings go to default after selecting the ISO file. Maybe a bug )
Select the target drive and file system (For Windows keep it NTFS).
➤  Select 'MBR partition scheme for BIOS or UEFI' from partition scheme and target system type.
➤ Keep the file system, cluster size as it is or you can change it to NTFS for Windows and exFAT for Linux.
➤ You can give an appropriate name to the resulting bootable drive.
➤ ISO image on your hard disk must be a valid bootable image because Rufus scans the image before you load it.
➤  Click the start button and wait for the process to complete. This may take up to 20 minutes.

For New Motherboards Using UEFI

➤ UEFI motherboards most of the time need 64 bit Windows. Else you will get 'Could not locate '\dfi\boot\bootx64.efi: [14] Not found' error. If you get this error, you just need 64 bit Windows version. The 7th generation Intel CPU does not support Windows 7 or older. You must have Windows 10.
➤ Select the ISO image file of OS you want to burn.
➤ Select 'GPT partition scheme for UEFI' from partition scheme and target system type.
➤ NTFS as the file system.
If you create bootable USB using MBR scheme, you may get an error like 'Windows can not be installed. The partition is GPT type.
Carefully check the options as above before you hit the start button.

How to Boot From USB Drive

Once you have completed creating the bootable USB drive, its time to install the OS. For that, you have to boot from the USB drive.

• Restart your PC and press the key F12 or Delete depending upon the manufacturer of your PC. Sometimes this key may be different.
• Select USB drive as a first boot device from the boot menu.

Best Software To Create Bootable USB Drive

1. Rufus

Rufus is a simple and easy to use. It automatically detects your USB flash drive and capacity so you can easily identify which device you are formatting. The bootable USB drive can be created for newer hardware supporting UEFI or for legacy BIOS. You only have to select proper options from the list.

💧 Download Rufus

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2. RMPrepUSB

It's all in one tool. Features come with the cluttered interface. If you don't know what are you doing, don't use it. I personally do not recommend it if you want a simple bootable USB to install a new operating system.
RMPrepUBS is specialized in creating multiple partitions in a single USB drive. You can install multiple ISO of the different OS or save user files along with the side of the bootable USB.

The special feature of RMPrepUSB is you can create a partition in USB drive just like you do on your hard disk making it more useful for saving files plus using the same drive as a separate folder for storing files.
This keeps your files separate from the operating system files.
For advanced users.
Difficult to use
Create ISO from the USB drive.
Edit the hard drive grub or syslinux bootloader.
Test speed of the USB drive.
Support all OS.
💧 Download RMPrepUSB

3. Universal USB Installer

Specialized tool for creating bootable live Linux OS. It has a predefined list of most of the Linux distributions available. Give the path of ISO image and USB flash drive you want to boot from. Prepare a Live antivirus rescue disk using it. A special option for this is also given for reuse CD.

+ Specialized menu for Linux, also support Window 7

💧 Download Universal USB Installer

4. YUMI

Yumi, short for Your Universal Multiboot Installer. YUMI allow you to prepare the bootable USB drive multiple operating systems in one USB drive without formatting it.

 

You can download the ISO of your favorite OS. YUMI have a large collection of free OS based on Linux and other free OS projects. Just select what you want and YUMI will give you the direct download link for it.
The interface is quite easy to use and useful.
💧 Download YUMI

5. UNetbootin

This tool is an exact clone of Universal USB installer or you can also say Universal USB installer is a clone of UNetbootin.
Create a bootable USB for any Linux distribution.
If you are not using Windows as your host operating system, then UNetbootin is an option to go for. UNetbootin is available for Linux, iOS, and Windows.
So if you are using Linux, most of the software's listed here will not run where UNetbootin will come to help.
💧 Download UNetbootin

6. Linux Live USB Creator (LiLi)

LiLi is one more software used to make bootable USB. The special feature called built-in Vitalization allow users to run the installed Linux operating system without restarting the Windows which are an exclusive feature of LiLi.

If you are concerned only about Linux you must go for this.
💧Download LiLi Creator

7. WinSetUp From USB

This is also a tool for those who want to install multiple operating systems on one USB device.

WinSetup From USB let you install Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 2000, Windows 7, Windows 10, any Linux distribution.
When you prepare the USB drive using ‘WinSetup From USB’ you will be presented with the list of operating systems installed on the thumb drive and select the preferred operating system to boot from.
Though the interface is simple, non-expert users may find it difficult to use.
💧Download WinSetUp From USB

8. XBoot

This is more than just a bootable USB maker. You can create a rescue CD or a disk having multiple operating systems or tools like antivirus rescue CD. It combines multiple tools in ISO image making it more useful than just a USB creating tool. XBoot can create ISO image from files and then write these files to USB drive for booting or installation.

💧 Download XBoot here

9. Windows Bootable Image Creator

This is a straightforward and an ultra-small tool that accomplishes its job as you expect. It has a super simple interface and minimum buttons to avoid confusion of new users. This is a tool from AskVG.

There are only basic buttons and only one task to do. Just create a bootable USB drive to install or try new operating systems. I wonder how it is so small and light. It is just 160KB in size.
💧 Download Windows Bootable Image Creator

10. Other Tools

➤  Novicorp WinToFlash is also a tool that will help you to recover deleted boot loader apart from creating a bootable flash drive.

➤  Windows official USB creation tool is an official tool to create a bootable USB drive to install downloaded Windows 7 and Windows 8 ISO images without burning it to traditional discs.

➤ FlashBoot is a bit tool having around 24 MB is download size. It has more options than any other tool but is actually a paid tool, but anyone can use it for free.
➤ The Etcher is an excellent tool for Mac OS users

Verdict:

⏩ 'Rufus' is best of everybody.
⏩ 'LiLi' is the best choice for Linux specialists.
⏩ 'WinSetup From USB' is for installing multiple OS in one USB drive.
⏩ 'RMPrep USB' is for making the partition in USB drive along with Windows.
⏩ If you want to clone a complete partition with OS 'WinUSB Maker' is the best choice.

Which tool do you think is the best? Do you have any other good tool to list?